Color Me Obsessed: A Film About The Replacements (2012/MVD DVD set)/Gandu (2010/Artsploitation DVD)/Gregg Allman – I’m No Angel - Live (1989/Cherry Red/MVD DVD)/Let The Music Play: The Story Of The Doobie
Brothers (2012/Eagle Blu-ray)/Paul
McCartney: Live Kisses (2012/Eagle Blu-ray)/Patti Smith: Live At Montreux 2005 (Eagle Blu-ray)/Yessongs (1972/Umbrella Region B Import
Blu-ray)
Picture: C+/C+/C/B-/C+/B-/B Sound: C+/C+/C/B-/B/B/B- Extras: B/C/D/B-/C+/C-/B Main Programs: B/C/B-/B/C+/B/B
PLEASE NOTE: The Yessongs Blu-ray is a Region B disc,
will only play on machines capable of such encoded Blu-ray discs and can be
ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address
provided at the end of the review.
Here now
are the latest music releases…
Gorman
Bechard’s Color Me Obsessed: A Film
About The Replacements (2012) is a remarkably extensive interview
documentary on the great 1980s Punk band from Minneapolis that never made it big, might not
have wanted to and still left an indelible mark on the Rock genre. Friends, producers, fellow musicians, music
scholars and more are interviewed throughout for what amounts to over two hours
of nothing but discussion on the band.
This also is without any of the original music and some vintage footage,
plus a nice number of stills.
To its
disadvantage, you can get a strange impression of the band if you do not know
the music and a sense of emptiness results, though as soon as you hear the
music or add the music you might already know, it all adds up. Bechard said he did this consciously and I
believe him, but calling people idiots for not liking this and calling that
Punk is silly and disingenuous to the viewer, including the claim that they
would never be fans of the band anyhow.
Totally false. Otherwise, it is a
fine work, though a very long one and Matt Pinfield even shows up, but it is
critic and scholar Robert Christgau who steals the show with his usual dead-on
insights on the band and music history in general.
Extras
include two audio commentary tracks, extended interviews section (including
with Christgau), 18 Deleted Scenes two behind the scenes interview pieces (one
with Bechard, the other with Producer Hansi Oppenheimer) and four trailers.
Next is
the drama/comedy Gandu (2010) from a
director named Q, which was made in India and then banned for not
fitting into the usual Bollywood mold and being about sex, drugs, obscenity and
anger throughout. It is included here
because of its many music sequences that suddenly interrupt what is there of a
narrative as the title character (which is an obscene word) runs around acting
wild and wacky, the anti-hero with few places to go. Shot in black and white, this is shocking for
India,
but outside of its home country, we have seen all of this before, so any shock
or anything new is limited here. This
runs a somewhat long 86 minutes and is good for what it is, but I was not too
impressed watching and it did not stay with me.
Extras
include music clips, two Berlin
pieces, another clip on an RV, behind the scene s featurette, trailer and
illustrated 12-page booklet inside the DVD Case.
Gregg Allman – I’m No Angel - Live is really a short 1989 concert of
the Gregg Allman Band in action performing 10 songs including the title song, Don’t Want You No More, Demons, Slip Away, One Way Out
and more. It is a good, short 52 minutes
long show where Allman is in fine voice and one of his latter shows. The band is also in fine form. There are no extras, but it is definitely
worth a look.
Barry
Ehrmann’s Let The Music Play: The Story
Of The Doobie Brothers (2012) is a remarkable chronicling of one of the
great bands of the 1970s. The Doobie
Brothers were a solid Rock band with sensibilities that ranged from Pop to Soul
to even Country when they started to have hits.
With talent to spare, they became as significant as Chicago, Fleetwood
Mac, The Eagles and Earth, Wind & Fire in their time and just kept coming
up with more and more hits and when their lead singer Tommy Johnson got ill,
Steely Dan backup vocalist Michael McDonald joined them and they became bigger
still.
Running
about two hours, this is a very thorough look at their ascension of their big
years at Warner Records, a comeback album at Capitol and how a charity project
in 1987 reunited them for good still playing as often as The Eagles. All the licensed music is here along with
rare clips and great interviews throughout.
Like The Replacements, their story is one not enough people know about
(despite their massive commercial and critical success) and it is a documentary
well worth going out of your way for.
Extras
include an illustrated booklet with text information and a terrific
48-minutes-long compilation of addition live performances throughout their
career.
Finally
getting to record his album of old classic, Paul McCartney: Live Kisses (2012) has the former Beatle &
Wings member covering early 20th Century hits like More I Cannot wish You, (Home) When Shadows Fall, We Three, It’s Only A Paper Moon, I’m
Gonna Sit Right Down & Write Myself A Letter, My Valentine, Always, Bye Bye
Blackbird and others. These are the
kinds of songs that have always informed some of his basic writing
sensibilities and he sings them well.
This is all even well recorded (Diana Krall and Joe Walsh are guest
artists), but I did not like the black and white faux HD taping of the on
camera performances. It looks fake and
still has a color scale. That makes the
quality of the lossless sound being better than a CD version the only reason to
get this version of these recordings.
Extras
include an illustrated booklet the disc comes in with liner notes by Elvis
Costello, while the disc adds six versions of My Valentine including some with Johnny Depp and Natalie Portman on
camera in some of them, two shorts about the photo shoot and on camera
interview with McCartney and Tommy LiPuma about shooting the cover photo.
Patti Smith: Live At Montreux 2005 has the Punk Rock legend singing
her classic hits and a few others in a really good concert where her voice is
still pretty much in top mode and showing her great stage presence in the
process. This includes the
quintessential Because The Night, Free Money, Ain’t It Strange, People Have
The Power and eight others very much worth your time. I liked the show and fell it has definite
rewatchability, plus you will be hard pressed to find her singing reproduced
better than it is here. A paper pullout
inside the Blu-ray case with some images and text are the only extra.
Finally
we have the Blu-ray version of Yessongs
(1972) which we previously reviewed the import PAL DVD at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11875/ABBA+Essential+Albums+Gold/The+D
This is
an improved version on Blu-ray that has far more extras than that single DVD including
the Steve Howe guitar short Beginnings,
Original Theatrical Trailer, 2012 reissue trailer and 58-minutes-long Yessongs 40 Years On documentary
featurette.
The 1080p
1.33 X 1 color digital High Definition image transfer centered in the 16 X 9
frame on Yessongs is the picture
winner here with nice color, clarity, moderate grain and depth like never seen
before on the film. The 1080p 1.78 X 1
digital High Definition image on Brothers
(combining sources as varied as low def analog black and white video, low def
analog video 8mm film, Super 8mm film, 16mm film, 35mm film and new HD footage)
and the 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Patti Smith are the close runner-ups with some softness throughout
each presentation, but looking as good as either could be expected to. That leaves my disappointment with the 1080i
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on McCartney usually in bad black and white just not cutting it for
me.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Replacements
and anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 black and white image on Gandu are the next best looking here
with even more softness and their share of motion blur, plus Replacements has some old analog video
footage to boot. The old color analog
1.33 X 1 NTSC video shoot on Gregg
Allman is the poorest of all with aliasing errors abounding and looking
like a second-generation copy.
Then we
have the sound. The DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Patti Smith
and McCartney are sonically the most
competent of all the audio options here, with both also offering simple PCM 2.0
Stereo tracks as alternatives and McCartney
also offering lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 that simply cannot match the DTS-MA in
either case. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on Yessongs and DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 lossless mix on Brothers are the
next best sonic choices with the former still having some sound distortion
issues and the latter mixing mono and simple stereo with some multi-channel
recording and playback throughout with simple stereo interviews. PCM 2.0 Stereo is also offered on Brothers and is the only track on the
bonus songs. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
on Gandu is really pushing the limited sound, even when the music kicks in,
while Replacements is as good with its simple lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
interviews. That leaves Gregg Allman the poorest of all
sonically as well with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 sound that is barely stereo and
down at least a generation.
As noted above, you can order the import version of Yessongs exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nicholas Sheffo
