Barbara
Rubin & The Exploding NY Underground
(2018*)/Dick
Cavett Show: New York Radio Pioneers
(1972 - 1995*)/Encirclement
(2008/IndiePix DVD)/David
Susskind Archive: Interview With Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
(1963*)/Monochrome:
Black White & Blue
(2019/*all MVD DVDs)/Where's
My Roy Cohn?
(2019/Sony Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/C+/C+/C+/C/B Sound: C+/C/C+/C+/C/B Extras: C-/D/D/D/D/B
Main Programs: B-/B/B/B/B-/B
Its
awards season and here are some remarkable documentary releases, et
al, worth seeing and knowing about...
Chuck
Smith's Barbara
Rubin & The Exploding NY Underground
(2018) tells the story of the sometimes forgotten artist and
filmmaker who by only 18 years old, had a surprise underground hit
with her 16mm film Christmas
On Earth,
cementing her presence in the Underground art movement that is now
forever legendary, influential and so vital to the arts today.
Artist and publisher Jonas Mekas had a huge archive of her work and
life, becoming the main source for this documentary biopic.
We
learn about her birth and life, times with the likes of Andy Warhol,
Lou Reed and Bob Dylan, then her life with Allen Ginsberg that she
hoped would become something more, but he was too tied up with his
own 'trip' and too unemotionally available to her or anyone else.
Though a short 78 minutes, it is rich with interviews, rare footage
and priceless details, making it a must-see on this list.
A
trailer and tribute to Jonas Mekas called ''Keep
Singing''
are the only extras.
The
Dick Cavett Show: New York Radio Pioneers
(1972 - 1995) is yet another solid DVD set of the great talk show
hosts work that includes Bob Elliot & Ray Goulding (a very
successful comedy team from the 1960s in particular who were around
for 50 years, et al; two shows), Howard Stern (three shows) and Don
Imus that offer rare insight, include the usual smart questions,
revealing answers and plenty of laughs. It is also a marker of how
times change and all just get better with age. Plenty is left in the
archive and I hope more DVDs are on the way ASAP.
There
are sadly no extras.
Richard
Brouillette's Encirclement
(2008) is a Canadian mini-series that looks at some awful trends that
are eroding democracy, progress, civil rights and economies as
privatization, globalism and how it is ruining nature, lives and the
planet. Noam Chomsky shows up, but the other interviewees are less
heard, from Canada, often speak French and give very specific detail
on how this all happened, why, who is benefitting, how voters have
been manipulated where there even is voting and the terrible results.
What
is most amazing is this is now about 12 years old and it is as
accurate as it is prolific, arriving on DVD as timely as it ever
could and not really needed any serious updating. How come we know
these things and cannot stop bad things from happening? This series
helps to answer that question.
There
are also sadly no extras here either.
In
what I hope with be the first of many releases, The
David Susskind Archive: Interview With Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
(1963) has a classic, priceless, key, rare interview with the Civil
Rights leader which has been much sampled and quoted. We have even
seen stills and the like from this, but here it is in its entirety at
107 minutes and it also reminds us how smart and great Susskind was,
though we do not see enough of his work. Everyone should see this
one at least once.
There
are sadly no extras.
Another
Civil Rights documentary, Jon Brewer's Monochrome:
Black White & Blue
(2019) includes King (he is on the cover with several other images)
is a brutal look at history, slavery, genocide and how the rise of
music like Jazz and Blues in a very thorough, even intriguing way
that includes some great footage, stills and interviews. Chuck
Berry, Morgan Freeman, Bill Wyman, Ronnie Wood, Carlos Santana, BB
King, Slash, Robert Cray and many others tell the stories that
synthesize into a well done look at history without mystifying
anything. Definitely worth a look.
There
are sadly no extras here either, but this runs a good 90 minutes.
Finally
we have Matt Tyrnauer's Where's
My Roy Cohn?
(2019) about the infamous attorney who came to prominence helping
Joseph McCarthy in his 1950s witch hunts of 'communists' (though it
was also
to go after Jewish Liberals, despite Cohn being Jewish) and how it
all came crashing down when Cohn tried to protect their assistant who
he also happened to like intimately. We see the homophobic spectacle
it was and has often been censored as being.
Brushing
off this disaster, Cohn continues to hide his sexuality as he gets
involved with all kinds of business, politics and criminality, trying
to also run away from the failure of his family's big bank that
failed when the 1929 Crash happened, then crashes one of his family's
other businesses (Lionel Trains, which managed to survive afterwards)
and how his take-no-prisoners approach helped the Right (and extreme
Right) in the U.S. and beyond via his association with Donald Trump.
A
long overdue expose on a man who turned out to be a key figure in the
20th
Century has finally arrived and it is also a must-see, extremely well
done, with excellent archive footage and history7 that has been too
hidden for too long. Go out of your way for this one.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary by Director Tyrnauer and a
Q&A session he did after a big screening of this film.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Cohn
looks the best of the releases here, with well shot nee interviews
and archival footage that can show the age of the materials used, but
many of the clips are in amazing shape. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless sound has good editing and
sounds as good as can be expected, so the combination is solid.
The
1.33 X 1 on Cavett
(NTSC analog color videotape), Susskind
(black and white NTSC videotape) and Encirclement
(16mm film) have their flaws, but look fine, while the anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Monochrome
is a little softer and rough overall, but the anamorphically enhanced
1.78 X 1 image on Rubin
is better and as good as any DVD here. Where applicable, analog
videotape flaws including video noise, video banding, telecine
flicker, tape scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage.
It is rare on these programs overall.
Rubin
has lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, but much of the archival audio is
monophonic, while the rest of the DVDs offer lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Mono (later Cavett
episodes are simple stereo, a second option on Rubin
and the only option on Encirclement)
with Cavett
and Monochrome
not always as clear as one wishes they could be. Otherwise, this is
good enough.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
