Burst
City
(1982/Arrow Blu-ray*)/Iggy
and the Stooges: From KO to Chaos (1972
- 2004/Jungle/Skydog 7 CD w/DVD Set/*both MVD)/The
Harvey Girls
(1945/MGM**)/The
White Stripes Greatest Hits
(2020/Sony CD)/Yellow
Rose
(2020/Sony DVD)/Young
Man With A Horn
(1950/**both Warner Archive Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+/C+/B/X/C+/B Sound: B+/C+/B-/B/C+/C+ Extras:
B/C+/B-/C-/C-/B- Main Programs: C/B/B/B/C/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Harvey Girls
and Young
Man With A Horn
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the links below.
Next
up are a wide-ranging variety of music releases...
An
interesting piece on early cyberpunk and Japanese punk bands of the
'80s era, Burst
City
(1982) gets a new life on disc thanks to Arrow video. Set in Tokyo,
rival punk bands end up at a Battle of the Bands to protest the
construction of a nuclear plant in a futuristic wasteland.
Interestingly made from a filmmaking perspective, the film is
directed by Sogo Ishii.
Coming
from a time when music still had political power (yes, the 1960s
lasted into the later 1980s before it all fell apart) and the music
industry had its original power together, this was beyond just U.S.
record labels and companies, which this film reminds us of as both a
time capsule and the power music once had. Even with the film's
flaws, it is worth a look and it is great to have it in print.
Special
Features:
Brand
new audio commentary by Japanese film expert Tom Mes
Brand
new interview with director Sogo Ishii
Interview
with academic Yoshiharu Tezuka
Original
Trailer
Image
Gallery
and
a Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
by Chris Malbon.
Next
is a 7-CD/1-DVD box set: Iggy
and the Stooges: From KO to Chaos (1972
- 2004) has the classic punk band in action over the decades and is
the complete Skydog works, an extensive collection of rarities,
concerts and other studio acoustic works that fans will want to get
immediately, though non-fans might feel a little of this goes a long
way. There is overlap with songs like Raw
Power,
I
Wanna Be Your Dog
and their cover of Louie,
Louie,
a song in its original hit version, that was investigated by the FBI.
No
matter, there are surprises and other unexpected moments throughout,
including a remake of the 1960s Batman
theme song you would not likely hear of today. What is impressive is
that without any major mainstream hits or pop culture presence, the
band and Iggy himself (now showing up in figurine form and on red
carpets, as well as in zombie films) never sold out their audience
and remained popular enough to still sell records and sell out plenty
of concert venues.
The
sound is raw and unpolished, but more on that later. It captures
things as authentically as possible and is a solid release set
overall. The DVD has two shows from two different eras we're lucky
were recorded and the only extra is a thick, illustrated booklet with
some tech info and fine essays. Glad releases like this keep
happening for all kinds of name artists.
George
Sidney's The
Harvey Girls
(1945) is one of the greatest musicals you never heard of, a peak of
the MGM machine (led by Arthur Freed' legendary unit) as the title
women get involved in food services in restaurants and on trains, led
by Judy Garland in one of her greatest moments as one of the sisters.
Backed by big money, a great cast and Technicolor cinematography,
the films builds into its big highlight number: ''On
The Atchison, Topeka and The Santa Fe''
that runs 9 minutes and is one of the most technically complex such
sequences in film history.
Loosely
based on a true story, it is a comedy romance film with some moments
that are a little silly, but it holds up very well for the most part
and the supporting cast includes Garland's Oz
co-star Ray Bolger, John Hodiak, Preston Foster, Marjorie Main, Kenny
Baker, Virginia O'Brien and Angela Lansbury as a protagonist. It is
always interesting to watch and now restored, worth visiting and
revisiting in this new Blu-ray release.
Extras
include three deleted musical numbers (''My
Intuition''
and the original and reprise versions of ''March
of The Doagies''),
Director Sidney's fine feature-length audio commentary track, Scoring
Stage Sessions, Original Theatrical Trailer and a stereo version of
''On
The Atchison, Topeka and The Santa Fe''
that is authentic, sounds great and was possible because, despite
stereo not being fully developed yet, MGM recorded their sound with
several sources to make the music sound great in the final mono
mixdown. Those tracks were so good, they could get true stereo out
of it and it is remarkable to see and hear.
Duos
in music used to be a major staple and were so into the 1980s with
Eurythmics, Tears For Fears and Hall & Oates, but not so much
since. However, a few fine ones did emerge and the one formed by Meg
White and Jack White was as exciting as any of them. The
White Stripes Greatest Hits
(2020)
has arrived, including on CD which we are reviewing here and include
al their hits and fan favorites. This includes:
1.
Let's Shake Hands
2.
The Big Three Killed My Baby
3.
Fell In Love With A Girl
4.
Hello Operator
5.
I'm Slowly Turning Into You
6.
The Hardest Button To Button
7.
The Nurse
8.
Screwdriver
9.
Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground
10.
Death Letter
11.
We're Going To Be Friends
12.
The Denial Twist
13.
I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself
14.
Astro
15.
Conquest
16.
Jolene
17.
Hotel Yorba
18.
Apple Blossom
19.
Blue Orchid
20.
Ball And Biscuit
21.
I Fought Piranhas
22.
I Think I Smell A Rat
23.
Icky Thump
24.
My Doorbell
25.
You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)
26.
Seven Nation Army
Like
any such set from a great music act, the songs are great, they show
the growth of the artists and make you realize when they are as good
as they were here, they did not have all the commercial success they
deserved. Jack White has turned out to be one of the Rock Music's
most important artists since proving the genre is not dead by any
means and this makes me miss Meg.
As
accomplished as musicians as they are singers, the chemistry is
terrific and the cover songs (Jack White dares to cover the
Bacharach/David classic ''I
Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself''
as originally sung best by Dionne Warwick and skips changing any
gender concerns on Dolly Parton's classic ''Jolene'')
while Jack's originals are often remarkable in themselves. The world
has not totally caught up with them and having loved their music,
music videos and concerts that I have seen (including a Blu-ray that
is still out there and highly recommended as well), this is a
must-have set if you do not already own the individual albums with
these songs.
A
paper slip with a few photos and limited text is the only extra.
Diane
Paragas' Yellow
Rose
(2020) is a drama about a young Filipino American lady (Eva
Noblezada) who lives in one of many small Texas towns and loves
music. More interesting, she loves Country Music and wants to be a
performer in the honestly still white-dominated (and potentially
white nationalist) genre. The details and debate on that are a
separate essay, but it obviously looms over the narrative, no matter
who likes it or not, unavoidable, but there.
Unfortunately,
the script is a bit formulaic and though the lead tries to carry all
of this, I was not convinced of this all the way through and did not
think it added up as much as it could have in its 84 minutes. The
makers are sincerely trying, but at least it was ambitious and to=ok
both itself and its audience seriously.
Trailers
are the only extra.
Finally,
we have Michael Curtiz's Young
Man With A Horn
(1950) which is a melodrama, enough of a dark film to be a Film Noir,
a film that dares to deal with racism in the midst of everything else
and is still a backstage musical. Kirk Douglas is a musician whose
life is affected by alcoholism ultimately in a script that tells us
his whole life story from childhood!
With
only a few conventions and a little predictability, it is a music
film, but also wants to deal with class division to its credit.
Part of this is achieved by the two women in his life. There is the
singer played by Doris Day in one of the grittiest films she ever
made and then he falls for Laurel Bacall in one of her boldest
performances. Having them on the screen together is always
interesting here, especially because you would never expect such a
pairing, then their work with Douglas has all kinds of chemistry
(sexual included) and is also something to see.
If
you accept it as a musical, then it is one of the darkest of all time
and I would not be surprised if it influenced Scorsese's epic,
underrated, deconstructionist musical New
York, New York
(1977) on some level. This is some of the best work of all involved
and is now restored and looking great on this new Blu-ray. It is a
known film, but deserves a larger audience and this is a great chance
for that to happen.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer, March 3, 1952 Lux Radio
Theater hour-long radio drama adaptation and three classic Warner
cartoons: Hillbilly
Hare,
Homeless
Hare
and Hurdy
Gurdy Hare.
Now
for playback quality. Burst
City
is presented in 1080p on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec and a
widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with a Japanese LPCM Mono mix and
English subtitles. The restoration on Blu-ray is top notch as is the
norm for Arrow Video and is a great way to experience this obscure
movie.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image on Harvey
Girls
looks as good as anything here, with its exceptional use of
dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor is among the best you will ever see and
Warner (who owns all MGM films to 1985) has scanned and restored all
the remaining original camera materials (including the original three
negatives that make the color, we hope they survived, as this looks
so good) to create and restore the film to as much of its original
glory as possible. Outside of a mint dye-transfer 35mm or 16mm
print, you cannot do much better than this.
Though
the big musical sequence is in the extras as a DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless track, the main film is in DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless sound and it shows its age and sonic
limits. Also sounding as good as the film likely ever will, it is
warm and clear enough to enjoy. Just don't watch that stereo extra
until you see the film.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Horn
looks great too, with Warner's lab producing a monochrome that had
some gloss to it, but also some grit in a way no other studio did.
Considering the mix of genres and ideas in the film, that fits
visually well here and this restoration is also first rate. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix makes me wish this was
in stereo as well, but the recording is still good, warm, clear and
has its vivid moments.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Yellow
Rose
is a new HD shoot that is not bad, if not particularly memorable or
distinct, but composition is not bad and the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
mix can be quiet in nature and dialogue-based, but the music does not
sound bad.
The
PCM 2.0 16/44.1 sound on the seven Iggy
CDs are rough (as expected) and monophonic, or barely stereo
throughout, though 1973 and 1974 shows on CDs 2 & 3 were retimed
to be sound-correct, but be careful of volume switching and high
playback levels just in case. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1
DVD has the two shows looking as good as they can in the format and
for being low def sources. The sound can also be rough here, but the
newer show sounds the best.
And
the PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo on The
White Stripes
CD sounds about as good as anything on this list and the tracks just
keep picking up in fidelity as they get newer. Jack White produced
all the songs and has an excellent sonic sense we used to hear in
music all the time, so it is as good as it can be for the format and
is very enjoyable. There is no video in this release.
To
order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, The
Harvey Girls
and Young
Man With A Horn,
go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases
at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Burst
City)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/