Matter
Out Of Place
(2022/Icarus DVD)/The
Mission
(2022/Film Movement DVD)/Stooge-O-Rama:
The Men Behind The Mayhem
(2023 compilation/MVD Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
C/C/B- Sound: C+/C+/B- Extras: C-/C-/B Documentaries:
C+/C+/B
This
trio of documentaries show the diversity of the form....
Nikolaus
Geyrhalter's Matter
Out Of Place
(2022) attempts to join films like Baraka,
Samsara
and
Koyaanisqatsi
Trilogy
as a documentary and sensory experience that does its best to draw
attention to the beauty of our world and how we are destroying and
losing it slowly but surely. Can we do anything about it?
This
strictly spends its 105 minutes looking at waste, garbage and what
happens to it and what happens to it is happening to us. Coming from
Austria, this obviously has its moments and valid points, but it also
(sadly for the wrong reasons) covers unfortunate things we have seen
before, need to see more of and need to do something about. It may
not be a classic, but it was worth making and an important record of
yet another thing no enough is being done about.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a little softer than I
would have liked and color can be limited,
but the shots are consistent. This film was actually released
theatrically with a lossless Dolby Atmos sound mix, but all you get
on this DVD is lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, so it sound good
enough, but we are missing out on a good bit of sound. Hope we get a
Blu-ray version to compare.
A
trailer is the only extra.
Tania
Anderson's The
Mission
(2022) is an attempt to show young people in the U.S. that are part
of the Mormon religion going out in the world to preach their gospel
and hope to convert people. The small number of youths dubbing
themselves 'elders' here are among an estimated 60,000 that do this
for their church annually and in this case, they go all the way to
Finland.
They
run in to all kinds of issues and are hardly prepared for all this,
with this piece trying to show all this without judgment, but it is
often sad and highly predictable. One can feel badly for them as it
always feels like they and so many other in organized religion are
being used and you have to ask, are willingly a part of this or are
they being brainwashed in advance?
As
I was watching this a little while ago in advance of this write-up,
yet another scandal (giant financial fraud fiasco this time) hit
their church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It made
me feel more badly for them, reminding me to follow my first
instincts in such matters. Either way, this is like watch a slow
train wreck, but I give the makers credit for just letting things
happen and record it without interference. It is at least a solid
record of events, no matter what happens next, though not viewing for
everyone.
Now
for the playback performance. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1
image is a little on the soft side being a lite digital shoot, basic
HD 1980p (?) at best, but it is consistent if not great, though I am
not seeing it in higher definition. I would probably have to see
such footage to compare, but the English/Finnish sound is here both
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound with the
mixes about even. This is mostly people talking and location audio,
so one can only expect so much.
A
trailer is the only extra.
Last
but not least, a three-disc blu-ray compilation on one of the
greatest comedy trios of all time. Stooge-O-Rama:
The Men Behind The Mayhem
includes an upgrade of the solid Stooges:
The Men Behind The Mayhem
documentary we reviewed on DVD eons ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3350/Stooges:+The+Men+Behind+The+Mayhem+(Comed
The
rest of the discs offer shorts and extras, but more on that in the
extras below.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1, mostly black & white digital High Definition
image transfer can show the age of the various materials used, but
most of the material is upscaled throughout. This is actually not
bad, from the documentary to all the shorts and other special
features. Most of the material here originated on 35mm film, but we
get plenty of black & white videotape, a little kinescope, some
consumer-grade color videotape and some of it is just very aged and
flawed. Otherwise, this is as watchable as the same material as it
has been issued on video before going back to the days of VHS and
Beta.
All
the sound is here in PCM 2.0 Mono and is about as good as any of it
will ever sound. We are lucky this survived as well as it did.
Extras
are many and
include (per the press release) the as-noted-above, brand new
presentation of the award-winning documentary program STOOGES: THE
MEN BEHIND THE MAYHEM, with new introduction by Curly Howard's
real-life grandson, Bradley Server
Lost
theatrical featurette SURPRISE, SURPRISE (1937) starring Moe, Larry,
and Curly
Long
unseen short subject EVERYBODY LIKES MUSIC (1934) starring Shemp
Howard
11+
hours of film, television, radio, and personal appearance rarities,
many never been released on home video!
The
stills sections are nice and have some rare pics you likely have not
seen before and even shows rare memorabilia. There is a trailers
section that is mostly 1.33 X 1, though their Snow
White
film (made at Fox at the time) is shown in color and black and white,
letterboxed, with the rest of the shorts and feature films going
through Columbia Pictures. They have one film that was distributed
by United Artists, nothing on their animated TV show is here sadly,
but we see some of their early, color comic books (including one in
3D) and the Four
For Texas
trailer may be in color, but it has been unnecessarily, horizontally
stretched. One of the rare home movies has survived in beautiful
full color (we're guessing 16mm Kodachrome or Anscochrome) and that
should be scanned in 4K or a future release.
So
for now, this stands as one of the best Stooges releases on home
video to date, including some goodies we will never see anywhere
else, as it should be. Hope this gets the ball rolling on having
their work on Blu-ray and maybe even 4K disc. Some of their old
shorts have shown up on Blu-ray here and there (including on some out
of print Twilight Time releases, including their few 3D shorts in
real 3D!!!) and Warner Archive handles all of their old Ted Healy
releases, which they have issued on DVD, including the two-strip
Technicolor works. They need to come out on Blu-ray, Sony/Columbia
needs to get al the classic shorts out there on Blu-ray too, and
considering how good they have looked on DVD, the archive looks like
it is in good shape for that.
Finally,
the animated 1965 New
Three Stooges
animated TV series also deserves a big Blu-ray release, especially
since the great anniversary DVD set we covered years ago is out of
print and going for big bucks. The trio deserves it and finally, the
recognition and respect they still have never received (Leonard
Maltin is on the money on this one) and that is why Stooge-O-Rama
is such a great, fun set. They were giants of comedy and even now,
too few want to admit it!
-
Nicholas Sheffo
