Elton John Live From The Rainbow Theater with Ray Cooper (1977/BBC*)/The Hard Way (1943**)/Mother Love Bone: Apple (1989) + Shine (1990/Mercury Records/*all Universal CDs)/School In The Crosshairs (1981/MVD/Cult Epics Blu-ray)/Two Weeks With Love (1950/MGM/**both Warner Archive Blu-rays)

Picture: X/B/X/X/B-/B* Sound: B/B-/B/B/B-/C+ Extras: C/C+/C/C/B-/C+ Main Programs: B-/B-/C+/C+/C+/C+

PLEASE NOTE: The Hard Way and Two Weeks With Love Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

Now for the latest music releases to know about...

Back in the late 1970s, Elton John travelled to the USSR to play a series of concerts, but bringing his usual band was not as financially feasible, so he brought musician ray Cooper instead, resulting in a major triumph during a mixed period in his career when the hits had dropped off. Many years later after his big 1980s comeback, Elton John Live From The Rainbow Theater with Ray Cooper (1977) captures those shows in a different venue, but with the same highly effective, yet paired down approach.

After years of criticism that he was an overblown performer, the shows ended that critique and the songs here on this single CD include:

The Greatest Discovery

Border Song

Cage The Songbird

Where To Now St. Peter?

Ticking

Better Off Dead w/Ray Cooper

Sweet Painted Lady

Tonight w/Ray Cooper

Idol w/Ray Cooper

I Feel Like A Bullet (In The Gun Of Robert Ford) w/Ray Cooper

Roy Rogers

Dan Dare (Pilot Of The Future)

and Goodbye

Never long enough for my tastes, it shows Elton was as good as he had been despite his dry spell and its great to get this release from the archives, which likely has much more to offer. Also available in other formats, it is very much recommended, especially for Elton fans.

Extras include a nicely illustrated booklet with tech info, as expected.

Vincent Sherman's The Hard Way (1943) is a backstage musical, but it is also a Noirish melodrama with Ida Lupino ready to help her and her sister to sing and perform their way out of criminal control, poverty and small time living from being stuck in a small town. Very compelling and well done, it is loaded with great moments for only running 109 minutes, the pacing is very impressive and the acting and cast are up to the screenplay and solid directing.

Based somewhat on the real life story of Ginger Rogers, it is also taking more than a few liberties, but that's fine as the film works so well. The singing is great and money is on the screen. The supporting cast also includes Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Faye Emerson, Gladys George and Paul Cavanagh, but most of the big cast is actually uncredited more so than I have ever seen in a film from this period, including actors like Ann Doran, Thurston Hall and Julie Bishop, so there are all kinds of interesting things going on here, even if you do not explicitly know what they are. That just adds to the Noir angle, intended or not and has mostly aged well. Just expect a few odd or off moments I will not go into.

Now full restored by Warner Archive, its the best film here, definitely recommended.

Extras include the Original Theatrical Trailer, Lux Radio Theater version with Miriam Hopkins, Warner live action shorts Gun To Gun and Over The Wall and the animated Warner shorts The Aristo-Cat and Slap Happy Daffy (all shorts in HD).

When you are about to listen to two releases by a band that led up to the massive critical and commercial success of the still-thriving Pearl Jam, you expect that band to sound very much like them. However, I thought more so of Faith No More when listening to the new remasters of Mother Love Bone: Apple (1989) and their follow-up EP Shine (1990,) now issued on CD by Mercury Records. You can still hear things growing and progressing for the band, as follows, even if you did not know what happened soon to them in real life...

SHINE TRACKLISTING (**with one bonus track)

1. Capricorn Sister (Album Version)**

2. Chloe Dancer / Crown Of Thorns

3. Half Ass Monkey Boy

4. Mindshaker Meltdown

5. Thru Fade Away

APPLE TRACKLISTING (**with two bonus tracks)

1. This is Shangrila

2. Stardog Champion

3. Holy Roller

4. Bone China

5. Come Bite The Apple

6. Stargazer

7. Heartshine

8. Captain Hi-Top

9. Man Of Golden Words

10. Capricorn Sister

11. Gentle Groove**

12. Mr. Danny Boy**

13. Crown Of Thorns

However, though good, consistent, interesting, well-composed and well-played, there was something not quite clicking, but the horrific, unexpected loss of lead singer Andrew Wood was such a shock, the band folded. Instead of just going away from the business, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament soon launched Pearl Jam and you likely know the rest. Still, with another album or two, who knows what they would have come up with and if they would have found themselves as a major success, fully fledged. Nice to get a clean, clear listen to them now, more than just another Grunge band.

Extras include nicely illustrated booklets with tech info, as expected, with each CD.

Nobuhiko Obayshi's School In The Crosshairs (1981, aka The Aimed School) is a Japanese fantasy musical highly influenced by 1970s Rock Opera Movies, was a forerunner of J Pop and is a time capsule of a Japan about to skyrocket to success in that decade. With elements of films like Russell's Tommy, Russell's Lisztomania, Phantom Of The Paradise, The Bee Gees/Peter Frampton Sgt. Pepper's and Olivia Newton-John Xanadu, music star Hiroko Yokushimaru goes to school to learn and learn's she has psychic powers. Having no issues like Carrie White from the famous Stephen King novel (and De Palma film,) she is unsure of how to handle this.

However, when something starts to happen and her fellow students become proto-fascists under some kind of mind control, she needs to figure out what to do and quickly. This, a battle (Star Wars also influenced this project) breaks out, all hell breaks loose, we get musical numbers and surrealism that could have only come from Japan.

The result is a special film for fans, but even with all the talent involved, icons and otherwise, this becomes unintentionally campy and the use of rotoscoping, optical prints and older technologies make this look even older, though that might be part of its charm and definitely makes it a time capsule. Yokushimaru was as big as Newton-John in her part of the world and the parallels are uncanny, but with less hit records than the Newton-John bomb. We do not see enough music film imports (outside of the many concerts, of course) and expect dance numbers in between everything else, so School In The Crosshairs (not a title we will ever see again) is worth a look, no matter your reaction. Its just that different.

Extras include a reversible sleeve with original poster art, miniature reproduction of a magazine on the film, while the disc adds a feature length audio commentary track by film Critic Max Robinson, Obayshi Film Poster Gallery, Theatrical Trailers and Philip Jeffrey's visual essay Sailor Suits and Sound, which is very informative and well done too.

And finally, we get to Roy Rowland's Two Weeks With Love (1950) with Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds and Ricardo Montalban in a big Technicolor musical with the gals going to they Catskills in the 1900s (!!!) both finding guys they really like. Powell starts falling for 'older man' Montalban and Busby Berkeley handles all the choreography. Though the film does not totally add up as it might have, it has enough individual numbers and moments to give it a good look and the stars are obviously a plus.

Add the money being on the screen, the music decent if not classic, some chemistry between the actors and supporting turns by Louis Calhern, Carleton Carpenter, Phyllis Kirk, Charles Smith and Ann Harding, you get an ambitious film that has energy and is well made. If you are interested, you should really see it.

Extras include the Original Theatrical Trailer, Robert Osbourne hosting Reel Memories with Jane Powell, live action shorts Crashing The Movies and Screen Actors and the animated MGM Technicolor Tex Avery cartoon Garden Gopher in HD.

Now for playback performance. The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on The Hard Way looks really good, well restored with fine detail, depth and rich Video Black befitting its Noir intent, while the 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on the film Two Weeks In Love is a pretty good representation of a dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor version process with fine, rich color and maybe not the absolute best representation of the glorious color format but solid for the most part. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes on both have been as restored, but Hard Way holds up a bit better than Two Weeks, which has more sonic limits than expected considering it had a larger budget and is the newer film. Hard Way sounds about as good as it ever will, but I wonder If Two Weeks could sound a bit better.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer of School In The Crosshairs can show the age of the materials used, but part of the issue is the old optical printing used throughout that makes it look older than it actually is. We get three soundtracks and in order from highest quality to lowest, we get a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix, PCM 2.0 Stereo and lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The combination is as good as it will get, unless this comes out in 4K.

All three CDs are restored and remastered well, with their PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo presentations as good as they ever will be in this older audio format. Recorded within seven years of each others, nice they hold up so well, but this is typical of the quality of Universal Music CDs we have been getting for a while, so no surprise there and that's a good thing.

To order the The Hard Way and/or Two Weeks In Love Warner Archive Blu-rays, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo