Michael Palin – Hemingway Adventures/Great Railway
Journeys (BBC DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: B-
Michael
Palin continues his second job (after doing comedy) of being funny while
traveling in a series of documentary programming. We covered a set of such programs before
where he covered the same journey made famous by the book and film of Around The World In 80 Days, of which
you can read more about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5498/Michael+Palin+–+Around+The+World
Hemingway Adventures and Great Railway Journeys make for a new DVD set in which our host
does more retracing. Like so many before
him, he goes to the home and literary locations of Ernest Hemingway in four
episodes. Though you’d think this would
become pretentious and boring, Palin does a good job of covering the locales
with a fresh new perspective versus the “I know it all, I read the books”
smugness that make them watchable. The Railway volume is only two episodes,
but retraces trips he took as a child and like other such train shows, makes
for a fun journey. Though it might not
seem these would mesh as a set, they are more compatible than expected.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Hemingway
is much softer than we would have liked and expect a Blu-ray would work out
much better, while the 1.33 X 1 image on Railway
volume is more expectably soft like the previous set covered. However, it too looks filmed and should the
film survive, would work well in HD, especially with some of the shots and
locations. The Dolby Digital 2.0 on both
are about even, though the newer Hemingway is stereo versus mono for Railway. There are no
extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
