Barbra Streisand – One Night Only + Celine
Dion – Through The Eyes Of The World (Sony Music Blu-rays) + Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
(2008/New Video Blu-ray) + Tupac Shakur
– Live At The House Of Blues (1996/Eagle Blu-ray)
Picture:
B-/B-/C+/C+ Sound: B-/B-/B-/B Extras: C+/D/C+/C Main Programs: C+ (Streisand: B-)
There are
three kinds of music titles being issued and the most of the major record
labels are not doing enough to capitalize on issuing them on Blu-ray, save
Sony, who helped invent the format. To
make this point clearer, I have decided to combine four very different types of
titles to show the diversity of such product in the format in the marketplace
and what you may be missing out on.
First,
the Streisand concert, her second in the format. Previously, we covered a 3-DVD concerts set
that included a 2006 HD shoot:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8694/Barbra+Streisand+%E2%80%93+The
A fine
set, we knew the 2006 concert would hit Blu-ray, but never secured a review
copy (it happens), but look forward to catching up with it sometime soon. It was not issued by her home label Sony, so
the somewhat different One Night Only
(Streisand and Quartet at the Village Vanguard) has her in a very small,
personal, personable venue with the usual special guests (taped September 2009)
and a very different playlist. Her
playlist includes:
1)
Here’s To Life
2)
In The Wee Hours Of The Morning
3)
Gentle Rain
4)
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The
Most
5)
If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas)
6)
Where Do You Start?
7)
Nobody’s Heart Belongs To Me
8)
Make Someone Happy
9)
My Funny Valentine
10) Bewitched, Bothered and
Bewildered
11) Evergreen (Theme from A Star Is Born)
12) Some Other Time
13) [Encore] The Way We Were
A
pleasant surprise, this is a good throwback to great songs we do not hear
enough and too often when we do, they get butchered, but not by Streisand who
loves these songs and knows what she is doing with them. I liked the show, but wished it had a few
more songs and had gone on longer, though we get a booklet and featurette on
the Village Vanguard. It is another solid
concert and I am glad she is doing more of them than she once thought she
would.
Though I
expected just another concert (especially from the cover), Celine Dion – Through The Eyes Of The World is more a documentary
about the fun Dion had touring all over the world and the positive reception
she had versus enough music, but the real star turns out to be the people and
locales as directed by Stephanie Laporte.
We do get some concert footage directed by Jean Lamoureux, but this is
more documentary than not. If you are
not a fan, the people and locales become more emphasized and the rest more
boring. The White Stripes did a similar
program that was also issued on Blu-ray (unreviewed, but recommended) called Under Great White Northern Lights (shot
on their 2007 Canadian tour) and it was everything this is not, including
interesting. There are no extras
either. Still, documentaries are an
unexplored possibility for High Definition and everyone should consider more of
them. You can see it for yourself as
well as the Live In Las Vegas: A New Day
concert on Blu-ray at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6837/Celine+Dion+%E2%80%93+Live+In+L
We
previously covered the Dr. Horrible’s
Sing Along Blog on DVD via a fellow writer who was much more enthusiastic
that yours truly:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8618/Dr.+Horrible%E2%80%99s+Sing-Along
It is a
good idea, but is not well realized by Joss Whedon (who is out of his depth in
the Musical genre) despite some good ideas and an interesting cast. However, despite some Musicals out on
Blu-ray, not enough have been issued yet and too many languish in the vaults
waiting. Extras here are the same as the
DVD and this is for fans only.
That
leaves the one concert we have covered before, Tupac – Live At The House Of Blues, which came as part of a Complete Live Performances DVD set we
covered a while ago:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4467/Tupac+%E2%80%93+The+Complete
The
concert holds up on his own and it is surreal to see it more years after his
young passing and it is an early High Definition show. Odder still, with all the Hip Hop acts around
and are still popular, why is this one of the only Hip Hop Blu-rays to
date? At least it exists and it has the
same extras as the DVD version.
All
happen to be shot in High Definition video offering 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High
Definition image playback, but all have their limits and disappointments. The Streisand
show looks the best marginally over the Dion
program by default, but both still are softer than expected with Streisand’s
show looking like it is meant to look diffused a bit, but that does not always
play well. Dion’s show has HD that is
too often black and white, but you can tell it is color turned off and that
looks as phony as it does dumb. There is
also fancy editing, some softness, some location issues and some motion blur
that also do not help. Horrible has even more video problems
with haloing, more softness, Video Black issues and good shots in the
minority. The Tupac disc shows more flaws than its DVD counterpart with the early
digital HD showing more flaws and issues with Video Red, Video Black, shadow
detail and other issues.
Streisand and Dion have Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes, Tupac a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mix and Horrible repeats the Dolby Digital 5.1
from the DVD, which sounds compressed and maybe more bassy than it should. The Dion
program has much talking, not enough music and that music has a limited
soundfield. The Streisand show is a little more compressed than it should be too,
though some of the audio and her singing sounds good, but she should have sounded
better here. See the link for more about
her at her best on digital audio. That
leaves the Tupac concert sounding easily the best and not just because Hip Hop
is loud, but because this is not a bad recording, though no one could have
imagined Blu-ray’s high standards at the time, so there are soundfield and
sonic limits. The DTS-MA can still
challenge any Hip Hop CD or download on the market today.
For their
own unique reasons, they are all interesting, even when they disappoint. We just need more music on Blu-ray overall
and the major labels in particular cannot move on it fast enough.
-
Nicholas Sheffo