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Category:    Home > Reviews > Music > Concert > Documentary > Standards > Pop > Musical > Comedy > Hip Hop > 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 Bl

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


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