Becoming Santa (2011/Cinema Libre DVD)/Prep & Landing (Disney DVD)/Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas: The Play (2011/Lionsgate Blu-ray)

 

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

 

 

The glut of holiday titles continues with three more barley passable entries.

 

 

Jeff Myers’ Becoming Santa (2011) is the best here by default and a documentary on a scho0opl that shows men how to be Santa Claus and how many of them will actually dye (even growing their hair and bears in advance) all the hair on their face and head white to play the role.  Running 93 minutes, it is a little long but interesting look at the holiday that nicely deconstructs it as too many bad releases try to mystify, remystify and mystify again a holiday that does not need anyone’s help.  So much for the mythical “war on Christmas”.  Extras include trailers for other Cinema Libre releases.

 

At a miniscule 22 minutes, Prep & Landing is a brief animated tale of two elves trying to get the holiday together for Santa.  For fans only of such things, I guess the extras are supposed to make up for this and include two bonus short, a three-part Kringle Academy training video, a faux newsreel and 3 “ads” from the North Pole.

 

OK…

 

Finally we get Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas: The Play (2011) which goes on for 2.5 hours and is everything we have seen in a Perry/Madea stage play including unmemorable song after unmemorable song.  Should a young lady be independent or co-dependent, are some people too uppity for their own good and can God help any of us when we are such a dysfunctional wreck during the holidays?  The latter never seems to help Madea, but that is part of the joke we gather.  For fans only, extras include Bloopers, a Making of featurette and piece with the cast.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 DVDs are a little soft and weak, but watchable for what they are, yet they could have looked a little better.  I expected more flaws with Santa as it is a documentary with much location shooting.  The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Madea is better and has more color range, but still also has its own detail issues.  Being on a stage and not having to move the camera around as much helps.

 

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Santa is not as laced with location audio issues as expected, while the Dolby Digital 5.1 on Prep is too much towards the front channels and the lossy codec is noticeable throughout.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Madea is a little towards the front speakers, but that is not always the case as the sound design is better than expected and warm too.  It may be the best of the Perry Play series to date in that respect.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo