The
Big Melt (2013/BFI Region
2 PAL Import DVD)/Funny
Face
(1956/Paramount/Warner Blu-ray)/Little
Feat: Live In Holland 1976
(Eagle DVD/CD Set)/Muscle
Shoals (2013/Magnolia
Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/A-/C+/B Sound: C+/B-/B-/B Extras: B-/B/C-/B Main
Programs: B-/A-/B-/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Big
Melt
Region 2 PAL Import DVD is now only available from our friends at BFI
in the UK and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are some distinctive new music releases...
The
Big Melt
(2013) is a remarkable music film that compiles many often amazing
industrial shorts dealing with the the rise and thriving of the steel
industry in England haunted by it fall in the 1980s as Margaret
Thatcher dismantled it permanently to kill jobs, unions, progress,
liberalism and history as intended. The great Jarvis Cocker of the
great band Pulp, whose success in the U.S. is not what it should have
been with great songs like Disco
2000,
Common
People
and This
Is Hardcore
(with great music videos to go with them) as well as a solo career.
He
is joined by Martin Wallace, members of his band Pulp and many more
to create a mostly instrumental tribute to this history (Cocker is
from Sheffield, where so much great music and steel came from) in a
work that runs 71 minutes, but leaves you with an impact you will not
forget and the films are as well chosen as they are well edited. I
liked it best when it did not have vocals, but they are not bad, yet
the film and instruments worked so well on their own. Impressive,
everyone should see this one just once because it goes beyond just
tribute.
Extras
include another illustrated booklet on the film including informative
text BFI includes in all their releases, while the DVD adds the film
shown in its entirety performed live with a live audience and a
Making Of featurette.
Stanley
Donen's Funny
Face
(1956) has been issued many times and continues to be popular, if not
rediscovered on the level I would like, but we now finally get a
Blu-ray edition and it is up there with the best classic musicals on
DVD we have seen to date. You can read about the film at these links
for our coverage of the recent
DVD releases of the film:
50th
Anniversary
DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5980/Funny+Face+%E2%80%93+50th+Anniversary+Editi
Centennial
Collection
DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8019/Funny+Face+%E2%80%93+Centennial+Collection
Not
only can you see the detail and amazing picture, from great studio
set-ups to the great location work in France, but you can see the
money on the screen in ways a DVD could never reveal. It is one of
my favorite musicals, favorite large frame format films and this
releases confirms to me now more than ever that this is the most
underrated later Hollywood Musical ever made. Audrey Hepburn is in
great form, the legendary Kay Thompson shines in one of her
all-too-rare movie appearances and Fred Astaire is at the peak of his
powers, an all time song, music and dance man far ahead of anyone
else in extraordinary turn after extraordinary turn that never ceases
to amaze. I like it more than On
The Town
and think it comes closer to Singin'
In The Rain
than you might think.
Extras
repeat most off of the last two DVDs including stills,
the original theatrical trailer, The
Fashion Designer & His Muse
about
the Hepburn/Givenchy relationship, Parisian
Dreams
about
the making of the film and an examination of it, Kay
Thompson: Think Pink!
covering
one of the most underrated and valuable careers in Hollywood history,
This
Is VistaVision!
about
one of the greatest film formats of all time and the mixed Fashion
Photographers Exposed
showing
the business today.
Little
Feat: Live In Holland 1976
is another Eagle concert release from the well-liked and respected
band in the earliest of the three performances they have issued from
the band to date. This is here as a DVD/CD
Set and the CD actually has a few more tracks. If you are not
familiar with the band, try our links to the previous releases for
more:
Skin
It Back
1977 Live DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9058/Little+Feat+%E2%80%93+Skin+It+Back+(1977/Ea
Highwire
Live In St. Louis
2003 DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1381/Little+Feat+-+Highwire+Live+2003
Hard
to believe they never had a Top 40 Pop hit, but between their diehard
fans, album sales and the FM album rock channels playing them, they
survived and thrived. You'll find overlapping tracks between the
three releases showing the fan favorites, but I give them credit for
not letting themselves become a self-trivializing legacy band. This
is as good a performance as we have seen of them to date.
A
paper booklet on the concert inside the CD case is the only extra.
Greg
Freddie
Camalier's Muscle
Shoals
(2013) talks
about the great music that came out of an unlikely place in Alabama,
suddenly creating some of the most important American music,
influential music and hit music of the 1960s and beyond. Besides the
musicians, producers and engineers who made up the scene, we get
great interviews with Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, Bono, Keith
Richards, Jimmy Cliff, Clarence Carter, Alicia Keys, Steve Winwood,
Percy Sledge and Candi Stanton among the many who get to finally tell
the story of this legendary music locale.
This
is a pretty strong, rich, detailed work more than worth your time and
I felt 111 minutes was just not enough. Of course, if you like the
music or not will also effect your opinion, but the Fame Studios
created a sound never heard before or again and with classics from
Aretha, The Rolling Stones, Percy Sledge, Dusty Springfield and Etta
James for starters, its legacy is inarguable. All serious music fans
need to see this one.
Extras
include Addition Scenes & Interviews, two feature length audio
commentary tracks (one by the director, the other by Rick Hall, Jimmy
Johnson, David Hood & Spooner Oldham) and an
Original Theatrical Trailer.
Both
DVDs happen to offer 1.33 X 1 presentations, with Melt
made up of over two dozen classic industrial films and Holland
an NTSC analog videotape shoot from its time, both with their
softness and flaws, tying for last place, but looking as good as they
possibly could on DVD. Melt is from an HD master and deserves a
Blu-ray at some point. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Muscle
is a recent HD shoot with some vintage film and video materials (some
film sources are down a few generations as DVNR (Digital Video Noise
Reduction) causes unnecessary flaws and blur issues) used, but it is
well edited throughout, though some of the HD shoot is a bit color
drained too often for its own good.
The
visual champ with total ease is from the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High
Definition image transfer on Funny
Face,
which very rarely show the age of the materials used (color might not
match in a few sequences), but this is far superior a transfer to the
previous DVDs covered and not only shows off the color you would also
enjoy in
dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor versions of the film in
now-very valuable film prints of it, but the detail and depth is
nothing short of stunning in most scenes. Originally
shot in the large frame VistaVision process (horizontally exposed
35mm film by Directors of Photography Ray June with John P. Fulton),
this has a ton of demo shots, is one of the strongest back catalog
Blu-rays of the last few years and only the definition of the Blu-ray
holds it back slightly. This
is the best I have seen it since a brand new 35mm print I screened
eons ago. A real fiesta for any serious home theater system, HDTV or
Ultra HDTV, anyone who loves film needs to own this disc.
In
the sound department, both Blu-rays have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1
lossless mixes, but the one on Muscle
has an edge despite being interview based, the music featured comes
from first-rate copies and shows how well recorded that music was
from the start. Funny
Face
is using a 5.1 master from the later DVDs and that means despite
being lossless, the sound is limited and a generation down, so music
can be limited in range and the mix is also front-heavy. For Ultra
HD, they need to go back and do a 7.1 lossless mix, but this is fine
for now. If they do that though, we could get a nice isolated music
track out of it.
Holland
has a DTS 5.1 lossless that is a little better than the lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 and PCM 2.0 Stereo mixes also included on the DVD, but
the recording shows its age, extending to the PCM 16/44.1 2.0 Stereo
CD also included, putting it on par with the 1977 live DVD. That
leaves Melt
with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that puts it in last place on the
list, but it is fine for the format.
You
can order The
Big Melt
Region 2 PAL Import
DVD exclusively from BFI at:
http://shop.bfi.org.uk/the-big-melt-dvd-bluray.html#.U02brRyKzmY
-
Nicholas Sheffo
