The
BareRoot featuring Carol Hatchett: Live Wire
(2016/Hatchett EP CD)/The
Beggar's Opera
(1983/Roger Daltrey/ArtHaus)/Hercules
(2014/Haendel/BelAir)/Les
Pecheurs De Perles
(2013 aka The
Pearl Fishers/Bizet/C
Major/Unitel Classica)/Music
Of The 20th Century with Sir Simon Rattle
(1997/ArtHaus box set/all Naxos Blu-rays)/Kill
Your Friends
(2015/Well Go Blu-ray)/Vinyl:
The Complete First Season
(2016/HBO Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
X/C/B-/B-/C+/B/B Sound: B/C/B/B/C+/B/B Extras:
D/C/C-/B-/A-/C/C+ Main Programs: B-/B-/C+/B-/A-/B-/C+
Here's
our next diverse set of new music releases...
The
BareRoot featuring Carol Hatchett: Live Wire
(2016) is the EP follow-up to last year's Born
To Love
EP we covered at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13718/The+Bareroot+featuring+Carol+Hatchett:+Born+T
The
songs this time include:
1)
I Need Your Love [5:52]
2) Live Wire [6:09]
3) Forever
You And Me [6:24]
4) Reach For The Light [5:20]
5) Jokes
On You [4:50]
Though
it's one track less, I like this collection better for its energy,
integration and memorability, with a sense of joy that picks up from
track to track more so than in the previous set. These tracks are
more likely to be picked up for play and are definitely worth a good
listen. There are no extras.
Live
Wire
rolls outs nationally on June 15, 2016 at a SRP of $4.99 and will be
available on iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon.com as well as
http://thebarerootmusic.com/live-wire.
The
Beggar's Opera
(1983) is a TV version of the John Gay opera made especially for TV
(the BBC) with no less than Roger Daltrey (re-conjuring his classical
appeal in Lisztomania
and Tommy,
minus the Glam Rock side here) playing a thief, et al, with a
supporting cast that includes Bob Hoskins, Stratford Johns, Carol
Hall and Patricia Routledge. A bit deconstructive and post-modern,
it is not a bad piece and I had not seen it in eons. I have to admit
only so much of it stuck with me, but it is worth revisiting and for
more than just the cast. This was an ambitious project and at 135
minutes, does a decent job of its humorous bit to entertain and show
an earlier time. Some parts never worked for me, but nice it was
never lost.
George
Friedrich Haendel's Hercules
(2014) is a long 190 minutes piece on the mythological hero and
mythology in general, not bad, but really pushing it at that length
stage-directed by Luc Bondy who goes all the way in bringing this to
life with the Opera National de Paris. Consistent with what I know
about the title character, this is deconstructionist, yet elaborate
enough for 3+ hours, but I simply not for everyone. Singing is a
plus, but you'd better be very awake for this one. Still, I was
curious about it and am glad I saw this take just the same.
Georges
Bizet's Les
Pecheurs De Perles
(2013 aka The
Pearl Fishers)
is finally a work from the legend other than Carmen
to cover, telling the story of two of the title characters, Nadir
(Dmitry Korchak) and Zurga (Dario Solari), both falling for the
young, beautiful Leila (Patrizia Ciofi) who intends to stay a virgin.
Things will change quickly for all. This runs a reasonable 118
minutes and is the better of the two operas here, if still with some
off moments. Fabio Sparvoli staged this with the Teatro di San Carlo
and conductor Gabriele Ferro. It also makes for good alternative
opera viewing, which is why I wanted to see it, so you might want to
catch it for that reason alone.
Music
Of The 20th
Century with Sir Simon Rattle
(1997) is the big new box set we got to enjoy with all six amazing
episodes hosted and written by Rattle, a great conductor whom we've
had the honor and privilege of covering over the years. Turns out he
is an amazing music and history scholar, covering as much music as he
can in six hours. He skips the expected genres of pop, soul, rap,
hip-hop, rock, country & western, disco, movie music and the like
as expected, then manages to chart when 20th
Century music began. This brings us to Vienna in 1900, which turns
out to be highly conservative, yet becomes this epicenter of where
the music of that century beings.
From
there, he does a stunning job of detail, meaning, origins and just
builds and builds and builds from there. I has seen some of this
back in the day, but nothing like really being able to sit and see it
again uninterrupted. It not only holds up, but has appreciated in
value immensely, so having this upscaled to a high definition format
(Blu-rays hold up much better than DVDs) would have been unthinkable
at the time. Cheers to Naxos and ArtHaus for the best possible
presentation of this must-see series. Wish he did some kind of
sequel.
Owen
Harris' Kill
Your Friends
(2015) happens
to take place the year Rattle did his documentary mini-series, but is
the first of our two programs (the last two in this review) and stars
the underrated Nicholas Hoult as Steven Stelfox, a record company
employee with a love of illegal drugs during the BritPop cycle in the
U.K. (including Pulp, Blur and even Oasis) doing what he can to get
ahead within the business and find the next hit act. James Corden
(now popular for singing and driving) is his drugged-up co-worker and
that just begins the list of eccentrics and oddballs he deals with.
Steven
does voiceovers throughout and that not only works, it enhances the
film, which gets as effectively devious as Kubrick's A
Clockwork Orange
(1971). even when Hoult reminds one of Tom Cruise more than maybe he
should. In all this, the script has a few misses and a few obvious
moments, but this worked better than I expected. The humor is
British at times, but not confusingly so, plus I expect we'll see
more of the supporting cast down the line in other projects. The
story has guts and is definitely worth a look, even if it gets over
the top in the end.
Vinyl:
The Complete First Season
(2016) has
a similar set-up, with Bobby Carnivale really good here as record
company owner Richie Finestra in over his head with drugs, financial
troubles and worse. It is 1973 and he is trying to make things work,
including with his staff (Ray Romano is surprisingly good as a
longtime co-worker/friend) among older friends he might throw under
the bus, a coffee gal (the always-great Juno Temple) as a gal who
wants to be in A&R (artist development), a young A&R guy
(Jack Quaid) trying to keep his job with more of an ear for music
than any of the executives think, a new band representing the new
Punk Rock movement with a lead singer (James Jagger) trying to keep
it together and subplots including Finestra's wife (Olivia Wilde)
ready to give up on their marriage.
The
idea is that all these crisis happen in New York City during a
6-month period where three of the most important music genes ever
established are founded: Punk Rock, Disco and DJing/Hip Hop. The
teleplays take place in a somewhat fictionalized variant of that
world, so it is not trying to be a docudrama. To the credit of the
makers (co-producer Martin Scorsese directed the pilot telefilm
episode, other take over including the very capable Mark Romanek), it
does capture the look and feel of the era with often uncanny
accuracy. That's good, because it helps get one through many points
that are flat or predictable. I enjoyed the portrayal of stars of
the past and time, but some subplots don't work as well as others,
though the classic hits of the time chosen are a big plus.
Still,
I was a bit disappointed, including with Mick Jagger on as
co-producer. There was a series of articles in vein about the show
during its original broadcasts that criticized the show by saying
what 'it got wrong this week' which misses the point. It does
not have to be docudrama to work, just make truthful points and say
something about what happened. Maybe the next season will pick up,
but we get and amazing set of great moments mix with ones that don't
capture the energy of the time. In all this, you should still watch
it once for all the good parts to see for yourself.
The
Beggar's Opera
and Rattle
are both originally recorded on PAL analog video at 1.33 X 1,
upscaled and bookended in a 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
image frame has some flaws from the analog
videotape including video noise, video banding and PAL cross color,
but the Rattle
discs hold up and look better throughout while The
Beggar's Opera
is softer throughout than we would have liked. Part of this is the
style of the way this is shot, but it is still very weak and maybe a
new transfer should be considered.
The
1080i 1.78 X 1 High Definition image transfers on Hercules
and Perles
tie for second place, with some motion blur, but also good color in
playback that has been the case in new Classical releases.
The
best performers are both HD shoots, the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High
Definition image transfer on Kill
and 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Vinyl,
doing surprisingly fine jobs of capturing the look and feel of their
respective eras with solid editing, color and consistent form that
keep you watching. The images are still HD, but more stable than
most HD shoots we've seen lately.
The
PCM 16/44.1 2.0 Stereo on the Wire
EP is
a fine, smooth recording I like a bit better than the previous Born
To Love EP
with the final mix a bit tighter. The PCM 2.0 Mono on The
Beggar's Opera
is weaker than expected, adding to the feeling that the upscaled
source is second generation. The PCM 2.0 Stereo
on Rattle
is a mix of talk and music, but is better than The
Beggar's Opera,
if obviously not as dynamic as the
Wire
EP.
The
Hercules
and Perles
Blu-rays have PCM 2.0 Stereo
tracks, but both cannot complete with their superior DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes that have fine soundfields
throughout. Kill
and Vinyl
also have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes that offer
great hit records of their eras, but they never quiet excel like I
hoped they would. Still, both of those mixes work very well.
The
Wire
EP
has no extras,
but the four Naxos
classical releases include multi-lingual booklets on each respective
release, though Rattle
is over 200 pages and is practically a full book, one of the best and
definitely the thickest we've run into in years. Bonus music tracks
and a taped Rattle concert are also included. Kill
and Vinyl
add good if too short Behind
The Scenes/Making Of featurettes, Kill
also has an Original Theatrical Trailer, then Vinyl
also adds Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-rays add Inside
The Episode
clips and audio commentary tracks on select episodes.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
