Better Man (2024/Paramount DVD)/La Vie En Rose (2007*)/Leadbelly: The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll (2021/MVD/Weinerworld DVD)/Marvin Gaye: What's Going On? and the Last Days of The Motown Sound by Ben Edmonds (2001/Third Man Books)/Rhapsody In Blue (1945/*both Warner Archive Blu-ray)

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

PLEASE NOTE: The La Vie En Rose and Rhapsody In Blue Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

Now for a new group of music releases really covering many genres...

Michael Gracey's Better Man (2024) is the latest of a cycle of music artist biopics that have disappointed more than impressed, more worried about gimmicks and box office than actually telling a mature, well-rounded story. About the U.K. singer Robbie Williams, former member of that vocal group Take That, then went solo in a huge way. A big hit overseas, he has hardly had any hits in the U.S. with ''Angels'' barely hitting the Top 60 and ''Millennium'' (which samples the instrumental refrain from Nancy Sinatra's James Bond theme from You Only Live Twice (1967) for some reason) getting played beyond the charts all over in its time.

He was popular enough to fund a biopic at some expense, but the twist here is he is represented s a digital monkey (yes, you read that correctly) throughout the film to portray his life. A strange move that does not make him an associate member of Gorillaz or guest cast member of the current cycle of Planet of The Apes films, it is played straight and not as a joke. Unfortunately, it is very repetitive, has no pay off and ultimately is a two and a quarter-hour exercise that plays more like a lesser music video than a biopic or feature film.

Does this stop the film from being a typical biopic that over-glorifies its subject? The gimmick is supposed to give him street cred and sympathy, but this just does not work. If you like him and can get through this, good luck, but I would not recommend this, even if I am not a big fan of his music.

An Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.

Olivier Dahan's La Vie En Rose (2007) has been issued on Blu-ray in its Extended Version and is the still-impressive biopic of the great singer Edith Piaf, played with striking resonance by Marion Cotillard who rightly won the Best Actress Academy Award for her work here. In the face of sexism, war, personal triumph and tragedy, Piaf became the talk of the town after facing unreal odds in having any kind of life at all.

I like how it looks, plays, feels and runs, always authentic and Cotillard (Christopher Nolan held up his final Batman film because of this film just to have her in it) more than carries this and we see how the title song became her signature song in a very smart, compelling way. Its a song people still listen to, plenty of fine cover versions are out there, if not as good as the Piaf original and the history surrounding her life is not put too much in the background as to trivialize it. I was often reminded of Judy Garland's life and the coincidental parallels between the two legends. Piaf's story was long overdue to get this treatment and they really pulled this one off!

Emmanuel Seigner and Gerard Depardieu lead an excellent supporting cast.

Extras include an Original Theatrical Trailer and Making Of featurette Stepping Into Character.

Curt Hahn's Leadbelly: The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll (2021, aka Leadbelly: Life, Legend, Legacy) is a recent look at the life of the landmark blues artist who created (or helped top create, depending on how you see it) a music genre he would not live to see grow, thrive, become a mega-business and certainly not financially benefitted from.

Loaded with stills, some footage and interview with an impressive roster of greats like Joan Baez, Paul McCartney, Pete Seeger, Harry Belefonte, Odetta, B.B. King, Arlo Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Van Morrison, Tom Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis and even Janice Joplin, this runs 80 minutes and is not bad. I just wish it could have even delivered more and had better technical fidelity.

Still, not enough is out there on Huddie William Ledbetter, so it is more than enough of a welcome volume that music fans will want to give it a look.

A Trailer is the only extra.

Marvin Gaye: What's Going On? and the Last Days of The Motown Sound by Ben Edmonds (2001) is a reissue of a great book about how one of the most important singers, songwriters, producers, performers and innovators in music history not only created the greatest album of his career, but one of the greatest albums of all time, an album that has only become more powerful, important, influential and more vindicated in what it has to say since it was originally issued in 1971 and since this book was first published.

It tells us without much or enough backing detail about the personal pain in Gaye's life, but his death was fresher in everybody's memory when the book was released, so Edmonds likely felt readers would accept what he said on faith. It is more valid than not. It talks about his childhood briefly, but really starts with his early days a Motown and how he unexpectedly became their biggest star by the late 1960s, was devastated by the death of Tammi Terrell and equally upset by the political turmoil of the time. This all builds up to the making of the landmark album.

In almost 300 pages, he adds much of the history of the company and how moving to Loa Angeles had its pluses and minuses, though the label eventually lost Gaye, as well as Diana Ross, The Jacksons and the like. I like this book and anyone who loves music and music history should consider this a must-read. Its that important and I only wish it were longer and got updated.

For more on Gaye and his work, try this link to our previous coverage on his various albums and concerts...

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=gaye

Irving Rapper's Rhapsody In Blue (1945) is one of the smarter music biopics of its time, still having some predictability, with Robert Alda as George Gershwin. The composer of the classic song that gives the film its title, the long-but-interesting 161-minutes-long drama is longer because it adds 14 minutes of footage usually missing from the film. A backstage musical that loves to name drop and has some great actors to play those parts, it tries to be a layered journey behind the scenes and has its moments in that too.

Al Jolson, Oscar Levant, George White, Anne Brown, Hazel Scott and Paul Whiteman show up as themselves, but the supporting cast that includes Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Rosemary DeCamp, Herbert Rudley, Darryl Hickman, Will Wright and Charles Coburn more than hold their own. Also know that more than a few name people show up in uncredited cameos, but we'll save that for viewers who sit through the whole film.

Smart and even fun, Rhapsody In Blue is definitely recommended.

An Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.

Now for playback performance of the disc releases here. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on La Vie En Rose looks good, with solid color and consistent look that convinces of the eras of the past it takes place in, all shot on Fuji 35mm color negative and well edited. Detail and depth are consistent too making the overall presentation very effective. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix has a fine soundfield, use of music and is easily the best-sounding release here, so the combination is great for the format.

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfer on Rhapsody In Blue is also solid, clean, clear, detailed and as good as any release here, with fine Video Black and a fine restoration throughout from a 4K scan off of the original 35mm nitrate negative that has survived very nicely. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix has the film sound as good as it ever will, but that sound is on the aged and limited side.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on the Better Man DVD is softer than I would have liked, but it has been issued on 4K and Blu-ray discs, so you can catch those versions, but whether you will like the CGI animation is another story. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 is a little off and a serious mixdown and drop from the 12-track soundmaster on those better formats.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Leadbelly DVD can be very rough and from various sources, usually analog video or low def digital, but that's the nature of the production and flaws include video noise, video banding, telecine flicker, tape scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo can often be Mono and is a mixed bag, so be careful of high playback volumes and volume switching. Historians and more interested viewers will still think it is worth it.

To order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, La Vie En Rose and Rhapsody In Blue, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo