Fast
Forward (1984*)/Godsmack:
Awake 25th Anniversary Edition
(2026, 2001/Universal/Republic Records CD)/Lovelines
(1984/Tri-Star*)/Night and
Day (1946**)/Rose-Marie
(1936/MGM/**both Warner Archive Blu-ray)/You
Light Up My Life
(1977/*all Sony/Alliance Blu-rays)
Picture:
B-/X/B-/B/B/B- Sound: C/B/C/C+/C+/C+ Extras: D/C/D/C/C/D
Main Programs: C/C+/C+/C+/C/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Night
and Day
and Rose-Marie
Blu-rays
are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for older music releases revisited, including a few you likely have
never heard of or thought you did...
Sidney
Poitier's Fast
Forward
(1984) was the actor-turned-director's attempt to do something
different in a career where he never did a musical and the biggest
piece of music associated with him was the huge hit title song to his
hit film To
Sir With Love
(sung by Lulu,) but much had changed in 17 years.
It
is the (too?) simple story of eight talent NYC teens going for a
talent competition (pre-bad TV talent shows of today) trying to 'make
it against all odds' and 'can they do it' and handle that heavy
competition from all over the country? We had seen this to death by
the time this film came out and Poitier does not appear in the film,
which was likely a good move, but this just does not date well, is a
curio, none of the unknowns became knowns and only certain acting and
music moments are even watchable. Some parts show the seeds of music
and dance to come, but there's not enough of that either, so the film
died quickly and was forgotten.
Still,
it needed to be reissued and the very curious can now see for
themselves.
There
are no extras.
Godsmack:
Awake 25th Anniversary Edition
(2001) is the band's third album and their last with original drummer
Tommy Stewart, meaning it is the last LP with their classic line up.
A hit album that some people and fans loves, while others really
hated it, it still sells and is in demand. Thus, this new remastered
edition a quarter century later.
Tracks
include:
Sick
of Life
Erna
Awake
Greed
Bad
Magick
Goin'
Down
Mistakes
Trippin'
Forgive
Me
Vampires
(instrumental)
The
Journey (instrumental)
Spiral
+Bonus
Tracks
Why
Sweet
Leaf
Trippin'
(clean mix)
Awake
(acapella)
Bad
Magick (acapella)
Many
critics hated it too, but I remember the positive hit reaction to
singles like the title song, Greed and Bad Magick.
That may not even make this a minor classic, but is a key album of
the time and deserves this solid treatment that should please fans
and be a fair introduction to new audiences.
Extras
include an
illustrated paper pullout on the album with tech info and track
listing, plus a lenticular 3D card of the cover.
Rod
Amateau's Lovelines
(1984) is an early Tri-Star Picture trying to jump on the MTV
bandwagon, featuring rival high schools, rival singers in the same
band and more formula than a maternity ward!
Rick
(Greg Bradford) can sing and is ready for the big time, but so is
Piper (Mary Beth Evans) and they are in the same band, so is their
enough room for them in the same group, town, high school, industry
or world? No matter the deep answers to those questions, there was
zero room for any memorable songs, a decent screenplay or any sense
of the makers possibly thinking this was working. Now you can see
for yourself, but just don't operate heavy machinery while viewing.
There
are no extras.
Michael
Curtiz's Night
and Day
(1946) is a music biopic of Cole Porter and though Cary Grant is a
great actor, I was not always able to buy him in the role, but he
does sing and the film is a little long at over two hours to stick as
many of his sings in it as it can, but is not bad. It also spans
from the 1920s to around the time the film was released, but that is
never pretentious or badly handled.
The
supporting cast is a plus with Alexis Smith as the co-star, Monty
Woolley, Jane Wyman, Ginny Simms, Eve Arden, Alan Hale, Dorothy
Malone, Sig Ruman and Mary Martin showing up as herself to sing his
controversial hit ''My
Heart Belongs To Daddy.''
In all this, even Porter himself thought it was a bit much, but it
is a huge Technicolor production that has its moments and is worth a
look for all serious Porter fans. It could have been much better,
but the makers played it safe for the sake of spectacle and that what
we get at best. Also, some versions of the classics are better than
others, but in that, you can see that for yourself.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer, a
menu to access specific songs, classic Warner cartoon The
Big Snooze and two Warner live action shorts: Musical
Movieland and the remarkable Desi Arnaz and his Orchestra
telling us what a big start he was going to be. To bad they did
not sign him before he did that CBS show with his wife Lucille.....
W.S.
Van Dyke's Rose-Marie
(1936) is the second of eight hit films Nelson Eddy (here as a
military sergeant) and Jeanette MacDonald (as an opera singer) that
made them one of the biggest singing duos of all time and certainly
of the pre-Rock era. With its poor depiction of Native Americans and
the like, including the hits Indian
Love Song
and Totem
Tom-Tom,
many may be horrified and offended by this most politically incorrect
of all their films, but it still ha some surprises worth seeing and
knowing about.
Jimmy
Stewart is her brother, in an early role, has been hurt trying to
escape prison, so she drops everything to find him and gets more help
from one of the authorities (Eddy) than expected. A young David
Niven (misspelled 'David Nivens' in the credits) shows up in an early
scene too and the supporting cast also includes Reginald Owens, Allan
Jones, Alan Mowbray, Gilda Gray, Robert Greig, Una O'Connor and
Lucien Littlefield, so it is strongly cast and some of these actors
are only of that time. The result is a film any serious film or
music fan should see once, but expect an uneven viewing.
Extras
include an Original
Theatrical Trailer, the 1936
live-action short Hollywood-The
Second Step with its
comical tale of starting at the bottom to get to the top, a 1936 MGM
animated Technicolor short Little
Cheeser, a menu to access
specific songs and several network Radio Broadcasts including Screen
Guild Players with a condensed version of Rose-Marie
(27:12) with the original leads, Nelson Eddy's own radio show The
Electric Hour (29:10) is
with special guest star Jeanette MacDonald, Vicks
Open House (29:57) has
Jeanette MacDonald singing requests! (this copy has some more audio
flaws than usual) and the Kraft
Music Hall (25:12) has
host Eddy bringing on Jeanette MacDonald at the last minute guest
star when Dorothy Kirsten (who was advertised as the guest) couldn't
make it.
Joseph
Brooks' You
Light Up My Life
(1977) was smart enough to sign the great Didi Conn as a singer who
thinks she can make it and rides her car to every
audition in town to sing and try to break through. She falls for a
guy who might be able to help, but is it real love or something that
will fade fast? Will anyone figure out why Debbie Boone's voice
comes out of her mouth every single time she sings?
Well,
the film faded really fast at the box office, but the title song
somehow managed to take on a life of its own by being the biggest one
hit wonder still to this day in the history of the music industry.
Despite being the daughter of the insanely successful Pat Boone,
daughter Debbie had no big hits despite cutting some records and
albums, but this title song spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot
100 (and had similar successes worldwide) and would be her only major
hit. The writer also committed murder and that is a crazy separate
story you'll have to read to believe, but it began a trend where
songs might be hits in films no one saw and that continues to this
day.
The
great Melanie Mayron (Real
Genius,
Permanent
Record)
plays her best friend and music friend in the film and the fatal
mistake here is that the makers thought to stay on the romance and
highly underutilized the chemistry between the actresses in their
roles. That giant mistake is more glaring than ever and killed this
film critically and commercially. Despite all that, anyone curio
should see it once just to see how Conn more than carries the lead
and what could have been.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
images on Fast
Forward,
Lovelines
and You
Light Up My Life
were 1.85 X 1 theatrical releases and all are a little softer than I
expected, though it at least make some sense on Life
with its soft rock/adult contemporary/middle of the road music and
that late 1970s style (non-Disco) look. The other are trying to
emulate music videos and other dance films of the time, but were shot
with low budgets. Sound is even worse with the DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes on Forward
and Lovelines
weaker than they should be, even when they were issued in the older,
analog Dolby System Dolby A-type noise reduction format. Guess these
HD masters are older ones. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono
lossless mix on Life
somehow sounds better than the others from its original theatrical
mono, but only by so much.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Night
and Day
can
sometimes show the age of the materials used, but this is far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film, which was
originally issued on 35mm in
dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor prints and we see how good that
looks often throughout. The sets and costumes were also purposely
made to take advantage of all that. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix has its sonic limits
and is good for what it is, but is a little more aged than expected,
so expect those limits to show despite all the great restoration work
here.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Rose-Marie
can show its age due to the phony 'Indian' sets and even
costumes, plus some old matte work and obvious sets, but this is far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film on home
video. Also, more than a few shots are purposely shot soft or
diffused since it is a romance and the women (especially MacDonald)
gets such photographic treatment.
The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is nine decades
old, so we get the sonics we expected, three years older than Wizard
Of Oz,
but as good for its age as we will likely ever hear. The combination
works well enough.
The
PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo on the Godsmack CD is then, going to
sound better than any of those older films and offering the loudest
music genre of them all in this group, runs with it. I could imagine
getting a little more out of this remaster if it were a lossless
sound format, but this is not bad.
To
order the
Night
and Day
and/or Rose-Marie
Warner Archive Blu-rays,
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
