5 posts tagged “review”
I put the DTS 5.1 version on the hi-fi last night, and now must highly recommend this album. It's truly a revelation.
The key is that George Martin and his son - who did the remastering and remixing - have been completely respectful and faithful to the Beatles' music. With the exception of some strings on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, every note on this album is either the original Beatles song or, mostly in the links between tracks, samples of those songs.
But what makes this album truly spectacular is the magnificent clean-up job that they have done on the original masters. Every previous Beatles recording I've heard, including the remastered Sgt Peppers released many years ago and the more recent 1 compilation, has had a jangly edge to it that I've always charitably considered to be 'atmospheric'. However, on this album, Martin has managed to create virtually pristine versions of the songs, without losing any authenticity or warmth.
Listening to the 5.1 mix, songs like Yesterday and Hey Jude are spine-chillingly intimate, while the faster tracks retain their edge while still providing greater clarity and separation of the various instruments than ever before. Martin also makes judicious use of surround effects, thankfully eschewing gimmicky stereo panning in favour of subtle flourishes. I've always felt that music is inherently a 2-channel experience - you want to hear the band perform infront of you, not sit amongst them while they play around you - and this mix retains that live feel.
However, having heaped such praise on this album, it is also, ironically, frustrating. That's because it is, ultimately, the soundtrack to a Cirque show, so you mostly get two minute excerpts of most of the songs, with only a few lengthier cuts at the end. When am I going to get to hear my two favourite Beatles albums - Rubber Soul and Revolver - in their entirety, with this kind of audio quality? Or, for history's sake, Sgt Pepper's?
Media sources say that the Beatles are biding their time, waiting to make a big bang launch of all the Beatles albums in this format. Certainly, this album is a tremendous promise of what we can hope for. But Martin isn't getting any younger, and there are only two Beatles left alive.
So what are we waiting for? I dread the thought of Yoko being the only person left alive to supervise the remastering...
Me want to see.
OK, I know that Wed/Thu is the slot for an Apple update, but I'VE GOT A GOOD EXCUSE. Besides, there's probably going to be a boatload of stuff to write about next week after WWDC, so I'm saving my energy...
Went to watch Pirates : Dead Man's Chest tonight...boy, it was a long movie. Entertaining set-pieces, but way too many talky bits in-between. Will put up a more detailed review this weekend, hopefully alongside more detailed thoughts on Superman Returns.
BTW how do I go about telling Golden Village that one of the subwoofers in Hall 1 of GV Marina is busted? It was clipping badly whenever there were huge explosions or crashes...really irritating.
Technorati Tags: personal
Just got back from seeing Superman Returns...
Wow. That was simply spectacular.
Bryan Singer really nailed the right mood for a Superman film - mythic, epic, and heartfelt. Just wish there was more Clark (Nette's observation), and more stuff back home on the farm. At times, Singer did threaten to overdo the Messianic analogy, although apart from a few too-obvious images (inevitable crucifixion pose, empty tomb), he just about managed to keep it under control.
Spacey was brilliant as Luthor, but the real star was Brandon Routh - simply scary how much he sounds and looks like Christopher Reeve. I'm really curious to hear his normal speaking voice, just to figure out how much effort it took to sound that way.
Bravo.
M:I-3 begins with a scene plucked from later in the movie, with a cliffhanger ending that keeps you on the edge of your seat, waiting to see how it is resolved. Unfortunately, once you've seen that rather anti-climactic resolution, you have to settle back into your seat and watch the remaining twenty minutes of the film.
First-time feature director JJ (Lost, Alias) Abrams deserves praise for trying to humanize Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, putting his newlywed wife in jeopardy to give the classic "this time it's personal" boost to the M:I franchise. Indeed, the moments that emphasize relationships - between Hunt and his wife, Hunt and his team, and Hunt's superiors - are the strongest in this film, alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman's quietly chilling turn as villain Owen Davian.
However, while some of the setpieces are classic M:I, especially the Vatican sequences, I was disappointed because there was never enough satisfying pay-off for the well-built suspense. Perhaps belying his television roots, JJ Abrams doesn't seem to be able to film a good action sequence - whenever the action reaches a climax, the camerawork degenerates into blurry, shaky jumpcuts that leave you dazed and rather confused, not thrilled or awed.
Perhaps the greatest disappointment is that the mission that should have been the film's centrepiece - the retrieval of the mysterious 'Rabbit's Foot' - is hardly shown. You see how Hunt gets into the heavily-guarded builidng, but it isn't anywhere as cool as some of the stunts in the first two movies, and in fact looks pretty simple. Then - and I'm not kidding - you don't see anything else until Hunt comes flying out of a window, having secured the prize. Was it even difficult? Who knows, because we don't know how he did it.
Then, when you get to the inevitable mano y mano duel between Hunt and Davian, the fight suffers from the same problem faced by many such films - regardless of any attempt to even the odds by handicapping Hunt, it never seems likely that the overweight villain is going to overcome the superhero Hunt. Batman versus Nicholson's Joker, or Danny Devito's Penguin, springs to mind.
Ultimately, I'd still recommend seeing this film. There's still lots of cool spy stuff going on, and I for one always find Tom Cruise likeable. Just be forewarned that M:I-3 ends up very much like the famous franchise's credit sequence : you see the burning fuse, with the classic theme jumpstarting your adrenaline...but you never get the promised bang at the end.
Random notes
- One interesting subtext in this film is Tom Cruise's apparent desire to transform his image from cocky maverick to everyman-in-peril, as perfected by Harrison Ford. In both War Of The Worlds and M:I-3, he plays the desperate husband/father, fighting not to save the world, but to save his loved ones. I'm not sure I buy it, because Cruise is still too pretty and too instinctively cool. He doesn't do haggard, disheveled and panicky anywhere near as well as Ford, and looks good even when beaten up.
- There's a very brief echo of Top Gun in the film, probably inserted as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to an iconic shot from that film. You should know it when you see it.
- One thing that really deserves praise is Michael (The Incredibles) Giacchino's score. It's great sixties' spy movie music, relying heavily on Lalo Schiffrin's classic theme.
- A lot of internet reviews (especially AICN) have been raving about what a great job JJ Abrams did. Not being a fan of either Lost or Alias, I can't really comment much, but it seems Abrams has clearly played to his strengths (characterisation, mysterious plots) here, and fanboys will probably eat that up. But I don't think Abrams showed me anything that propels him into the ranks of top action/suspense directors (as claimed by Harry "I interviewed this guy for Penthouse" Knowles).
- (slight spoiler) Don't you hate it when people who have apparently never used a gun in their lives suddenly turn out to be crack shots? It keeps happening in action movies, and it's damn irritating.
The Wild Geese : 30th Anniversary Edition is released on 27 September. Already ordered mine!
I'm pretty sure that any male of around my age remembers this film...Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Roger Moore (at the peak of his fame, and before he was too old) as aging mercenaries leading a rescue mission into some dodgy African country. A real Boy's Own adventure film, which together with A Bridge Too Far, ensured that my imaginary-weapon-of-choice when playing war in primary school was a British Sten gun, with the magazine sticking out the side.
In fact, the Sten was probably the movie machine gun of the 1970s, until Uzis became more popular ('cuz you can hold TWO of them!).
What gun did YOU use when playing war?
