Tabla de contenidos para December 2021/January 2022 en Sound & Vision

Music for Children I enjoy reading Sound & Vision’s Blu-ray disc reviews, which cover a wide spectrum of film genres. Why, then, must your music reviews only cover children’s music? I understand the lure of nostalgia as much as the next person and occasionally enjoy listening to new wave from when I was a teenager in the 1980s. But I’m in my fifties now and my musical tastes have also thankfully matured. Can’t you please review classical music written by trained and educated composers, rather than simplistic children’s music (whatever the subject matter and cleverness of the lyrics) by self-taught entertainers from the 1960s and 1970s? Karen Amrhein / Baltimore, Maryland Al Griffin responds: We’re going to refrain from telling the occasionally prickly Bob Dylan (check out our review of…

Time flies. Besides being the title of one of my favorite latter-era Porcupine Tree songs, these were also the first two printable words that came to mind after I found the answer to the question, “Say, when was the last time I did a deep dive with Qobuz?” was exactly three years ago. (“Sacre bleu!” is the PG-13 equivalent to the other choice words I thought of in that moment.) Fact is, a full 36 months have passed since I first delved into the many hi-res offerings of this très magnifique French streaming service. With that in mind, I felt it was high time for a hi-res Qobuz re-evaluation to see if the ever-expanding service has been able to continue building upon our constantly changing audiophile streaming ways. I’m happy…

It’s been a strange year for the entertainment industry, with controversial showdowns involving streaming versus the in-theater experience calling the future of both into question. We continued to hear news of physical media’s demise as well, yet here we are again looking at ten gift-worthy new regular and Ultra HD Blu-ray options. Not only will these bring the recipient dependably high bitrates for maximum audio/video merriment, but they won’t be subject to subscription fees or to the contract renewals that could make titles disappear from our virtual library. So yeah, we at Sound & Vision remain all-in on discs, to have and to hold and to share with someone special. This season sees the arrival of some much-anticipated classics, so pull on your coziest, ugliest sweater, grab the remote, and…

GUY IS an NPC (non-player character) in the hit video game, Free City. He “lives” a happy but chaotic life as the game’s active player characters, identifiable by their sunglasses, ravage the city. The NPCs simply go about their business as best they can in the only world they know. But when Guy encounters Sun-glasser Molotov Girl, he’s smitten and swipes a pair of those magic shades. His life is turned upside down, and with all the powers of the sunglass brigade he seeks to both win her over and do good rather than simply create mayhem. Guy soon becomes a media sensation as the heroic Blue Shirt Guy. The outside world is glued to their computer screens, fascinated by Guy’s now self-generated experiences that pinball between humor, romance, and pathos.…

HOW DOES a movie that came and went in theaters without much of a splash go on to become the highest-rated film on all of IMDb? With some major Oscar nominations but no wins (1994 was Forrest Gump’s year, with a side of Pulp Fiction), The Shawshank Redemption instead built its vast, loyal fanbase over time, discovered largely via TV and home video viewings. Adapted from the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, the story follows stoic banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who is wrongly convicted of murder with no hope of parole, as he navigates a strange and difficult new world behind bars. HIs triumph over seemingly insurmountable adversity, captured with a humanity and impact here that no other movie has ever been able to match, is…

FALL 2021 was a period of intense highs and lows for streaming giant Netflix. At one extreme, it scored an international hit with Squid Game, a Korean production that quickly became the service’s must-watch, most-watched show, drawing in over 111 million viewers during its first month. At the other extreme, a Netflix original comedy special, Dave Chappelle’s The Closer, drew intense criticism from the transgender community over its targeted jokes. The backlash over The Closer even spread to the ranks of the company’s employees, hundreds of whom staged a walkout and protest, calling for its removal from the service. Adding to Netflix’s woes during this time was the imminent cancellation of the service by a longtime customer, Sound & Vision editor Al Griffin. My reasons for canceling Netflix had less…

Given the proliferation of internet-connected devices in the home, the most common system problems can often be boiled down to network issues. Whether it is slow Wi-Fi, choppy streaming quality, or a total inability to connect, if something is amiss with your home’s network, there will be a cascade of glitches. My previous column (October/November) detailed some high-level diagnostic steps to determine the scope of a network problem. Is the issue with one device, all devices, wireless connections only, or a specific streaming service outage? Once you’ve identified the problem, you can troubleshoot accordingly, starting with a reboot of the modem and router, followed by testing of signals directly at both of those devices. Unfortunately, identifying—and correcting—a network issue usually isn’t a simple matter. There can be myriad sources of…

Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2 (Sony) As with its predecessor, the Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2 makes the sort of gift-giving impact that can’t be ignored. Both physically and artistically substantial, this hefty slab brims with seminal works from a half-dozen directors spanning six different decades: Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Sir Carol Reed’s Oliver! (1968), Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), Ivan Reitman’s Stripes (1981, here in theatrical and extended cuts), Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995) and David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010). It’s an eclectic mix to be sure, from gritty courtroom drama to G-rated musical to R-rated comedy and beyond, with more awards and nominations than I care to count. The coffee table-worthy companion book, tucked neatly inside the…

SET IN a futuristic England, A Clockwork Orange follows Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his “droogs,” a gang of tough young blokes who get high on “milk plus” at the Korova Milk Bar before heading out to indulge in some “ultra-violence.” But after leader Alex is set up by his resentful underlings and jailed for murder, he volunteers for an experimental behavioral modification program in exchange for an early release, with unexpected results for all involved. A post-modern film that is also anticipatory in some ways of England’s coming punk movements and working-class unrest, A Clockwork Orange has entered the collective consciousness and proven over the past 50 years to be infinitely quotable. The movie was restored in 4K by Kubrick assistant Leon Vitali and the Kubrick Estate and brought to Ultra…

SERIAL KILLERS. Cannibalism. A disturbing journey into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. The Silence of the Lambs has more than its share of horrors, yet, through it all, the movie tells the very personal story of FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster, nabbing a second Best Actress Oscar here). Haunted by loss and her guilt over a childhood failure, she seeks redemption in a high-profile missing persons case that requires her to work closely with notorious murderer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, who netted a Best Actor Oscar). An outstanding piece of filmmaking in every way, Silence of the Lambs has transcended the thriller genre to become a genuine classic. Having watched this movie countless times over the past 30 years, exclusively on home video formats, I’ve come to…

BY THE TIME November 1980’s Gaucho rolled around, Steely Dan were more than ready to close up shop and take a self-imposed two-decade hiatus. Indeed, Gaucho’s sparkly veneer was a fitting then-final coating on the acclaimed jazz-leaning but genre-defying band’s first decade, fully encapsulating the dark-humored observational worldview of its principal creators—bassist/guitarist Walter Becker and keyboardist/vocalist Donald Fagen—to a literal T. In certain circles, Gaucho is chided for sounding too pristine—but, ahem, that was always Steely Dan’s M.O., folks. True, Gaucho takes Becker and Fagen’s pursuit of studio perfection to the nth degree, requiring practically two years’ worth of studio-tan time to get them there (plus a drum machine named Wendel). Or, as Fagen once told me, “It really has a lot to do with having the experience of knowing a…

Any money I save by canceling Netflix will inevitably be diverted to Disney+, specifically so I can catch the new Peter Jackson documentary series The Beatles: Get Back. That much-loved band’s Let it Be, their post-breakup album, holds a special place in my consciousness due to it being my first Beatles LP. I had asked my parents for the glitzy Rock ‘n’ Roll Music two-disc set that had just been released by Capitol Records, but instead found Let it Be sitting under the tree when I came downstairs on Christmas morning. At first disappointed, I came to love Let it Be with its mix of melodic, expansive, soulful, and genuinely rockin’ songs. I still have that same disc in my collection, where it now sits alongside the lovely new…

The year is 1969. I am sitting in front of my family’s TV watching live black-and-white video from the moon. High-definition TV is still science fiction, but in the blurry picture I can see Neil Armstrong descend the ladder and step onto the lunar surface. In the middle of the transmission, I walk outside and look up at the moon, waxing crescent, thoroughly amazed that for the first time people are up there looking back at me. Now, almost a lifetime later, we are preparing to go back to the moon. Just writing that sentence gives me goosebumps. Sure, we have lots of problems here on earth. But that’s no reason not to send men and women to further explore the moon. To reword the oft-quoted phrase, we need to…

Q I’m in the process of rebuilding my home theater with a 4K projector and flat-panel TV. Here’s my question: What kind of HDMI extenders can I use to pass a video signal with Dolby Vision high dynamic range from my receiver to both screens? I’m completely at a loss here. F. HUDSON MILLER / HOLLYWOOD, CA A HDMI extenders are typically used in complex systems where video is being distributed to multiple rooms in the home. For a more basic, point-to-point system such as a home theater, a long HDMI cable run will provide the easiest, most reliable, and least expensive solution, especially if you are able to run wiring during construction. A problem with long HDMI cable runs, however, is that they can become unreliable at distances beyond 5 meters.…

1968 WAS A BUSY YEAR FOR THE BEATLES. They had traveled to India to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, launched their own record label, Apple, and spent months at Abbey Road recording their double-album, The Beatles (aka The White Album). But even before that album was released, they were planning what would end up as their post-breakup album and film, Let It Be. That disc was recently reissued by Apple/Capitol/UMe in a Super Deluxe Edition, and the film has been given a reimagining by Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson in the form of The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+. In Fall 1968, The Beatles announced to fans that they would play three concerts in London in October or November. Paul McCartney reached out to director Michael Lindsay-Hogg to ask…

THE FAST & FURIOUS franchise is going on two decades and showing no signs of slowing down with the 2021 release of F9: The Fast Saga and several sequels and spin-offs in the works. Vin Diesel headlines the familiar cast in this latest installment as Dominic Toretto, the leader of a gang of elite street racers who this time must recover a device code-named Aries to save the world from a devastating cyberattack. As with other F&F films, F9 is as much a story about family values as it is an action film that relies heavily on stunts and special effects. And F9 certainly delivers a dizzying array of the latter, including cars racing through a jungle and a Pontiac Fiero launched into space. The non-stop action starts with a flashback…

LOOSELY BASED on Enzo Castellari’s 1978 grindhouse gem The Inglorious Bastards, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds endures as one of the auteur’s most innovative works. Its twin stories follow a special team of Jewish-American soldiers on a Nazi-killing spree behind enemy lines and a young Jewish theater owner out for revenge in occupied France, all of whom intersect on one fateful night that leads to a gasp-inducing climax. This first-ever Ultra HD disc release of a Tarantino catalog title is a disappointment, offering minimal if any improvements over the 2009 regular HD Blu-ray, which is included in the package for easy comparison. Both appear sourced from the same 2K digital intermediate rather than a modern 4K remaster. Bright areas of the 2.39:1 image often look harsh and blown-out rather than showcasing…