| DVD VIDEO ANTHOLOGY REVIEWS |
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DVD Video Anthology |
| 2000 |
| DVD Video Anthology, review by Salon |
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Sooner than later someone was bound to produce a DVD that is essentially nothing but extras. The "Beastie Boys Video Anthology" is as close as you can get. The collection features 18 videos of roughly three minutes each -- less than an hour of back-to-back content. But there's so much additional stuff -- commentaries, alternate takes, storyboards, remixes -- that the "Anthology" takes up two discs. ("The Wizard of Oz," by contrast, with loads of documentaries, audio tracks and cut material, fits on one disc.) The accumulation is a fan's delight and an example of just how far you can go with DVD technology. It's also, hands down, the best, most obsessive rock 'n' roll video set ever produced. In their best videos, the Beastie Boys and their directors -- chiefly Nathanial Hörnblower and Spike Jonze -- have made little movies that spoof film genres. Perhaps most famously, "Sabotage" reproduces the look and feel of 1970s cop flicks. There's also "Intergalactic" (Japanese robot B-movies), "Body Movin'" (based on the 1967 Italian-French film "Diabolik") and "Hey Ladies" (a valentine to the pimpin' Dolemite). The lesser-known and older videos are mostly one-note theme pieces, gracefully executed. "Ricky's Theme" features the three rappers dressed up as old men playing basketball with some neighborhood kids. "Holy Snappers" clips together Super 8 footage of the superyoung Beasties in the early 1980s. The incredible "Shadrach" uses splotchy animation to turn a live concert into a moving painting. Almost all the videos, like Beastie rhymes, are packed with so many details and in jokes that they're worth watching a few times. The most striking visual feature of the DVD collection is all of the additional camerawork. Generally only porn videos have found a reason to use the DVD "angle" feature, which lets you switch between different footage on the fly. Here, you can use the feature while watching a video to switch among up to nine different cuts. For example, in "Shadrach" you can look at just the animation, the original live footage or a superimposition of the two. It's harder to get to the alternate music tracks on the fly, but there are zillions to choose from. The 18 songs come remixed 51 different ways, including live, a cappella and by Moby, Peanut Butter Wolf, Micky Finn and dozens of other artists. (A handy card provides a guide to all of the features, but the title menus are so clever that you don't really need it.) There are two commentary tracks that can be played with all the videos. (Bonus: Turn on subtitles and you get the lyrics.) The first is the band's and it's mostly worthless, like watching someone else's slide show: "That's Mike's sister's cat," there's so-and-so's apartment, "that's my Spanish teacher." The commentary track featuring a roomful of video directors and Beastie Adam Yauch is a bit more informative. Spike Jonze commands the affair: What was this video about? How long did it take to shoot? Who is that? Jonze also poses as an intern from the production company who prank-calls some of the directors, starting out serious and ending with questions like, "What are you wearing?" He's so silly, and he has so much energy, that you can see immediately why the Beasties like to work with him -- and why they seem to be having so much fun in all those videos. |
| DVD Video Anthology, review by MTV |
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I truly can't remember being as excited about a DVD coming out, and I truly can't remember a DVD that not only promised so much in its prerelease hype, but fully delivered with the final product. I am speaking of course about the Beastie Boys Video Anthology from the Criterion Collection, which is a collection of 18 music videos by the groundbreaking trio, spanning their career from 1989 to the present-- sorry, no Licensed to Ill videos here. These videos have a special place in my heart, because I remember watching a good portion of them on an old VHS video compilation called The Skills to Pay the Bills, back in my second year of college, right after Check Your Head came out. That album was so good and so well-received by just about everyone, it made people go back and check out the mostly overlooked Paul's Boutique album, which was so brilliant and so far ahead of its time (making hip-hop out of disco samples, in 1989, the era of Cherry Pie? Huh?) that it flopped. Anyway, the secret on the Beastie Boys has been out for several years now and they're one of the biggest bands in the world. But what makes me like them is that they've got just about the best sense of humor of any band I can think of (save perhaps Ween), as is proven by these videos.
Basically, the Beastie Boys' videos are great because they don't take themselves
too seriously, because the music behind them is killer, and because they fall
under three main categories of content that any red-blooded American male can
dig: The Beastie Boys lip-syncing in funny clothes ("Pass the Mic," "Alive," "Shake Your Rump," "Sure Shot," "So What'cha Want") The Beastie Boys' home movies, intercut with skateboarding and snowboarding footage ("Lookin' Down the Barrel of a Gun," "Holy Snappers" ) There are of course a couple of anomalies: the "Netty's Girl" video, which has to be my favorite, is perhaps the dumbest video ever made (therein, of course, lies its brilliance)-- it basically consists of Mike D. doing bad lip-sync to an even worse song while wearing a track suit and pedaling a paddleboat; "Something's Got to Give" is a montage of horrifying war footage; "Shadrach" is a live performance video that has been transformed into animation with highly stylized paintings; and "Three MCs and One DJ" is actually a live performance filmed in the band's New York basement rehearsal space. All of these videos basically serve to underscore the one undeniable truth about the Beastie Boys: They are living the life. They have become rich and famous doing nothing more than having a good time, all the time. Technically speaking, this is by far the best DVD I've seen, and all its components are so tightly interwoven (the content, the video, the audio, and the extras) that it seems wrong to break them out and review each one individually, though I will discuss each. Each video is available in numerous sound formats, with commentary, with subitled lyrics, with alternate angles, with remixes, and with supplemental info on each video. This thing is stacked. The way it works is very clever, although I may have difficulty explaining it. Here goes: each disc has nine videos on it. And each disc is divided into two halves: "Videos in sequence," which plays all the videos sequentially (duh), with the option for Dolby 2.0, Dolby 5.1, Band commentary, or director's commentary-- and these can be switched on the fly. The other half is "Videos with supplements," which is the same nine videos, only presented with extra features. The amount of extras varies across videos, but many of them have additional video footage (in some cases as many as nine different versions), multiple remixes of the songs (both of which can be accessed on the fly with the Audio Track and Video Angle buttons on your remote), and all the videos have information about the director, the location, the date of completion, and album and single covers images. Content-wise, this is a great collection as well, spread out pretty evenly across the band's last four albums, and featuring three videos that aren't from any albums (the punk-rock, pre-rap "Holy Snappers," the Mike D.-in-a-paddleboat epic "Netty's Girl," and the recent single "Alive"). The track listing is as follows:
Disc 1:
Disc 2: Did you get all that? No? Well don't feel bad, I've been playing these discs every chance I get for a week now and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. And that is the beauty of this product: it is not meant to be consumed in one sitting, or even in two or three-- it will give you hours and hours of Beastie love. As far as the actual audio and video quality go, they're right on the money. The video quality varies slightly between the "Videos in Sequence" section and the "Videos with Supplements" section-- the "in Sequence" videos looked a little better, I assume because the "with Supplements" videos occupy more bandwidth with all the angle and audio bells and whistles. Don't get me wrong, I still didn't have anything to complain about, the resolution just isn't quite as crisp. The audio is also very good-- although I have to admit that the 5.1 mixes of the songs did not take full advantage of the potential for separation and clarity the way, say, Yellow Submarine did. The back speakers were active, but didn't take the kind of equal role I'd hoped for. But that is truly nitpicking-- the way the disc changes audio tracks on the fly is awesome. There are also a couple of extra features I haven't even mentioned-- there is a little clip that is a fake show called "Ciao L.A.," featuring as guests the Beastie Boys as their "Sabotage" characters (actually, as the actors who played their "Sabotage" characters) ruminating on Burt Reynolds, bisexuality, and of course, stunts. ("Ciao L.A." is, by the way, hosted by Sofia Coppola and some other chick.) The original treatment for the "Sabotage" video is also included, and there are storyboards and photos and other making-of materials for a few of the other videos as well. I also haven't mentioned the commentary tracks-- there is a band track and a director track for each video. I have only listened to the band track so far, and it's pretty funny. Adrock wants some pizza, Yauch doesn't say much of anything, and Mike D. tries to remember what happened to the various articles of clothing he can be seen wearing. The bottom line is, this is truly the gift that keeps on giving. If you or someone you love digs the Beastie Boys, and owns a DVD player, you absolutely cannot live without this DVD. If you don't dig the Beastie Boys, well, why on Earth did you read this far? -- Alex Castle |