Rating: Summary: more than alright Review: the kids are amazing. this is a landmark film in rock biography. the stories of rock bands had not really been the stuff of feature films at that point. the movie effectively encapsulates what is special about the who with performances from the beginning to the last performances of keith moon. as other reviewers noted, the restoration of the film is stunning. this restoration is all the more evident thanks to special features on the second disk giving before and after examples to show how dramatic the improvements have been. this set is essential for fans of the band or classic rock in general. my only complaint is that there was a medley of songs from 60s tv shows that were edited together instead of being shown in their entirety including pictures of lily and magic bus. why not give us the whole clips? apart from that this collection is flawless.
Rating: Summary: don't have DVD Review: dON like technology, don have DVD or VIDs don like The hoo-ters but am content,
Rating: Summary: Long Live the Who! Review: Simply Astounding! One of rock's best documentaries has been given the 5 star treatment. The Who have never sounded or looked better! This classic film features some of the Who's best live performances, including the historic Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, as well as, a gigantic number of seminal television appearances including the explosive (literally) Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour appearance! The film also features many candid and revealing interviews with the Who during different stages of their career. And everything pertaining to the white whirlwind Keith Moon is simply marvelous. Whether sharing a laugh with Ringo Starr, dressing up in costumes, indulging in his love for surf music or trashing a hotel room, Keith's great sense of humor and eccentricities will bring a smile to your face and make you miss him more than ever! AND you get to witness Keith's last ever performance with the Who. It's very powerful and moving.If you are a Who fan and have not seen this film in years (as I hadn't), you have to buy this immediately! Not only has the film been restored to its original length but you get tons of bonus features on 2 DVD's! The film is in 5.1 Surround Sound and has optional subtitles detailing where each performance originates, director commentary, multiple camera angles on "Baba O' Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again", an isolated John Entwistle audio track, a documentary on the restoration process, an all new interview with Roger Daltry, a 32-page booklet (with lots and lots of information that is actually pertinent to the film) and so much more! All enclosed in a beautiful hardcover slipcase! Quite frankly, this is one of the best DVD packages I've ever bought. It puts most rock DVD's to shame. I hope it becomes the ruler by which all are rock DVD's are judged.
Rating: Summary: The who are alright! Review: Having seen the movie in the theatre, on VHS and Lasedisc, I expected somewhat more after having read all the raving reviews. The movie itself is great and I do not regret acquiring it. The Who were the greatest group of all time. However the second DVD is quite boring. I do not really find interesting to listen to the people having restored the movie. You should keep the first dvd and throw away the second one, even if there is some nice bonus material. Otherwiise the Who material is fantastic.
Rating: Summary: WHO'S GREAT? Review: The WHO is the greatest rock band ever. Some people say the Stones or Beatles or Led Zeppelin and I LOVE all of this great bands to. But for me the real Greates Rock band ever is The WHO and this GREAT DVD profs it to any one who whuld dissagre. No one will get dissapointed with this Fantastic Classic rock movie it's simply awsome. And all the extra stuff are realy great 2. buy it, you know you whont it.
Rating: Summary: Thank God for Classic Rock Review: This DVD deserves its title as one of the greatest rock documentaries of all time. It is a beautifuly edited collection of live performances, TV performances and interviews; opening with the infamous Smother's Brothers episode in which Keith exploded his drumkit. The sound quality is amazing, the performances (as you should expect from The Who) are phenomenal. Young Man Blues, See Me/Feel Me, and Won't Get Fooled Again stand out as my particular favorites. There is no sentimental narration to get in the way of the performances; only a few short interview segments and special inserts (ie- the promotional video for 'Happy Jack') I admit a certain bias towards this DVD because of the fact that I am a rabid Who fan, but I honestly believe that even a person new to The Who, who enjoys music, will love every second of this DVD. And if you, like me, were unfortunate enough to be born after The Who's prime, this DVD is the best subsitute available.
Rating: Summary: Get it now! This is ROCK! Review: Whatever the hell it is the Who play, it isn't rock. It's not. The musical tapestry spanned in Townshend's song writing is far too broad and varied to pigeonhole it with a genre label. His father played the music of his time. Townshend himself fell in love with the R&B singles that made their way to Britain from America. His mentor, Kit Lambert loved pop but also carried the influence of his father, Constant Lambert, a composer who worked in film and theatre. Lambert also loved the Baroque and Classical styles, all of which he passed on to Townshend. Townshend has his own ideas. All of it shows. This is not music of any one genre-it's a genre unto itself. But, when the Who plays it, it becomes rock. When they play it on stage it becomes the greatest and most powerful rock music imaginable. It was no surprise (not to Who fans anyway) that their DVD release from the fall 2000 show at the Royal Albert Hall was one of the most celebrated concert videos from that year. The band was firing on all cylinders on the 2000 tour and played at a level closer to what they achieved during their glory years than they'd ever managed since Keith Moon died. That alone was enough to put then back at the forefront. The "Kids are Alright" shows what it was like in the first place. It was the oddest of musical relationships. With the exception of the friendship between Moon and Entwistle none of them really liked each other, at least not in the early days anyway. Townshend's temper was enough to keep anyone away and everyone hated Roger. It reached a head in 1965 when they tossed Roger out for beating up Moon only to realize (to a man) that they were throwing away something that might go beyond anything any of them could imagine. It was their Waterloo and it happened before any of them passed twenty-one. It produced greatness. The Who had what it took to go places, always; everyone in the fold knew that. When they made that commitment they took it beyond what anyone could have dreamt. Throughout their (active recording) career they never followed a formula, never stopped pushing musical boundaries, and, in concert, always tried to do better than "last night". They became the most astonishing rock band ever to step on the stage. This film concentrates on showing that. It doesn't preach. There's no narration going through historic details. There's not even a chronological order to the piece. All it does is try to show the Who, and the ingredients that formed their magic to the world. The live footage is electrifying. The interviews are illuminating and hilarious. How could anyone (or anything) contain Keith Moon? How could an interviewer ever hope to step into the middle of the way the core group constantly challenged each other? They couldn't. This was four strong personalities merged into something larger than life. Their relationship wasn't harmonious but an outsider stepping into it found found themselves confronted with, the whole. When they stepped onstage that "whole" was what audiences got. Jeff Stein has been criticized for just "putting what was around" together. That's crap. Jeff Stein is a brilliant film maker who had the sense to let his subjects speak for themselves. That shows all the way through the film. You get the music, a sense of who the band are and a great sample of why their performances are the stuff of legend. How much more is needed? Get it.
Rating: Summary: a superbly restored film! Review: I first saw this film in 1979 shortly after its release and loved it.This restored version on DVD is beautifully done just as described on this site.Colors are sharper,sound quality is improved,overall film quality has been restored to like new.Also,lots of great DVD extras included.You will enjoy this DVD for many years to come.
Rating: Summary: Wow oh Wow! Gosh durn! Review: Dangit! what a great dvd! Man. What a great way to spend a few dollars! I got this one the other day from Amazon.Com and it was well worth my few dollars. Played it at 48 out of 50 volumn and I was made to rock. Anyone who has a complaint or a bad word about this one should be spanked severly by some very large women dressed all in leather and equipped with nasty bad attitudes.
Rating: Summary: What a great time it was! What a great time you'll have! Review: If you like watching the bands of your youth in their full glory, it doesn't get much better than this. Jeff Stein's tribute to his favorite band has always been a favorite of mine, even though as a kid I really wasn't much of a Who fan. This movie does what the director wanted it to do--it shows how,regardless of how ripped, how zonked, how crazy these guys were, they never lost the energy, especially when they played live. From a documentary standpoint, if the movie has any downpoint to it, it tends to skip over demons that are clearly at play here, or poke fun at them. Witness the clearly inebriated team of Moon and Ringo, probably the two most famous rock drummers ever, both trying to justify their drinking habits. Stein lets you draw your own conclusions, and we all know what happened to Keith. (Ringo, thank goodness, dried up eventually.) There are so many points here where you KNOW, from history, that Townshend is hopped up on heroin that you can't help but wonder if he'd have been just as good without it--or even better. Watching this now, one can marvel at what incredible genius we lost when Keith Moon died. He may well have been the only drummer ever to play the drums as a lead instrument. But here's the movie, here's a pile of extras (all very cool) and here's a recommendation that you pick this up right away!
|