Home :: DVD :: Television :: MTV  

A&E Home Video
BBC
Classic TV
Discovery Channel
Fox TV
General
HBO
History Channel
Miniseries
MTV

National Geographic
Nickelodeon
PBS
Star Trek
TV Series
WGBH Boston
Bob Dylan - MTV Unplugged

Bob Dylan - MTV Unplugged

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 >>

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: it could have been better
Review: What we have here is the video replica of the self-titled 1995 live cd, with an identical setlist of songs extracted from 2 gigs at NYC Sony studios. The owners of the previous VHS tape edition can now throw it away or give it as a present to some annoying relative, and enjoy the four "new" songs (that do appear in the cd, they are 'Tombstone Blues', 'John Brown', 'Desolation Row', and 'Love Minus Zero/No Limit') and the improved image and sound (both PCM stereo & Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround) quality.

These differences with last century's tape version are boasted on the dvd cover as 'special features' (cheeky guys!) and, yes, that's all there is. No previously officially unavailable songs from the sessions have been added (big 'OOOH' here), nor anything at all anybody might have expected or fantasized with. The disc contains 4.20 Gb of information consisting in a 73 mins concert, and nothing else, that's all, folks. It neither has subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing which, given the state of Dylan's voice, might've been welcomed. But i know every word of the lyrics, and so do you. At least it's cheap, and cheaper than here in Spain, my dear lucky americans, i paid 17+ euros for my fresh copy.

As for concert itself ... well, we've all heard or seen it, don't you? ye fellow dylan-iacs. I quite like it, especially the totally plugged rocking acoustic guitars. Not your average mellow unplugged 'oh-but-we-are-sensitive-souls-deep-inside' concert, thanks Bob. The Major drawback is the cinematic quality itself: dull, unimaginative, repetitive. what can you expect from an awful channel such as MTV? the thing is filmed in a kind of loop of a few shots with lots of showoff dollys showing nothing interesting. the same shots over and over again. you can predict which will come next like with the lyrics of a bad song. Sometimes Bob starts a solo and boom! they cut to the bass player or something. maybe it's very avant-garde and i didn't get it. or maybe it's that i bought 'The Last Waltz' dvd the same day and watched bits of it before and, boy, 'The Last Waltz' is, simply put, the best filmation of a concert EVER made, and comparing the work of Martin Scorsese with that of some MTV director is well, like comparing the animation of Walt Disney's 'Pinocchio' with that of 'Beavis and Butthead'.


<< 1 2 3 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates