Something Borrowed, Something Blu: New Blu-ray Classics at the Knox County Library

In Movies & TV, Shelf Life by Chris Barrettleave a COMMENT

Readers of a certain age can probably remember the anguish involved in converting their music collections from vinyl to CD. Every digital reissue of a title that you already owned set off an internal debate—whether the manufacturer deserved more of your money, and whether you required this remastered version plus bonus tracks. But well-chosen Blu-ray discs contain so much new detailed information, and look so fantastic, that adding them to a collection that already contains a DVD of the same title doesn’t seem the least bit redundant.

Back to the Future: Trilogy (2010)
This set commemorates the 30th anniversary of the original film, which holds up impressively well. Back to the Future has been duly embraced as an original teen-hero flick and as above-average comic-book sci-fi. Writer/director Robert Zemeckis borrowed heavily from resources much more familiar and beloved yet less immediately obvious. A lot of the action and physical comedy is right out of Looney Toons—a fact most revealed in Back to the Future Part III, set in the wild west, where we see Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) skidding sideways into the frame in clouds of dust, a la Wile E. Coyote. And all of the philosophical attention to how one’s choice of action or inaction impacts the future originates, for many of us, in golden-age Frank Capra and It’s a Wonderful Life.

My Fair Lady (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965)
The costumes, sets, and overall art direction for My Fair Lady are stunning in high definition. Audrey Hepburn is eye candy, whether cockney or cultured. And pompous Rex Harrison intimidates from the grave. The so-called singing is interesting if not great: Hepburn’s singing voice belongs to Marni Nixon, while Harrison’s musical mumbling style belongs as much to Bob Dylan as it does musical theater. The best musical numbers—“I Could Have Danced All Night” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”—sounded better after they were adopted by bebop. The Sound of Music, released a year later, is superior in nearly every regard, from the luscious location scenery to the Rodgers and Hammerstein songbook. Julie Andrews nails the singing plus the role of unsinkable governess via convent. (Tit-for-tat granted: Christopher Plummer’s singing voice was mostly overdubbed.)

The Decline of Western Civilization
This trio of Los Angeles music documentaries by Penelope Spheeris is a conundrum. It owes a bunch of its reputation to the fact that the individual films have so often been unavailable. The filmmaker, bless her heart, was a terrible interviewer. (“Why are you on the floor?” she asks Exene Cervenka in Decline I.) But no matter how many superficial flaws you care to list, the fact remains that these films capture numerous fleeting moments in music that affected almost all pop music that followed them. And some of these Spheeris interviews are the only recorded conversations with too many of these musicians, who died before they even figured out what it was they were trying to communicate.

Chris Barrett's Shelf Life alerts readers to new arrivals at the Lawson McGhee Library's stellar Sights and Sounds collection, along with recommendations and reminders of staples worthy of revisiting. He is a former Metro Pulse staff writer who’s now a senior assistant at the Knox County Public Library.

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