Purple Rain Speical Edition:

Well, I just received the 3 DVDs and after nearly destroying the Purple Rain DVD beacause I was trying to open it so fast, I whacked on disc 2 of Purple Rain first to watch these featurettes:

This features were very interesting I thought, amazing how great Wendy and Lisa looks these days! The execs were ok, but Albert crying was a little cringe worthy. I really loved the part where Wendy talked about how blown away she was when she first heard The Beautful Ones. They were both so likeable. It is obvious that they were a little pushed for footage that they could use, they show alot of stills from the film and even tourbook I think, and the footage of First Avenue was impressive. I like how they played into the whole First Avenue 'magic'. I am sure first Avenue will have even more visitors again now

It would have been nice to see some behind the scenes, but it seems there were no video cameras on set while the film was being made. That would have been something...

There were little nuggets of information I hadn't heard before, like there were scuba divers in the lake when Appolonia jumped in, in case she didn't come up again and things like there were 2 takes of each track with 4 cameras on each for the First Avenue performances.

It also did a great job of putting things into perspective with the success of the film and how this was something that took everyone by surprise, even Prince. I mean I guess as it was being made and the music was being written and performed they knew something special was being created and as the whole thing came together it started to hit them how special this album/movie/tour was going to be.

The MTV Premiere Party was a bit strange. I would have liked to have seen more of the stars arriving, and maybe speaking to fans outside, the interviews in the party were weird, and it's funny how amateur the MTV production really was back in 84. I mean, I like the truthfulness of it, it wasn't over the top, it was real. Thesedays, productions like this are full of hot air and little substance. It was nice to see. Some more quality footage would have been nice though.
It captured the spirit of the film I think though. A 1984 rock film. I loved seeing Prince walk in with Big Chick. The look on his face. Confident. Walking on air, floating. Like, yeah I am Prince the one and only. Make way. This is all about me and my music. Confident, not arrogant and also you see his vunerability even in real life. Quality of the footage is video tape quality from 1984, it doesn't look great, but surely it wasn't worth remastering footage of Wierd Al Yankovic

It would have been nice to see a featurette on the accolades that the film/album recieved, chart positions, single/album sales, concert ticket/box office and academy awards, mtv awards, grammys etc. Also it would of course been nice to see some insight into the making of the music in the film. But then this would require input from Prince, footage not available for legal reasons and of course it might risk taking away from the enigma of it.

The music videos are cool, the Appolonia one is so funny!

Disc one, animated nicely, capturing the PR style. But the most important thing is, the film looks GREAT. Cleaned up beautifully, very few artifacts on the screen, crisp resolution, loads of detail and colour depth and blacks are black. The bit rate is nice too, no strobing or stuttering. It runs smooth and looks amazing on a big screen lcd/plasma.

It sounds great too, I am so glad they didn't attempt to 5.1 split it into discrete channels, i mean the music. The music sounds great and rich and clear.

Overall, this is the best I have seen PR since I saw at the movies back in 90 when Graffiti Bridge was out and my local cinema re-ran PR on the big screen. Even then, it didn't look anywhere near as clean as it does on this remastered DVD.

I am very impressed. Yes it would have been nice to have a booklet, and perhaps some more bits and pieces. The Strange Tales from the Rain 2LP set does a nice job with artwork and it would have been nice to see something like that in this set.

I haven't listened to the commentries and probably won't but I will invite my young (26-28 yo) friends over soon for a Purple Rain night and see what they make of it. They probably won't appreciate the treatment the film has been given, but I sure do. This is the one to keep and cherish. This is what DVD is all about. Nice job.

Under the Cherry Moon

Well, firstly, no animated menus, the art isn't really in complete theme with the film, it would have been nice to see a stylish, lavish style of 20's French menus, oh well.

The music videos look dreadful!! Mountains has bad bleeding and pixellation around the objects on screen. Damn, my VHS version is better than this! I am not sure what the problem is, has the original footage been damaged? Has it been captured digitally without proper equipment? Man, what a bummer. Anyway, I guess if the film was treated Purple Rain style, these would have been fixed up as well. In this case, they don't look great.

The trailer looks cool, better quality than previously seen. That voice over script is so corny though... My god...

The film looks ok. Ok, it looks better than my old VHS version but there are artifacts all over the screen and quite a lot of them, I don't think the B & W helps mask them very well. So the visual noise and graininess of the film some could argue adds to the film in some arty way, I personally would have liked to see it cleaned up, but let's face it, the studio wouldn't sell anymore copies of this DVD even if they went to that very expensive process.

Overall, this is the best we could have hoped for on this 'FANS ONLY' film. I love the film, especially after a joint, I laugh my ass off. Prince was onto something with this one. Can't say the same for GB I am afraid.

Graffiti Bridge

Music videos look much better, not great, but due to the superiority of the video recording and media storage technology from 1990, we can and should expect to see much better music video quality. These have survived well. The Question of U is a great performance and worth a look.

The trailer is also pretty nice to have, it is quite dated and shows that Prince was targetting the Purple Rain 2 expecting audience. I love the Graffiti Bridge album, but to me it was and always will be that, an album. Not a soundtrack.

This film, looks clean and much less graininess and artifacting than UTCM, there are nice colours and contrast in the footage and the resolution detailing is fairly good. Actually I would have to say better than I thought. The whole film looks soft and this is clearing an camera/post production effect that has been added to some scenes, such as Joy in Repitition and the scenes with Ingrid Chavez. Some other scenes such as those with The Time sitting around the table eating hot chillies are bright colourful and crisp.

However, if you look at GB from a musical creative POV, GB is in it's own way, a real trip. Prince's dream sequences are well done and no doubt this music and seeing Prince perfom in such a controlled, articulated and coreographed way, such as Tick Tick Bang and Still Would Stand All Time, leave you feeling uplifted and yet again impressed with his rare talent.

Overall the film isn't one I will watch over and over again, some of the acting and script is terrible but the film is a real Prince fan. He forced this film to the screens and although it wasn't received well, even by some fans, it is part of his history and includes some incredible music and shows some of Prince's creativity visually and some performances are captivating.

This DVD is again one only for the fans but now we can watch it on DVD and enjoy the quality of sound and visuals.

I hope you enjoyed reading my mini reviews. I don't normally do this but after checking the DVDs out I was compelled to. I am an old school Prince fan and I love this music as much as anyone. Peace. Funk x

Well does anyone like the reviews?

good reading, nice job.