Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Beyoncé: Life is But a Dream / Live in Atlantic City Blu-ray Movie Review

Dream a little dream of her.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 26, 2013

Beyoncé gave an early (“surprise!”) Christmas present to her legion of fans when she rather unexpectedly released her new album and an astounding seventeen music videos at the midnight hour on Thursday, December 12. In a world of increasing hype (sometimes in inverse proportion to the actual talent of the so-called “artists” involved), this was an absolutely daring gambit that nonetheless has been paying off rather handsomely for this business savvy superstar. That same business savvy is probably at least partially (and maybe a lot more than merely partially) responsible for Beyoncé’s new two Blu-ray release, which combines her 2013 autobiographical documentary Life is But a Dream (which she not so coincidentally directed and produced), along with a separate concert disc featuring footage from her 2012 appearance in Atlantic City. Beyoncé seems to be that rare kind of artist (and, yes, even a curmudgeon like I am thinks she deserves that appellation) who combines unquestioned technical mastery in terms of her voice (not to mention her dancing), along with a very smart approach to marketing herself and keeping her image fresh in the public’s eye. Contrast Beyoncé’s mostly squeaky clean image with that of, say, Justin Bieber, a kid who seems hell bent on offending as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. Life is But a Dream is probably at least as self-serving as some of Bieber’s self-approved (if not self-shot) documentaries, but there’s not the same level of smarmy self-adulation that seems to be part of the young male superstar’s innate vocabulary. Beyoncé seems to be well balanced between knowing that she’s worked incredibly hard to achieve her success, but also understanding at the same time that she’s been unbelievably lucky at the same time. The concert footage here proves that all of her hard work has certainly paid off, for she remains one of the most viscerally compelling music stars in the business.

Life is But a Dream

Movie: 3 stars
Video: 3.5 stars
Audio: 3.5 stars

This 2013 HBO documentary is patently self-serving, but is also fascinating and quite compelling in equal measure. Beyoncé is seen in both traditional interview settings (sitting on her couch in her family mansion, for example), but also in more casual “first person” confessionals like talking to her computer (evidently one of her favorite pastimes). Life is But a Dream is fairly introspective as these things go, but it also smacks of a kind of “celebutainment” where real life traumas are trotted out in front of an adoring public, ostensibly to make the star seem more “human”. Chief among these aspects is the simmering dysfunction between Beyoncé and her father, which culminated in Beyoncé firing him as her manager. The fact that Life is But a Dream intercuts the adult Beyoncé calmly announcing that she “just had to let him go” with home movie scenes her father took of Beyoncé as a child seems positively cruel in a way.

There’s even more angst injected into this drama with a sequence devoted to Beyoncé’s attempts to have a baby. Perhaps unavoidably for a life lived this fully in the spotlight, her various problems with pregnancy become fodder for various rumor mills, which the star addresses here in a heartfelt but again perhaps more than slightly exploitative way. Beyoncé’s well publicized miscarriage is handled here as much as yet another “inspiration” for a song as it is for any putative humanizing of the star. And of course we’re privy to heartwarming scenes of Beyoncé mothering the child she eventually did give birth to (with that pregnancy appropriately documented on the MTV Video Music Awards, of course, footage of which is included here.)

And herein lies both the allure and the problem facing viewers (whether fans of Beyoncé or not) who watch Life is But a Dream. When you’re dealing with an artist this obviously smart and aware of her image (not to mention how to promulgate it out into the world at large), you just can’t help but feel that most of this documentary is just another micromanaged photo opp, albeit with trace amounts of heart tugging confessional data thrown into the mix for good measure. The best parts of Life is But a Dream are some of the unrehearsed segments—snippets of home movies, a family get together where they seem to be scrapbooking—while the rest of the piece just seems like the video equivalent of an Us Weekly feature on the singer.

Live in Atlantic City

Movie: 4 stars
Video: 4 stars
Audio: 4.5 stars

It’s probably a more than a little ironic that it seems like the “real” Beyoncé is more in evidence in the glittering, glistening high tech wonderment from the singer’s 2012 appearance in Atlantic City, rather than the deglammed, bathrobe wearing woman on display in Life is But a Dream. This is the dream, this concert seems to be saying, and it easily invites Beyoncé’s huge fan base to experience it right along with her.

Anyone who has either seen Beyoncé live or experienced her vicariously through her previously released concert videos like Beyoncé: The Beyoncé Experience Live, Beyoncé: I Am... Yours. An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas and Beyoncé: I Am... World Tour, will know more or less what to expect with Live in Atlantic City. This is big, glitzy entertainment with a kind of Vegas edge—lots of lights, production numbers with military precision dance moves, outrageous costumes and, almost as an afterthought, a nontop array of propulsive music.

The set list for the concert is:

1. End of Time
2. Get Me Bodied
3. Baby Boy
4. Crazy in Love
5. Diva
6. Naughty Girl
7. Party
8. Dance For You
9. Freakum Dress
10. I Care
11. Schoolin’ Life
12. 1 + 1
13. Flaws and All
14. Countdown
15. Run the World (Girls)
16. I Was Here
17. I Will Always Love You
18. Halo
19. Single Ladies
20. Green Light
21. Love on Top

Beyoncé: Life is But a Dream / Live in Atlantic City Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Life is But a Dream is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer with a variety of aspect ratios as befits its many source elements, though with the bulk of the documentary being in 1.78:1. The vast array of sources means there are quality differences automatically built into this presentation. The contemporary interview segments look fine (if not especially well saturated—see screenshot 1 for an example), while everything from childhood home movies to what looks like iPhone videos offer markedly less quality and definition. Baselines like contrast, black levels and even color accuracy are all over the map here, due again to the many sources. A lot of this presentation is on the soft side, with only the concert footage (culled from Live in Atlantic City) really popping in any meaningful way.

If Life is But a Dream sometimes offered aspect ratios as narrow as 1.2:1, Live in Atlantic City is presented in the almost absurdy wide aspect ratio of 3.29:1 (that is not a typo). I'm frankly at a loss to explain this decision, which results in making the visual presentation of this otherwise viscerally exciting concert look like a sash or ribbon running horizontally across the middle of your flatscreen display or projector screen. That said, the image here is really sharp and appealing looking, with really inky black levels and solid contrast. There are some very minor issues like moiré that crop up despite the progressive presentation, but they're transitory and not very distracting at all. Colors are vivid and accurate looking and fine detail is very good in the few shots where the camera gets close enough to really reveal anything.

Note: The odd numbered screenshots come from Life is But a Dream, and the even numbered ones comes from Live in Atlantic City. You'll note that screenshot 5 is one of the brief snippets of the Atlantic City concert included in Life is But a Dream.

Beyoncé: Life is But a Dream / Live in Atlantic City Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both of the discs in this set feature LPCM 2.0, LPCM 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio (for the record, the subtitle specs listed above pertain only to Life is But a Dream—the concert Blu-ray has no subtitles). The audio on Life is But a Dream seems mixed rather low, at least to my personal tastes, and the 5.1 mix offers little in the way of surround activity aside from a few ambient environmental effects and the fairly skimpy snippets of concert footage. The rest of the piece consists almost solely of Beyoncé either being interviewed or engaging in first person voice over, and in that respect, the three tracks are virtually interchangeable and all suffice perfectly well. The concert video is where the LPCM 5.1 track really shows it stuff, with a bristling account of Beyoncé's terrifically exciting live performance. While audience noise is perhaps a bit too present at times, the mix is otherwise startlingly clear at times, with a really fulsome low end that gives great immediacy to Beyoncé's dance oriented hits. Her voice is always mixed well on top of the sometimes hugely massed background instrumentation and backup singers. Fidelity is superb on this disc, with wide dynamic range.

Beyoncé: Life is But a Dream / Live in Atlantic City Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no on disc supplements included on either of the two Blu-rays in this set. There is an insert with a code so that Beyoncé's "exclusive" new song "God Made You Beautiful" can be downloaded.

Beyoncé: Life is But a Dream / Live in Atlantic City Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans are no doubt going to snatch up this collection of two films no matter what some mere critic says, but as self-serving as Life is But a Dream may be, Live in Atlantic City proves that there's actually some "there" there, so who am I to complain? The video quality of the documentary is highly variable, and while the actual video quality of the concert is excellent, its ridiculously wide aspect ratio is a head scratcher. Taken as a whole, though, this two-fer comes Recommended.