7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.6 |
Life Is But a Dream is an intimate portrait of multifaceted, 17-time Grammy Award-winning global entertainer and businesswoman, Beyoncé. Culled from her personal archives, video diaries, and live performances the film marks a pivotal year in her life and career filled with changes and personal discoveries. Life Is But A Dream includes the full documentary plus Live In Atlantic City, featuring performances filmed over four consecutive nights at Revel Casino Hotel in May 2012, with never-before seen performances including “Flaws And All,” “Love On Top” and “Schoolin’ Life”.
Starring: Beyoncé KnowlesMusic | 100% |
Documentary | 29% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: LPCM 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: LPCM 5.1
French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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