7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Ozzy Osbourne’s four-decade track record as a culturally relevant musical artist is unprecedented, but his personal struggles have been shrouded in myth and secrecy. Featuring never-before seen footage uncovered from the archives and interviews with Sir Paul McCartney, Tommy Lee, Henry Rollins, and others, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne is the first documentary to take viewers inside the mind and psyche of a legendary and timeless cultural figure.
Starring: Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Paul McCartneyMusic | 100% |
Documentary | 49% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080i
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: LPCM 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
You might be driven to drink and take copious amounts of mind altering drugs if your best known achievements were biting the head off of a bat and speaking incoherently. Of course, many would argue that drinking and taking copious amounts of mind altering drugs are what led Ozzy Osbourne to those questionable accomplishments. Osbourne is one of the oddest cultural icons of the past half century or so, a man who was “just another” heavy metal superstar, albeit one credited with helping put the genre on the map, but it actually wasn’t until his much publicized bouts with various substance abuse and his quasi-reality series The Osbournes became an unexpected hit on MTV from 2002 until 2005 that Osbourne seemed to achieve something approaching “lovable” status. The fact that he was able to do so while stumbling around bumping into things and mumbling in an idiolect that can only charitably be called actual speech makes his rise to the top of the pop cultural heap all the more amazing. God Bless Ozzy Osbourne is a rather riveting look at the long and winding road Osbourne has traversed, both in his heavy metal superstar days and the long slog toward sobriety afterward. Filmmakers Mike Fleiss and Mike Piscitelli, along with Ozzy’s own son Jack, who produced, capture an unvarnished look at Ozzy, one which includes both his peccadilloes as well as his saving graces—and, yes, there are some saving graces on display here. The problem with a “character” like Ozzy Osbourne is that the man has passed into something close to self-parody, quite a bit of it due to his own out of control behavior, and it’s therefore more than a bit difficult to obtain a semi-rational, clear headed picture of the actual person beneath the persona. But with help from Jack, the filmmakers were granted pretty much an “all access” pass to Ozzy for over four years, and the resulting portrait is surprisingly full blooded (no bat pun intended) and well rounded. God Bless Ozzy Osbourne may not completely convince nonbelievers that there’s an actual honest to goodness human being lurking somewhere beneath the heavy metal hoopla, but fans will certainly be delighted and even surprised at some of the details that emerge in this fascinating documentary.
God Bless Ozzy Osbourne is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision and Eagle Rock with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1 (for the most part). The contemporary segments of this documentary pop quite nicely in this high definition presentation, with excellent and accurate color and pleasing fine detail. There is also a wealth of archival material in various film stocks and aspect ratios, some of which frankly looks incredibly grainy, fuzzy and scratched, but which captures Ozzy and Black Sabbath in their prime. There is probably slightly more contemporary footage than archival footage throughout this documentary, so the bulk of this presentation looks rather sharp and presentable, though a couple of the weirdly lit concert sequences verge on posterizing now and then. The historical footage must be taken on its own terms and placed within a proper historical context. It's no great shakes from a quality standpoint, but it's fantastic to see some of this extremely rare footage nonetheless.
As is usually the case with these Eagle Vision/Eagle Rock releases, three audio options are included on God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, a DTS- HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix, an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo mix, and a standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. Both of the lossless mixes sound great, though potential viewers need to realize that this is really not a concert video of any sort, despite the fact that several nice, longer sequences of both Ozzy and Black Sabbath are included. Those segments offer really beautifully rendered fidelity, especially in the bombastic low end. But for the most part, this is a resolutely "talking heads" sort of piece, and all of the confessionals and interview segments are presented cleanly and crisply.
I must confess I'm not the world's biggest Ozzy Osbourne fan, and so I didn't come to this documentary with much hope. What a pleasant surprise God Bless Ozzy Osbourne turned out to be, though. Full of fascinating insight into the hedonistic lifestyle (and consequences thereof) of the modern rock star, but more importantly showing how even a troubled soul can come to a semblance of self understanding and rectitude, this documentary is especially fitting as a cautionary fable after the recent tragic death of Whitney Houston. Ozzy comes off as a frankly really cool elder statesman of rock. As that old Frank Sinatra tune said, he's made mistakes, regrets, he's had a few, but he did it his way. With good video and excellent audio and some appealing supplements, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne comes Highly recommended.
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