6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Doc Jenkins is a singer/songwriter who tries to leave his singer/songwriter roots to be a music "mogul", and gets tangled up in a bad publishing deal.
Starring: Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Melinda Dillon, Rip Torn, Lesley Ann WarrenMusic | 100% |
Drama | 29% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
None
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Mill Creek has released Director Alan Rudolph's 1984 film 'Songwriter' to Blu-ray. The film makes its Blu-ray debut as part of the studio's line of releases featuring 'Retro VHS' slipcovers. The Blu-ray presentation is nothing to write home about, but it does deliver competent A/V quality. The release does not include any supplements. Read on for brief film, video, audio, and packaging reviews.
A star is born...
Songwriter's 1080p transfer struggles during the opening title sequence which is besieged by extraordinarily thick grain and excess print deterioration, but the image tightens up thereafter. The picture is far from perfect, but it settles into a generally filmic presentation with more evenly distributed and less dense grain, featuring well-rounded textural qualities that reveal intimate skin, hair, clothes, and environmental details with relative ease, though lacking the precise complexity found on the finest 1080p releases, catalogue or new release. Colors are fairly dim and dull, offering little zip or punch but defining essential elements well enough. Black level depth is decent within the image's fairly bland contrast, ditto flesh tones. As noted, signs of print deterioration remain throughout, and mild, but frequently evident, compression artifacts cover many backgrounds.
Songwriter's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack is fairly nondescript, offering a little more space and spread than some other aged tracks from Mill Creek. Musical clarity and vocal delivery, essential to the film's narrative, are delivered with satisfying stretch and detail, the former spreading to the edges and the latter finding a home in an imaged front-center location. A few localized sound effects are nicely defined across the front, wth a few more ambitious elements, such as a tour bus barreling down the road at the 13-minute mark, offering a good bit of stage engagement. Basic dialogue rarely struggles with clarity or prioritization and images to a relatively seamless front-center position.
Finally, a purpose for slipcovers! So often the collectible outer shell features the exact same artwork, front, back, and side as the Blu-ray case inside,
making them largely ornamental at best.
Occasionally embossing/debossing work adds a little variety but this reviewer has always pitched them in the trash, partly for that reason and partly
because doing so saves precious (albeit finite) shelf space, critical when one's collection is in the thousands. Mill Creek has taken a step to
make slipcovers a little more meaningful with this line of "Retro VHS" slipcovers that offer a shrunken-down approximation of a vintage rental store
copy
and also feature a portion of a VHS tape extending from the side of the case, even if most VHS covers were open at the bottom.
For Songwriters, the cover features a bit of
fake wear (creases, edge frays) and a red border around the box's edge. The box features a pair of stickers, one notifying of the film's R rating and the
other advertising that the film is a Drama, the former being slightly atop the latter. The front artwork is significantly
different than the Blu-ray case inside, which is a much less interesting and dynamic (though still vintage), but it's nice to have two different
artworks
available in one package. The main title sticker on the VHS tape reveals the film's title, some legalese, as well as the word "color." The
sticker shows some
handling wear, too. A "Be Kind Rewind" sticker has also been applied. Of course these are
not real stickers (it would be great if they were) but rather part of the print, and there's no texture to the cassette, either. Still, it's a
pretty nifty visual.
The rear side is a little less neat, keeping up with the vintage look at the top but showing a few necessary tech details on the bottom that correspond
to
the Blu-ray. The bottom side of the VHS tape is also visible. Humorously, a handful of Blu-ray disc logos appear on the front, rear, and spine to break
the illusion (though not entirely); the one on the front, situated at the top, in a fairly large size, is the worst offender.
What would be really cool would be if the entire box art mimicked the VHS cover and the Blu-ray artwork underneath entirely mimicked the
VHS tape, which could have easily been accomplished. That would offer more of a seamless illusion of actually pulling a VHS tape out of the package
rather
than it simply appear printed on part of the slipcover.
Note: Photographs of several other Mill Creek 'Retro VHS' slipcovers can be found here, here, and here. Because each slipcover offers the
same basic layout with only some
small unique identifiers distinguishing one from another beyond cover art, photos will not be included for every release in the line. Those linked images
do offer a good overview
representation of what to expect form this line.
As for on-disc supplemental content, there is none. This one at least offers a top menu screen, but its only
option is "Play."
Songwriter has the feel of a film in a very raw state, but at its center it's very complete. It's a simple tale of humanity in a much more
complicated world, about the music industry and the songwriting process but also about the people who operate in it. Willie Nelson is a revelation,
proving to be as talented an actor as he is a musician. Mill Creek's "Retro VHS" slipcover Blu-ray is itself a bit rough around the A/V edges, and no
bonus material is included. But the disc is priced to move, and the technical presentation serves the film well enough. Recommended.
Coming soon: '90s retro slipcovers!
1983
1971
1973
2012
1941
1963
1980
Wild and Willing
1965
1975
One Man Mutiny | Special Edition
1955
2019
1991
1979
Limited Edition to 3000
1984
2013
1975
2014
1981
1957
Limited Edition
1958