The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 1, 2019

It didn’t last very long (barely one season), and it was obviously modeled on the vastly more successful (in more ways than one) Modern Family, replete with lots of interrelationship misunderstandings and first person confessionals delivered directly to the camera, but The Michael J. Fox Show was often quite winning in its own distinctive way. One of my favorite episodes of the short lived series was when Michael decided to surprise his family with a little visit from Sting, who had been interviewed on the news show where Michael's character worked, though no one in Michael's family other than Michael seemed to know who he was, with Michael’s wife (played by Breaking Bad’s Betsy Brandt) outright mistaking him for other British music legends, repeatedly mentioning legendary songs that Sting had absolutely nothing to do with that she was convinced he had written and/or performed. It offered Sting a nice chance to cut loose from his sometimes pretty serious “artist” persona, and it was fun to see him be so self effacing and downright hilarious. There’s more of “that” Sting on tap in the engaging if perhaps unavoidably chaotic The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out, assembled from Stewart Copeland’s Super 8 “home movies”. In a bit of synchronicity (Police pun probably intended) which Copeland himself mentions in his narration during the documentary, after some time as a hardscrabble, up and coming musician, one of the first things he purchased when he had a little spare change in his pocket was the camera that caught all of the footage in the film (along with what is assumedly a lot more footage), at almost the exact same moment the band became an international sensation. The result is a rare if often only surface deep “fly on the wall” look at what it’s like to be in a band on the cusp of superstardom, with both the pluses and minuses such a designation brings with it.

In a way, fans of The Police may find out at least as much if not more about the actual band and its milieu from listening to the audio commentary by Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers as they will by anything actually shown or said in the film itself. Kind of curiously, Copeland seems to be content with assembling a largely random feeling assortment of candid moments, some of which are admittedly very engaging and will no doubt appeal to followers of the group. But there doesn’t really seem to be any point of view here, and Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out arguably could have used more shaping editorially and more than what amounts to “now this is happening” voicover by Copeland.

That said, there are some fun nuggets of information here, especially in the piece’s opening few minutes, where some of the pre-Police shenanigans of the band members are detailed. And there’s an undeniably sweet ambience to a lot of the interplay between the band and the crew, several of whom are in the Copeland family. The documenting of the band's rise happens almost by accident as Copeland shows screaming hordes trying to get their moment in the (selfie) sun with the trio, and there are some appealing sequences devoted to both recording and live performance, which ultimately may be more than enough to recommend the piece to Police fans, despite the technical limitations of the video which will be outlined below.

The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.77:1. As probably can be pretty easily gleaned from many (maybe all) of the screenshots accompanying this review, the source material simply doesn't lend itself to a totally successful transition to high definition, and while the provenance of this transfer isn't detailed, it certainly appears things were upscaled at some point in the process (for just one example, take a look at the edge of the table on the airplane in screenshot 6, though a quick perusal of other screenshots will reveal other examples). There are also combing artifacts noticeable due at least in part to the fact that Copeland was taking a lot of these shots on the fly, and so there's a fair degree of "jiggly cam". Clarity is marginal at best, and virtually non-existent at worst. As can also be readily made out in the screenshots, the grain field can be very splotchy and even look pixellated in some of the darker areas of the frame. Colors make it through the gauntlet relatively vividly, and the palette actually looks reasonably fresh and natural.

The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out features LPCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, with the disc authored to default to the stereo track, which frankly probably suffices just about as well as the surround track, given the fact that the music is sporadic and tends to often have narration over it. Both tracks sport nice fidelity, and there is considerable low end "oomph" in the surround track.

The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind Andy's Camel (1080i; 14:16) contain a bunch of snippets which I assume are deleted scenes. They've been authored so that you can access them separately, but only as a starting point (i.e., the disc moves on to the subsequent snippets automatically if there are any). Therefore, starting at Andy in the Car is essentially like having a "Play All" option.

  Andy in the Car

  Stewart vs. Sting

  Miles Sings "Every Breath You Take"

  Andy vs. Sumo

  Blondes Over Los Angeles

  Breakfast Cafe

  Obsessing Over Charts

  Tokyo Streets

  On Our Way Home

  End Titles Without Credits

• Live Shards (1080i; 10:20) does similar service for a bunch of live performance excerpts (none of the tunes is presented in its entirety). The authoring on this "batch" of supplements is exactly as outlined above.

  So Lonely - Orange, France

  Roxanne - Spain

  Can't Stand Losing You - Spain

  Roxanne - Federal Correction Institution Terminal Island*

  Fallout - Spain

  Landlord - Spain

  Truth Hits Everybody - Pink Pop Festival

  Truth Hits Everybody - Belgium

  Walking on the Moon - Belgium

  Message in a Bottle - Belgium

  * Note: Whoever authored the menu has this listed as Federal Connection Insitution, which I'm hoping is not an oblique reference to what they say about picking up soap in a prison shower.


• Audio Commentary features Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers and can be accessed under the Setup Menu or by toggling the Audio button on your remote.

The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The video on this release is in the "it is what it is" category, and so prospective consumers are encouraged to parse the screenshots accompanying this review to see how they feel about the visual side of things. There's also an underlying lack of focus (in more ways than one, actually) here that may bother some, but diehard Police fans (like yours truly) will almost assuredly find a lot to enjoy here, not the least of which is watching the band and crew be total goofballs. With caveats noted about video quality and a certain formlessness to the actual documentary, The Police: Everyone Stares — The Police Inside Out comes Recommended.