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Dom Robinson reviews
Pinnacle Records
- Cat.no: IX 1508 ESUKD
- Cert: E
- Running time: 52 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): 2, 4, PAL
- Chapters: 13
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: French, German, Spanish
- Widescreen: 1.78:1
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Behind the Scenes, Promo Spots, Location Footage, Just the Music,Biography
Director :
- Alan Carter
Producers :
- Danny Harris and Jamee Younger-Tenzer
Buy from 
Shawn Colvin – the greatest singer/songwriter who never made it big in the UK.
ImagineSheryl Crow,but without the annoying inclusion of All I Wanna Do, since there’s nota duff track ever written/performed by Ms Colvin. Sadly, though, this is nota DVD that does her justice and will not bring her any new fans, for a greatnumber of reasons.
Firstly, your twenty quid gets you a mere 52 minutes of music and chat in whatamounts to no more than a VH1-style “Behind the Music” programme as Shawngets back to nature in the back of beyond. A full concert would’ve been muchmore appropriate, comprising of her many great classics such as Steady On,Get Out Of This House, One Cool Remove, her excellent slightly-adaptedcover of the Police song, Every Little Thing He Does Is Magic, plus thetimeless, laidback melody, Sunny Came Home, the only one of thesetracks to feature here.
The other musical highlight is a cover of Crowded House’s easy-going, butlittle-known, Private Universe. However, you rarely get FULL songsbecause they’re interrupted with Colvin waffling on about the place she’sgone to for a free holiday.
Secondly, what exactly is she doing in Bora Bora? The billing states that shewants to discover the culture, history and spirituality of both Bora Bora andTahiti. Fine, save that for a regular TV documentary, but here it just gets inthe way of the music.
The full list of tracks included are :
1. Opening; Polaroids
2. Bora Bora
3. Private Universe
4. Local Ukulele Band
5. Anywhere You Go
6. Diamond in the Rough7. Kill the Messenger; Cascade Puraha, Tahiti
8. Farehape Marae
9. Tennessee
10. Nothing Like You
11. Catch the Wind
12. Sunny Came Home
13. Whole New You; End Credits
Third problem. While it’s been filmed in 16:9 widescreen, it’s not anamorphic.Non-anamorphic widescreen went out with the ark when it came to DVD – it’s justnot done anymore. It happened a number of times in the early days of DVD backin 1998/99, but now we’ve embraced a new century it’s time to get with thetimes.
It’s also a bit on the blurry side at times because of a mediocre NTSC-to-PALconversion. That probably explains why it’s non-anamorphic because widescreenTVs are not prevalent in the US.
The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, but for the soft, undemandingmusic Shawn Colvin is playing, it’s not one that demands all six speakers andso wouldn’t sound any different in stereo.
For a fourth problem,you know there won’t be much to the extras when the first one, Behind theScenes is a little over five minutes long. It doesn’t really tell you anythingthat they couldn’t have mentioned during the programme itself. Promo Spotsis less than a minute of Shawn recording announcements for the programme’spremiere on DirecTV in the US.
Location Footage (9½ mins) goes into more detail about theplace, whereas Just the Music takes you direct to those tracks in thefilm. Finally, the Biography is just a few pages of text about her. Allof these extras are things you’ll look at once and that’s it.
The menus are all static and silent and none of the subtitled languages arein English, which kind of misses the point there.
All in all, a DVD I was looking forward to, becomes one to avoid.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.