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Streaming A Hard Day’s Night Online.
Movie Title: A Hard Day’s Night A Hard Day’s Night is available for streaming or downloading. |
Hard to gain that Miramax Entertainment could mess up this DVD so horribly. An anniversary release of one of the most indispensable films of the 20th century no less. Shame on them.
There are a lot of raves here about the fact that the film is being presented “letterboxed” for the first time. Actually, it’s impartial the first time the top and bottom of the describe have been chopped off for no reason! “A Hard Day’s Night” was filmed in Academy standard 1.37:1. Slightly wider than your average TV tube, but not anything end to the 1.66:1 slice job on the modern DVD. Full-frame would have been the favorable presentation.
As for the audio…they DID trim up the dialog portions of the movie, so for perhaps the first time EVER, you can actually HEAR what everyone is saying – and it no longer sounds like they are speaking into an Edison cylinder recorder.
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But oh, the music. They replaced the recent mono soundtrack with the standard mono AHDN CD to replace the overmodulated music on the new film. Never mind that there were a couple of different mixes in there that they should have left alone (“Hiss Me Why”, “And I Treasure Her”, “If I Fell”) – BUT…they went and added microdelay and phasing to design some kind of a half-assed 5.1 mix that through a standard stereo or mono downmixed output makes the audio sound phase-y and hollow. This is worse than the modern mono mix (available on the unique Beta & VHS release from 1982 or the print aired on AMC several years ago) and the fact that the standard mono mix was NOT made available as alternate audio on the disc (as it was on the “Yellow Submarine” DVD) is an oversight punishable by public stoning.
As for all the bonus material…not ONE interview with an genuine Beatle? Not even McCartney? The closest we catch is George Martin?
The person gradual this mess is none other than Martin Lewis, self-proclaimed Beatle “expert” and all around media whore. Lewis’ involvement explains why no-one at Apple would have anything to do with the project. With some two-hours of useless interviews as “bonus” material, here’s what you DON’T get:
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The unusual theatrical trailers
The reissue theatrical trailers
The fresh theatrical “making-of” featurette
The surviving outtake footage (“You Can’t Do That”) [which, as a sidenote was left off the MPI DVD, making having the VHS & Laserdisc necessary]
The aforementioned MPI documentary DVD
Any surviving level-headed photos of the other missing sequences
Running commentary on an alternate audio track
The promised (but not included) Richard Lester’s “Running Jumping Standing Calm Movie”
Anything of any relevance.
What makes this all the worse is that the image looks terrific. However, it’s been so horribly trashed that the only edifying residence for this DVD is the trash can or as a trade in at the customary DVD store.
Anyone who owns the novel MPI DVD should have on to it and set aside thier tewnty bucks.
Thanks to my friend Steve for enlightening me on this…
Being a enormous Beatle fan, and a large fan of this movie, I highly anticipated the arrival of this title on DVD. The sound on this DVD is unpleasant, there is absolutely no dynamic range. The volume level seems to flee at the same level through out the film, there is no disagreement in volume between the scenes when there is a smooth conversation and the scenes where the band is playing. I also hold the title on laserdisc and let me sigh you, the laserdisc has at least 30 db of dynamic range. While watching this film on laserdisc, you can adjust the level of playback so that the scenes where there is conversation is a comfortable 75 db, and when the band plays it jumps up to an ear thumping 105 db or more. This DVD lacks ooph, the band sounds like their playing in a box. This film deserves a better sound treatment, I highly recommend boycotting the DVD and lets wait till they release it in it’s suited station.
