HTF REVIEW: Chicago - Razzle Dazzle 2-disc SE, DAZZLINGLY RECOMMENDED - Page 3

Well then, a musical for people who hate musicals, not a musical for people who like musicals??

Re the PQ, I personally wouldn't rate it better than mediocre, maybe a 3. On my scale. I just didn't like it, even for a 2-year-old Miramax transfer, regardless of no nasty artifacts. There are just so many better transfers, even crap movies from some studios look better. To me.

Now, I don't want to start anything, but I tried to find out: I have a Canadian version from a "studio" that is high on the screwing-around list for titles. I think "we" got all the same audio...I'm a little unclear if the French is DD5.1 on the US version (is on the Can.). But this studio has previously put a US double-layered disc on a single layer for Canada, for example. I think you see what I'm getting at... And David is so fussy about rating PQ that I have to wonder what I have now. Maybe somebody else in Canada will say that I just don't like the pic style, or else maybe agrees we got a "modified" transfer.

Edit: Hmmm, I guess I just don't like the piccy after all. Read David's review of the previous disc, and his basis for high rating (it's essentially the same transfer apparently) which sounds reasonable. Oh well, can't like 'em all...we all have different stuff that annoys us too (I also dislike recorded music that has this "haze" over it, also hard to describe).

Edit again: noticed a disproportionate number of inferred queries about the PQ in the original Chicago disc review from Canadians. Nobody pursued it, but one asked about the VIDEO file size...must have been thinking like me: not very good PQ, has it been compressed more for Canada? Whatever, it's sure nothing to get excited about.

That'd be me! I don't normally like musicals, though I've enjoyed some like Singin' in the Rain and My Fair Lady. I did dig Chicago too.

But I'm not enthusiastic about this "Razzle Dazzle" DVD. I didn't get a whole lot from the extras - they're decent but not overly compelling...

Didn't see KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN on Broadway, did you?
Stroman, to me, seems to be the hack who was in the right place at the right time (and if the postings on ALL THAT CHAT are to be believed, I'm not in a minority here). I have yet to see anything dazzling, creative or original on Stroman's part - and believe me, she worked here in Pittsburgh, as did both Marshalls (Rob and his sister). Rob Marshall's staging of SHE LOVES ME at the Roundabout Theater in NYC was sublime; Stro's work on THE PRODUCERS (on stage) screamed "MEL BROOKS!" right down to the swastikas on the pigeons, and with Brooks (and Stanely Donan) working on the film with Stro, it sure sounds like direction by committee to me.
Rant over; just have never catered to anything Stroman has done.

Agreed TonyDale!
Putting Fosse and Stroman in the same sentence is a sacrilege.

Fosse's films offer some of the best editing skills EVER, right up to his sadly underrated STAR 80.

I love that "intercut", staccato narration that guys like him or Nicolas Roeg and John Boorman to some extent used so often in the 70's and early 80's.