Arturo Beneditti Michelangeli - Beethoven/Schubert/Brahms DVD

Advantages: Live footage
Disadvantages: Not official

...Ramones The ramones were a punk rock band from America. They played 2,263 gigs and toured non stop for nearly 22 years. Their songs are short and usually clock in under the three minute mark. They all took stagenames with the surname Ramone, although none of them were related. Within eight years of their breakup, three of the founding members had died. The true Story As you may have guessed, this is the true story of the Ramones. It stars founder member Tommy Ramone, tour manager Monte. A. Melnick, art director Arturo Vega and founder and owner of CBGB's, Hilly Kristal. It includes rare broadcasts from Joey, Deedee and Johnny Ramone that have not been released on DVD before. It shows the story behind the history and music of the Ramones. My opinion As another unoficial release, this one is pretty good. I havn... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Superb production, fascinating footage, great music
Disadvantages: None whatsoever apart from wanting more

...others. Some of the conductors featured are Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Thomas Beecham, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Richard Strauss, Leopold Stokowski and Bruno Walter to single out a few names. Right from the opening of the documentary you realise the high quality of the production values on this DVD as Beethoven's 5th Symphony segues seamlessly between different performances by very different conductors. Hearing the same piece conducted by Toscanini, von Karajan, Klemperer and Szell heightens the contrasts between the styles and interpretations of each of these highly individual maestri. One of the big plus-points of this DVD is that along with copious extracts from performances and rehearsals, one is given complete performances of several works including Beethoven's "Egmont Overture" conducted by Serge Koussevitzky... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: The return of the sex comedy
Disadvantages: Very low budget

...a gripping storyline, but because it was like a time warp for me, these sort of sex comedies were everywhere in my youth when I was being "dragged" up and if it existed you could pretty much guarantee I had seen it. These movies were often of a very cheap nature, but at least shot on film so they did not look quite as cheap as this offering. Some of the performances in the movie are horrendous most notably Salvatore Crivelo who plays Arturo Silver's father, an actor who did nothing on screen before Gettin It and at the time of writing after, if anyone's career has ended as soon as it began its Crivelo's and regardless of your views of the movie I'm sure all would agree that this is one of the most terrible performances of all-time. It's unlikely that any of the cast you would have heard of least alone Patrick Censoplano who plays Silver... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful