Although the picture and sound quality of this DVD are pretty abysmal, you might as well get this version, since it's fairly cheap and is the only way you're going to see this controversial Beatles fim (other than in chopped-up YouTube segments).

All the hype over the new remastered versions of the Beatles' canon, along with the Rockband version of the songs, seems to ignore aspects of the Beatles' career that the powers that be would like us to forget--namely, both "Magical Mystery Tour" and the film of "Let It Be" (which was slated for re-release on DVD at one point, but was shelved indefinitely because it was deemed to be bad for their image). I suspect "Magical Mystery Tour" is being ignored by Apple because it was the band's first major creative misstep. In fact, some people still regard MMT as the worst thing the band itself ever did (not counting the John and Yoko avant-garde albums of 1968-69, George's "Wonderwall Music" and "Electronic Sound," or Ringo's first solo effort). This is a shame, since the film itself, though seriously flawed, does bear viewing, and might be a little more palatable if the quality of the DVD print were better. This version has the feel of a DVD made from an old VHS tape, which in turn was itself made from a scratchy print, not the original negative (or even taped off the TV, bootleg-style!). Sure, there is no plot to speak of, but the separate sketches, while often utterly baffling (you have to watch the "Sgt Spinetti" sequence a couple of times to get the gist of it), also display weirdly Pythonesque qualities (John looks and sounds like Eric Idle both in his ticket-seller and his magician roles), and--occasionally--reveal flashes of brilliance. Besides, there are the songs, two of which ("Fool on the Hill" and "I Am the Walrus") are undisputed classics, and the rest are listenable and enjoyable ("Your Mother Should Know" arguably works better with the 1940s-style choreography that Paul (I'm guessing) devised for it in the film).

One more thing I haven't seen discussed: the photograph-and-synopsis book that was included with the original double-EP (and US LP) version of MMT offers a radically different version of the film than what was actually shown. Sequences are rearranged, often with far less logic than what the synopsis implies. In the film, a scene involving lunch and a dream sequence with Happy Nat are totally missing; on the other hand, the synopsis makes no mention of the Jessie/Mr Bloodvessel subplot which is actually one of the film's...um...highlights. Even odder, the album package has the little girl, Nichola, who sits with John on the bus, say "No, you're not!" to his line, "I am the walrus"--tho' this is nowhere in the film, either (it seemed important enough to include her line not only in the synopsis, but also in a handwritten note underneath the song's title in the album's list of contents). My guess is that the album package was prepared while the film was being edited, since the US album was released on November 27 (the UK EP came out December 8), and editing work wasn't completed until the beginning of December. Could the album's synopsis represent a rough cut that was, perhaps, too long for TV, but closer to what the Beatles might have decided was the best version? In all honesty, the synopsis seems a bit more coherent, and probably would make a better film. We know that the 10 hours of footage shot for MMT have survived--it might be interesting, some day, to see an extended version of MMT as it might have been determined while the album package was being prepared. The 55-minute TV version is a chaotic mess; who knows what some restoration and re-editing might not achieve?

If you think you know the Beatles' music, think again: the mono mixes presented here reflect not only the way the albums were originally mixed, but reflect also the way all the singles released in Britain were originally presented to the public. This new box set amounts to nothing less than a restoration of the Beatles' original ideas for their recordings, and, I think, a radical re-thinking of the Beatles you thought you knew. That may be unsettling for some, but it's exciting to try to hear some very familiar music in new ways.

Some of the stereo mixes found on Past Masters 1 and 2 and the second half of the Magical Mystery Tour album were drawn from US or even German and Australian (!) releases, although EMI in Britain presumably did the mixing. In the case of "The Inner Light," no stereo version was available until Past Masters; "You Know My Name" only ever appeared in mono. It has long been known that many of the stereo releases of the earliest Beatle recordings were mock stereo, and they sounded "flippin' lousy" (as Pete Townshend once said). So, sonically, the mono recordings here reflect what The Beatles actually wanted their records to sound like--something that became increasingly important to them as they took more care in the studio.

Second--when you start getting past 1966, the mono mixes become much more interesting, because they are quite different from their stereo counterparts. "Sgt. Pepper" and the "White Album" are essentially completely different albums from the stereo versions. If you want to discover what The Beatles are really about, you need to hear both the mono and stereo versions.

With all that in mind, should you get this set? Most definitely. If you have the old 1987 CD sets, keep this in mind: the first four albums were in mono anyway, and sound as though George Martin had wrapped all the mics in heavy carpeting (especially "Beatles For Sale"): now, you can hear everything (even the squeaks of Ringo's bass drum pedal); the new mono set includes the stereo versions of "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" (restoring the original 1965 stereo mixes--the new stereo set uses remixes made for the 1987 CDs); the 1987 Past Masters discs are either mono mixes or stereo versions that often hadn't appeared in Britain until either the 1973 Red and Blue albums, the late 70s repackages "Rock and Roll Music" and "Love Songs," or not at all.

Moreover, you can supplement this mono set with the new stereo Abbey Road and Let It Be, along with the new Past Masters, vol. 2, and you should have a comprehensive, definitive set of The Beatles as the Beatles themselves intended they should be heard. If you haven't got the 1987 discs (and even if you do), you can always spend a bit more and get the stereo mixes of the the first four, then "Revolver" and beyond to supplement your monos--but the mono set should be regarded as definitive, and leave the stereos for those who really want to have a "complete" discography. Ultimately, it would be nice if EMI makes the mono sets available individually, or offers double mono/stereo sets of each album.

Why care about the British mono releases at all? Well, mainly because that was the original point of reference for The Beatles themselves. In the early 60s they had very little idea what was being released on Capitol, and I don't think they cared too much anyway (which is why that story about the "butcher cover" of "Yesterday...and Today" being some sort of protest is utter nonsense); moreover, the US versions were also reprocessed by people who, as far as I know, had very little or nothing to do with George Martin or any of his engineers (just who is Dave Dexter anyway??). By the time of "Pepper" it was pretty clear that the albums themselves were displaying a sort of integrity that demanded consistency on both sides of the Atlantic--but even then, the US releases contained some significant differences (for instance, the US version of the stereo "White Album" was processed to tone down the bass, because the LP sides were so long that they were harder to master). Audiophiles in the 1960s and 70s tried to find UK pressings of Beatle albums anyway, since they were higher quality records and just sounded better. When EMI re-released the US LPs on CD, it really seemed like a nostalgic cash-grab aimed at North Americans who weren't familiar with the UK releases: I notice that the Canadian LP "Long Tall Sally" hasn't resurfaced yet!

A few other notes: the four "Yellow Submarine" songs are unnecessary here, since they are just mono reductions of the original stereo tracks. "Magical Mystery Tour" is the (for once, superior) US release of the UK double-EP MMT and the 1967 singles--but as the singles were in mono in Britain, those songs only appeared in stereo in the US. If you're really fanatical, you can re-program the tracks to conform to the original UK double-EP order. "Hey Jude", of course, was never an official Beatle album, but something Capitol/Apple cobbled together in 1970 out of "Hard Day's Night" leftovers and 1966,68 and 69 singles. I know many people who had this record, and regarded it as their favourite Beatle album, but the CD releases have made it superfluous (although it did mark the first appearance anywhere of "Paperback Writer," "Rain," "Lady Madonna" "Hey Jude" and "Revolution" in stereo).

Now--when is EMI/Apple going to get around to releasing the Star Club 1962 tape, the full Get Back sessions, the 1977 Hollywood Bowl LP, and other goodies that would round out a healthy Beatle collection?

One of the most important plays of the 1960s, Tom Stoppard's *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead* saw new life with this Stoppard-directed film version. Gary Oldman and Tim Roth cracked the North American market with this one, and Richard Dreyfuss shines in one of his best roles. The supporting cast, including the creepy Czech theatre troupe Dreyfuss leads, are also great. So why only four stars? Well...*R & G* is not the easiest play to fathom, if you don't pick up on the premise right away. Much of the humour either is quite deadpan, quite intellectual, or depends on your knowledge of *Hamlet* (and Shakespeare in general). That in itself doesn't be a hurdle--and the actors deliver the jokes admirably. Stoppard also takes advantage of the film medium to add clever staging (the famous tennis-court scene, for example) and sight gags (such as the running joke that the seemingly-dimwitted Rosencrantz keeps stumbling upon important scientific breakthroughs--only no one notices). But Stoppard obviously felt that he needed to provide more of a context for his offstage characters than he has in the play; consequently, there are long stretches of scenes from *Hamlet* itself that are overheard by R & G, but which are somewhat tedious simply because we aren't supposed to be watching a film of *Hamlet*, and we end up watching two people watching a play. The scene in which Rosencrantz watches an entire scene between Polonius and Claudius, but can only see their feet, seems just poorly mounted and carries on far too long. In the same way, the Chinese-box setup of the play-within-the-play has a clever payoff, but takes what seems like ages to set up (and we keep watching the plot of *Hamlet* unfold, in mime, about three times). The parts of the film that keep closely to the original play are, however, delightful, hilarious, and offer a refreshing comic alternative to lowbrow, gross-out humour seen in so many other film comedies, but a re-edited version of the film would have made this oddball gem even better.

I bought this album on vinyl when it was released, at the same time as I was exploring some of the classic Dylan albums. For some reason, I could never bring myself to play the second LP--I just got bored with the whole thing halfway through. There are some good moments scattered throughout--I like "One More Cup of Coffee" and its sax solo; "Love Minus Zero" is catchy; "I Want You" is a beautiful reading of what was a throwaway "pop song" (tho' still one of my favourite Dylan tunes)--and there are a few other highlights. But it's hardly an album to run out and buy, unless you're very interested in how Dylan reinvents himself in all his stage shows. This time out, the big sound obscures the lyrics, without the glamour and myth of the Rolling Thunder shows. This album was a mistake, and it's probably no accident that he ended up veering completely in another direction ("Slow Train Coming") after this.

I'm normally a period-instrument listener, almost to the exclusion of everything else. There is no complete cycle of Beethoven's string quartets on period instruments, so I hunted around for a good modern instrument set, and was directed to this one. I am thrilled with the result. The Quatuor Talich give a magnificent reading of this music, allowing the graces and nuances of Beethoven's sometimes fiendishly difficult music to shine through.

Two words of criticism--the cover for the box set has got to be THE WORST classical album cover I have ever seen--godawful Blake-meets-Stanley Kubrick garbage that belongs on an album of bad early-80s synthesiser music. AND--Amazon customers, be warned: I picked up this set at a local record store for $39.98 CANADIAN--that's $29.98 in the US at current coversion rates. Why is Amazon stiffing its customers by charging $55.00 US? This is supposed to be a bargain-basement set (as the bargain-basement cover will tell you). Please, Amazon, reprice this fine set now!

Indulge me for a brief personal story.

For some reason my parents, whose taste in music usually ran to Perry Como and Nana Mouskouri, and whose political sensibilities are light-years away from radical, bought a cassette of this album when I was about 8 or 9. I fell in love with "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "With God on Our Side," and was thus introduced to a guy named Bob Dylan, who has been a staple of my musical life for over 30 years now. I eventually swiped--umm...borrowed--the tape when I moved out of my parents' home, and I was amazed at the power of the other songs, too--"Once I Had a Sweetheart," "Portland Town" and "Queen of Hearts" are particular standouts. In a world of heavily over-produced, synthetic music (and this is about as far from Britney as you can get!), it's refreshing to hear a singer who can profoundly move an audience with just a guitar, a voice, and a shy request to remove her shoes. Highly recommended.

One of the saddest stories in film history is the blighted career of Abel Gance, a filmmaking genius whose work is virtually unknown and unavailable, even today. Gance, to some degree, was the master of his own fate, since he seems to have lost his nerve after *Napoleon* flopped in America. That we have *Napoleon* at all today is thanks largely to besotted fan Kevin Brownlow, who spent years combing flea markets and film archives for any scrap of the original--a fair bit, we are told, was irretrievably lost, but the bulk of the film is here (the offical BFA print is about 45 minutes longer than the version released by Zoetrope, by the way).

Why not 5 stars? Maybe because a video version cannot hope to reproduce the awesome power of the three-screen ending--even wide-screen TVs don't give you the overwhelming sense of marching with Napoleon's army at the film's end. I was fortunate to have seen this film in a symphony hall with a live orchestra on its re-release, and the video is a pale souvenir of that experience. Maybe, also, because there are long stretches that don't quite hold up as well as they did in 1927--the political stuff is thrilling, as are the battle sequences, but there is, for example, a lengthy sojourn in Corsica with Napoleon's family that goes nowhere, and is pretty conventional silent-film fare. Gance's film suffers at times from naive hero worship and slushy sentimentality, even as it is cinematically daring and revloutionary. Still, at over 4 hours, you expect some bits to drag--see this film, if you can, for the recreation of the French Revolution (including an audacious silent-film rendering of the first public performance of "La Marseillaise"!), for the exellent "double storm" sequence, and for the glorious finish. See it, also, for some unforgettable character sketches--Robespierre and Antonin Artaud's Marat are brilliant, as is Gance's own portrayal of the ruthless St Just. With all its flaws, it's still astonishing, especially set against Kevin Brownlow's own story of the restoration.

In the DVD age, it would be nice to see a DVD version of the BFA Napoleon, as well as what's left of Gance's other magnificent silent films.

The Science of Harry Potter is a fairly interesting study both of how all the magic at Hogwarts can be "explained" by science and how science has diverged from the magic explored in Rowling's wizarding world. Some of Highfield's observations are entertaining, popularised discussions of quantum physics or genetic engineering, using references to the Potter books as examples (sometimes quite tangentially). Don't expect much insight into the Potter books, however: it's clear that Highfield has read and obviously enjoys them, but he doesn't explore the books in any great detail; they are mainly a starting point for him to discuss various scientific topics. The effect, however, is tremendously reductive: broomstick flying is seen in terms of drug-induced hallucinations, the magical creatures can be "explained" in terms of genetic engineering, and so on. None of this either endorses Rowling's prodigious imagination or helps one understand anything that happens in Harry's world.

More seriously, Highfield seems not to understand the complex relationship between Rowling's magical and Muggle worlds: much of the first part of the book tiresomely demonstrates how all of the magical devices used in the books have some parallel in the "real" world through recent technology (such as invisibility cloaks that could employ fibreoptics). But who cares? All Highfield proves is that Western science has finally caught up with what Rowling's witches and wizards have been doing for centuries; he misses the point that the wizarding world doesn't need Western science in order to function, and that, in fact, Muggle science is a radically different way of understanding nature which has eradicated what has traditionally been called magic from the Western (Muggle) mind. As a result, he reiterates hoary old notions that "primitive" people--those who believed in magic--had a greater degree of "superstition" which, of course, can be explained away by modern neuropsychology, again missing the point of the Potter books (and demonstrating an appalling anthropological naivite as well).

If you're interested in popular science books, this one's OK; if you want something Potter-related that readable and entertaining while you're waiting for June 21, then by all means pick it up. There is a very good study of Harry Potter, magic, and science that remains to be written; this one barely fills that bill in the meantime.

I first bought this disc on cassette, and promptly wore it out before getting the CD version. As a showcase of little-known English and Italian composers working in late 17th-century London, it's a real gem--bright trumpet playing, bold strings, and mostly bouncy melodies, some of which betray their origins as theatre pieces. The only Purcell on it, if you're looking, is a short (1 minute) Cibell that closes the disc. But forget Purcell for the moment and enjoy Nicola Matteis, Godfrey Keller, and all of the other obscure names who were certainly Purcell's contemporaries, and whose appearance here flesh out our understanding of what a truly great musical nation England was during the 17th century. My only complaint is that, since this is one of Hyperion's older releases, it is timed to fit on two vinyl sides--I would have been glad of another 20 minutes of this!

The version of this CD that I bought does not show the relatively staid cover of the version offered here, with the orchestra members in concert dress. Rather, it shows a mock-up of a wall (in Berlin, presumably) spray-painted to make it look as if Il Giardino Armonico were a Euro hip-hop group doing Gangsta Bach, instead of a period instrument ensemble. No doubt this backfired in terms of sales, which is why Teldec opted for a more traditional classical music cover. No doubt, too, the "Gangsta" cover suggests that the playing here is more iconiclastic than it really is. I was expecting to have my ears blown off, and my whole concept of this music turned on its head, as happened when I heard their "Four Seasons" disc, but the Brandenburgs aren't meant to blow your ears off, and IGA seems not to have found any penetrating insights into the music, so this recording ends up being enjoyable, but not up to its full potential.

I have owned about 5 different Brandenburgs in my life--some of them syrupy (Karajan), stupefyingly dull (ASMF/Marriner), or just plain bland and unexciting (AAM/Hogwood). My favourite is still Harnoncourt's 1964 Telefunken release, which showcases Harnoncourt in his prime: bright sound, energetic playing (not just fast tempi), with the period instruments obviously an exhilarating discovery for both performers and listeners. This IGA version is a nice supplement (since I don't own the Harnoncourt on CD)--it's occasionally sassy and innovative, all of it is performed well (even at breakneck speed), and while it may give the purists a heart attack, it's not quite innovative enough to reinterpret the Brandenburgs completely. It seems, like that Gangsta cover, something of a misstep for IGA.