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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The original and best DVD version of this great documentary, with, believe it or not, good picture quality!, 10 May 2006
ALICE COOPER: PRIME CUTS, a comprehensive visual biography of the rock legend, would have to be the best introduction and summary on Alice Cooper that one can buy. And for fans, this single-disc US Import version (with Alice wrapped in foil with a flower in his hair on the cover) is the better one to buy over the "Special Edition" 2-DVD release's version as it has much better picture quality, being presented in its original 4:3 full-screen picture format! (but this one doesn't come with the Special Edition's 2nd DVD, which is suited for hard-core fans only)
THE DOCUMENTARY...
This informative and entertaining programme covers Alice Cooper's career from the early psychedelic days of the late 60's through the early-to-mid 70's heyday to his commercially successful comeback in 1989.
It has a strong varied selection of songs culled from live footage, rare TV show appearances, and recording studio footage, in between interviews of Alice (circa 1990/1991) as he talks through his amazing history, of what "the character" Alice Cooper is and how it came about, of his band mates, and of the songs presented, plus some great rock stories that you'd expect from a rock legend, including being a 'Hollywood Vampire' alongside John Lennon and Keith Moon. Also includes interviews with producer Bob Ezrin and long-time manager Shep Gordon, and kudos from Ozzy Osbourne and Slash.
My only criticisms are that the documentary ignores the majority of Alice in the 80's (of material he released during this commercially-lull period for him that many consider either bizarre, terrible or brilliant material, and of his 2nd more severe hospitalization in 1983 for alcoholism, he's been sober ever since), and that many of the songs featured are only excerpts, not full-length versions. However the excerpts are excusable as Prime Cuts touches on so much within the space of 87 minutes, I think they did a damn good job.
PICTURE QUALITY...
This 1998 US DVD release of Prime Cuts, the first DVD release of the video, is presented in its original 4:3 full-screen aspect ratio, thus having superior picture quality over the flawed "Special Edition" 2-DVD re-release of 2001 which has pixelated vision due to a bad digital transfer job and is sacrilegiously presented in anamorphic-widescreen! (they butchered the full-screen vision into a 'fake' widescreen by cutting away the top and bottom of the 4:3 vision leaving the remaining central picture as 16:9, thereby making all the footage look close-up and squashed) So if you already have the Special Edition version and you're let down by its bad picture quality then this is the DVD to get! Otherwise, some archive performance footage does look slightly degraded, understandably given its age, but it's all watchable and very enjoyable.
DVD EXTRAS...
No extras with this release, just a simple stereo transfer plus song menu, which is a pity as it would've been a great opportunity to include full versions of songs which were just featured as excerpts in the programme.
BONUS...
This US version of the documentary does include an extra few minutes of footage, not included in any other country's version except Japan, of Alice talking about his heavy metal resurgence from the mid-80's with the help of Kane Roberts and Kip Winger with brief footage of the Freedom video clip!
THE VERDICT...
5 stars for an awesome documentary, with nice picture quality, but minus 1 star for being such a no-frills release with no extras. So 4 stars for Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts - a perfect place to start for any novice or curious bystander of Alice, and a must for all Cooper fans and any hard rock music fans!
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