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  Specs
  • Full Frame
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • English: Dolby Digital Stereo
  Subtitles
  • None
  Extras
  • Animated menus
  • 6 Music video - Acoustic versions of A Forest, The Love Cats, Close To Me, Lullaby, Friday I'm In Love, Just Say Yes
  • Web access

The Cure - Greatest Hits

Warner Vision/Warner Vision . R4 . COLOR . 68 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Renowned as *the* band that soundtracks the lives of black-clad gloom merchants the world over, The Cure's Greatest Hits could easily lead those less aware of the band's entire output to scratch their heads in wonderment about it all. Most of what's included here makes them appear like very happy chappies indeed, especially when compared to the likes of miserabilist extraordinaires The Smiths and many others who have come, and often gone, during The Cure's remarkable twenty-plus years together - even if the only common link throughout that time has been the band's fuhrer Robert 'Fat Bob' Smith. Mind you, this is a very selective compilation, with much of their best (and admittedly more melancholy) work, such as the likes of Primary, Killing An Arab and Charlotte Sometimes for example, disappointingly not making the cut for this release (and it isn’t like there wasn't enough space to include ALL their clips - tsk tsk). Mind you this is a video compilation, and to be honest the clip for the latter could possibly be one of the worst examples of the genre ever viewed by humankind.

The turning point for the band in a visual sense came with their teaming up with director Tim Pope, who The Cure discovered via Soft Cell's Bedsitter clip (yes, they had more releases than their cover of '60s soul classic Tainted Love, not that many in Australia would be alert enough to know unfortunately). After a succession of rather drab and uninspired visual advertisements, Pope managed to coax something extra out of Smith and whatever company he was keeping at the time, and pretty much cemented the legendary power point-styled hairdo and piss-poor lippy application visage of Smith that most of us have into our collective consciousness.

Early tracks aren’t the only omission here, with many mid-era classics such as Catch, Hot Hot Hot!!! and the fabulously bass-rumbly US single Fascination Street conspicuous by their absence, and later stuff like The 13th and Strange Attraction well - face it - they aren’t really missed that much, but a complete collection would have been nice.

So what do we get?

Boys Don't Cry: Three (imaginary?) boys pretend to be the band, but who's that hanging out in the shadows with the Cylon-like eyes?

A Forest: Huh? Bob had normal hair once? Actually he looked kind of a spunk... A performance vid, shots of - you guessed it - a forest, and lots of tacky early '80s video effects.

Let's Go to Bed: And then there were two - Bob'n'Lol play the fool with plenty of silly dancing, balls, eggs, silver apples and Rolf-like daubings. A typical '80s clip then...

The Walk: Hmm, doesn’t sound like Blue Monday much... The Cure go electro, as they play with dollies in paddling pools and paint their faces. It comes with some signing for the hearing-challenged who will no doubt be rather pissed off that this disc features no subtitles whatsoever.

The Love Cats: The third in the "we're really not that dour, honest" trilogy, not surprisingly there are cats and lots of 'em - real ones, stuffed ones, humans in suits ones playing trumpets...

In-between Days: He's got a dawg on his head!!! Another one to make New Order's lawyers prick up their ears, keep the seasick pills close by for this fret-cam and vision from a bungee rope spectacular...

Close To Me: A claustrophobic's nightmare, with the entire band at the time stuffed into a wardrobe that's sitting atop a cliff. If that isn’t bad enough it topples and lands underwater...

Why Can't I Be You? : The Cure raid the costume box, complete with weird stuck to the screen effects and seizure-inducing strobes. They even hired Mick Jagger's lips to play with for the day!

Just Like Heaven: THE ultimate New Order "tribute" - but at least it was done well. Clip-wise it's rather dull, with some often squishy faces and yet another cliff...

Lullaby: Bob settles down for a bit of a kip, gets covered in cobwebs and - ooh - I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'S' - EWWY! A big fat hairy spider! (Amy presses the 'next' button...)

Love Song: Smith's ode to his wife (awww!) - so why's it shot in a cave full of stalagmites and stalactites then? Weird...

Never Enough: Rock out! Yeah! A bit of freak show action, with all manner of funny shaped rooms and weirdo mirrors - and a dwarfish ringmaster...

High: Lots of grainy processing does not a boring clip hide...

Friday I'm In Love: Bubbles, love hearts, a jaunty song - are you sure this is The Cure? Comes complete with enough dodgy looking backdrops to have Alfred Hitchcock green with envy - erm, if unfortunately he wasn't rather green already for other reasons...

Mint Car: Egyptian chic meets cowboy chic, plus a drive in the country - makes about as much sense as any other modern day clip...

Wrong Number: Slithery things like worms, caterpillars, tadpoles/spermatozoa - oh shit there's a snake - NEXT!!!

Cut Here: Newly recorded for this release, this ode to the late Billy Mackenzie of The Associates is a welcome return to catchy form. Oh, the clip? Widescreen with lots of dropped frames - and oh dear, Bob's finally looking his age...

Just Say Yes: Who's that blonde chick? Oh goodness, it's Saffron from Republica without the red hair! A boring song with a boring video - but if something nice has to be said then it is all rather colourful.

  Video
Contract

It's a video clip compilation, so you wouldn't need to be clairvoyant to have an inkling of what's coming next…

Quality varies greatly, from occasionally retina-searing (such as A Forest) to sometimes washed out and bland (The Love Cats is a good example). Grain is essentially omnipresent, as seems to be Mr Pope's forte, with only occasional exceptions such as, once again, A Forest which pre-dated Timbo and appears to have been shot on video.

It's all full frame and un-enhanced, although the clip for Cut Here is framed at around 2.35:1. While colour, detail and video quality generally improves as the clips become newer, there are still quite a few flecks and icky bits to be seen throughout most every clip, although really none are alarming enough to warrant hurling tomatoes at anybody over.

  Audio
Contract

Purists can go for a fairly typical Dolby Digital Stereo mix, offering pretty much that which the CDs do, but if you want to have some fun a DD5.1 mix is also on offer. Often adding considerable bass to proceedings (giving the subwoofwoof a workout for which it is grateful), and usually pumping forth forcefully from the surrounds, it may not be pure and how it was originally intended to be heard, but it sure sounds fine to this pair of ears.

Synching appears as spot on as miming for video clips gets. On the downside, it should be noted that a couple of the earlier tracks suffer a tad from hiss, most notably Boys Don’t Cry and A Forest, and unfortunately the beginning of Boys Don't Cry and many song endings are slightly truncated, which frankly is even sloppier than Robert Smith's lipstick application on his worst days.

  Extras
Contract

After a brief animated intro, Lullaby arcs up as accompaniment to some subtly moving stars on the main menu. Extras-wise what may not seem like much as far as quantity in concerned is certainly made up for by quality...

Acoustic tracks: Filmed during the recording sessions for the acoustic tracks that accompanied early releases of the Greatest Hits CD, six songs are included here in non-anamorphic 1.78:1, in black and white with the same sound options as the main feature. More than just Fat Bob strumming the old acoustic, the full band du jour get in on the act, with drums, shakers, a simply gorgeous acoustic bass and alternatively either harmonium or good old Steinway piano. Featured tracks are A Forest, The Love Cats, Close To Me, Lullaby, Friday I'm In Love and Just Say Yes.

Web Link: Simply a static page suggesting you pop by www.curehits.com for some "secret hits". It's a shame then that the site doesn’t even exist any more, especially as it has only been a couple of months since the overseas release of this disc. Try www.curehitsus.com instead, but only if you're very, very, VERY patient...

Easter eggs: Three extra video clips are secreted away somewhere - the bouncy piano/Chinese dragon/flutterby infested The Caterpillar, the original Close To Me clip meets The Little Mermaid antics of the brilliant 1990 Paul Oakenfold remix of Close To Me and the so-snowy-visually-that-they-may-actually-not-be-playing-in-the-snow-'cos-it's-really-rather-hard-to-tell clip for Pictures of You. These too offer a choice of Dolby Stereo or 5.1 sound.

  Overall  
Contract

Being The Cure's first release on DVD, any fan that's equipped with the format will lap this up even quicker than the average elapsed time between announcements by Bob that they're breaking up for good and their ensuing new release (face it, he'll be prancing about all frizzy and smeary-lipped when he's 80 at this rate).

The nature of compilations is that sonic and visual quality will vary, and this is certainly no exception. The biggest annoyance is a lack of completeness, although three hidden videos help make things a little more palatable.

More than just a little shiny disc to make pseudo-goths think they're ever so cool, there's actually a wealth of classic and usually ever-so-catchy pop here to savour for anybody who appreciates the genre, complete with some rather wacky clips as accompaniment. If for no other reason consider buying it as a thankyou to Mr Robert Smith for saving the world from the evil that was a rampaging Mecha-Streisand. After all, we owe him one...


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=1182
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      And I quote...
    "More than just a little shiny disc to make pseudo-goths think they're ever so cool..."
    - Amy Flower
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-535
    • TV:
          Sony 68cm
    • Receiver:
          Onkyo TX-DS494
    • Speakers:
          DB Dynamics Eclipse RBS662
    • Centre Speaker:
          DB Dynamics Eclipse ECC442
    • Surrounds:
          DB Dynamics Eclipse ECR042
    • Subwoofer:
          DTX Digital 4.8
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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