Beastie Boys: Video Anthology

I bought this because of three reasons: First off all I love their videos. They simple have the best videos ever. Then I think the band Beastie Boys does some very good music. And of course all the extra stuff you get with it: Special Angles,Commentary's,Remixes and much more! This DVD is a must have!

All of the Beastie's videos from Paul's Boutique forward are flawlessly presented with numerous angles, exquisite menus, commentary tracks, and enough remixes to fill two audio CDs. For example, the electro-rap Intergalactic has 9 camera angles, 6 remixes, storyboards, and "The Robot vs. The Octopus Monster Saga," which is the video extended and presented as a side-splitting mini-Godzilla movie. If you haven't viewed any of the videos, quite a few of them are hilarious parodies like Sabotage, which takes on '70s "tough cop" shows better than any Saturday Night Live skit could aspire to. Even the straight performance videos all have a twist, whether it be rotoscoped animation, fish-eye lenses or just the Boys wearing crazy wigs and outfits. It's more than entertaining, and the time and effort put into this compilation set a new standard for music videos.

I bought this back in 2001 at Fry's electronics. It was one of the first DVD titles I purchased (I was a little late jumping on the DVD bandwagon). I got it because I like the band, and have always enjoyed their videos, which range from 'good' to 'really friggin' amazing'.

However, my heart sank a little as I watched the videos. They went and 'bleeped' out the profanity in many of the songs. Now, personally I'm not a fan of profanity, and don't often use it. I'd prefer it if musicians could figure out a way to write lyrics that were absent the f-bombs and s-words and the like. But they don't, and judged as a whole the work from the Beastie Boys is so good that the occasional dirty word is excusable.

What I can't excuse is the bleeping out of the words in the videos. This isn't MTV. This is something I paid for to watch and listen to in my own home. It's the artist's decision as to what words they use. They use these words as part of a work, and you can hear them just fine on the albums, so why not on the videos? After I watched it a few times, I was a bit frustrated with the censorship and put it on a shelf and there it sat for five years. I decided to revisit the collection this week to see how it would appear on my current home theatre gear. When I first got this title, I just had a DVD player connected to a 13" television. I've moved up considerably with a very nice 5.1 surround system and a widescreen HD display.

I must say that with the proper equipment, the experience is fantastic. The 5.1 remixes in the songs is pretty dang good, and the picture is close to what I'd normally expect from Criterion; it's not always crystal clear, but a lot of their videos were intentionally shot with a grainy or low quality film or video equipment. Considering the source, I'm confident this is probably the best picture they could produce.

There's a wealth of additional features on the DVD set to keep even the hardest core Beastie Boys fan occupied for quite a long time (including both director and band commentary, a massive collection of various song remixes, and even some instances of the seldom used 'alternate angle' feature in DVDs.) All in all, a pretty good compilation with only one single flaw: the censorship. With the capabilities of multiple audio channels, it's not much to ask at least *one* version with an unedited song.

The ultimate Beastie Boys collection that has the producers pulling out all the stops and taking full advantage of everything that the medium has to offer. Includes old school style hip-hop rap classics like "Body Movin", "Sabotage". [which includes a spoof talk show that interviews the fictional cops from the video.] "Intergalactic" [which along with the video includes the world premiere of the nine-minute 'Robot vs. The Octopus Monster Saga' (1998)], "So What'cha Want" and many more. Two disc full of hours of entertainment from The Criterion Collection, but more importantly layered beneath the video footage are rare remix versions of the same songs done by everyone from Fatboy Slim, to the Prunes, or D.J. / producers like Moby. With a video beastiology like this who needs CD's anymore, I hope this becomes a DVD others in the recording industry will set their standards with. An Exciting and worthwhile purchase

Surpassing double-dvd with a data rate of continuously > 8 Mb/sec (not for the extra footage). There is 30 minutes of videoclips in each disc and 2 hours of remixes, so in total you have 5 hours of Beastie Boys (even excluding alternative angles). The chosen songs show most different views of all work by the Beastie Boys. This edition is not exactly concerned with the band (as their audio track unfortunately shows) but with their different creations. Spike Jonze's audio track is clarifying for that matter. The only big flaw is that the songtexts are modified (read: censored). The only small flaw is the absence of the hit songs 'Fight for your right' and 'No sleep til Brooklyn'. Perhaps a next edition? For now e.g. 'Netty's Girl' makes you want to ask the B Boys for any motion picture soundtrack.

Virtually inexhaustible number of combinations of remixes and video footage: the coolest part are the alternative angle tracks, which are mostly used to show all the material shot on one location instead of actual different angles of one event. That makes it great: you can see the entire subway scene that was shot for 'Intergalactic' for instance, or 4 minutes of the trio-angle footage for 'Whatcha want', while changing the music track. HF.

9/10