I seriously question the credentials of this film’s Director of Photography who allowed highlights to frequently blow out into undetailed blobs of white. All of this exceedingly poor content is rendered through dismal production value. The documentary is vaguely arranged into segments but, try as I might, I could not discern the content of one from that of the other. Set to what sounds like a messy conflation of Garage Band rock loops and Enya, Magic Moments features extended face time with Freddy Mercury’s “friends”, who ceaselessly ramble in an attempt, it seems, to justify their connection to the iconic frontman. What viewers will quickly learn is that this label is little more than a euphemism for “we couldn’t secure rights to Queen’s discography so you will hear no Queen music whatsoever.”Ī documentary about a band’s music that cannot actually play any of its songs – now there’s a deep hole out of which to dig oneself. Magic Moments purports to be “unauthorized”. I take no pleasure in trashing what I know to be the product of many hard hours of work and, thus, it always breaks my heart to watch a film for review that I know I can just say nothing positive about. Magic Moments is almost un-reviewable it is such a laughably poor production. However, I feel the holistic aspect of the review should now cede prominence to an analysis of each DVD individually. In truth, Under Review serves as an in-depth analysis of Queen’s music with spatterings of notes about their private lives, while Magic Moments, the other DVD in this set, serves us very little. Furthermore, one would expect in such a “collection” that one DVD would fill in the gaps of the other, painting a full picture of the band. I cannot even begin to posture towards an explanation of why this film would be separated from its complement. This is made readily apparent by the fact that one of the films, Queen: Under Review 1973-1980, which comprise this documentary dyad, is part of its own set with another film, Queen: Under Review 1980-1991. Unfortunately, the Queen DVD Collector’s Box makes no attempt to link the two films it contains, making the end result more sundry than set. If a box set fails in this regard, then the package is essentially just a reduced price on assorted goods. Whereas most box sets obviate this criterion by containing an entire series or season and thus being automatically as cohesive as they can be, box sets of films made under different production must always be aware of the box set vis-à-vis its totality. A “box set” should be judged on not only the DVD’s contained within, but also the cohesiveness of the full product.
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