Search - Uncovered on DVD

All the Basics ... Just the Basics

H. Harvey | Chicago, IL United States | 03/18/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Well, this is the second major release in the "Uncovered" Series. The first one was a masterful DVD of KCi and Jo-Jo. This DVD, however, suffers from numerous production problems. It was made on the cheap, and it shows. The DVD is divided into three parts: documentary, trailers, and videos. The trailers are the worst part -- for a series of unrelated videos made by the same company. So, I'll focus here on the two other parts: the documentary and the videos. The Good News (The Video Section):
This DVD contains six Outkast videos: SouthernPlayalisticadillacmuzik, Rosa Parks, Bombs Over Baghdad, Ms. Jackson, So Fresh, So Clean, and Ataliens. The videos are crisp and sharp -- but shown in Stereo -- not Dolby Digital. Bad news (Missing Videos): These aren't all of their videos. This DVD, for no obvious reason, fails to include: FIVE videos. Those videos NOT included are: Da Art of Storytelling, Skew it on the Bar-B, In Due Time, Elevators, and Git Up, Git Up. Good News - Documentary (General):
The DVD includes a behind-the-scenes documentary look at Outkast on the road and in the studio. Bad News - Documentary (General):
The behind-the scenes documentary is intercut with those six videos above -- making it much shorter and more disjointed. It's also very short -- maybe a total of 35-40 minutes if you don't include the full-length videos. Good News - Documentary (Content):
The documentary tells you some new things: like how Puffy directed one of their early videos, about what Dre 3000 and Big Boi look for in women, and how each of them broke into the rap business. The documentary also has insights from other people in the Dungeon Family and various producers of the albums. It even has a rare live performance.Bad News - Documentary (Content):
Some parts of the documentary are like that bad Tupac documentary from a few years ago: they just interview random people who *sort of* know Outkast and say things like "so, how do you know Outkast?" or "What you think of Stankonia?" Also, the rare live performance sounds horrible -- like it was recorded in somebody's basement. Very Bad Production:
The production on this DVD is shoddy. The sound is Dolby Digital, but with no surround for any of the videos. Also, the entire DVD lacks a time feature -- making you unable to determine where you are time-wise while you're watching it. (Probably because they didn't want you to know just how short it is!) Also, the separate section for the videos is actually linked back into the documentary -- so when you're trying to watch the videos separately, it just goes back into the documentary and plays forward from there. In other words, you can't play the videos back to back without watching the entire documentary! Conclusion:
So, should you buy it? If you're a die-hard fan, you'll appreciate this DVD -- barely. But, if you're expecting a complete collection of Outkast videos or a detailed discussion of their albums and the history behind them -- you're going to be very disappointed. As a fan of Outkast, I'm pretty disappointed. This video was designed to capitalize on the success of Stankonia -- and it was rushed to market without much attention to detail. Buy it with caution."