Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Capturing zeitgeist moments as they happen are a filmmaker's dream. Lucky for us, drummer/rhythmatist extraordinaire Stewart Copeland picked up a Super 8 film camera when The Police were but budding bleached-blonde young punks, and he filmed, well, practically everything they did both onstage and off. His you-are-always-there POV makes Everyone Stares a fascinating chronicle following the real-time rise of a band that skyrocketed from playing dingy clubs with bad P.A. systems in front of 400 fans (or fewer!) in the late-1970s to packing stadiums and headlining festivals during their early-1980s heyday.

Copeland narrates the proceedings in chronological fashion with his patented dry wit, with all ensuing dialogue nestled, as it should be, in the center channel. Film quality is as grainy as one would expect from a Super 8 source, though the images are sharper on this Blu-ray upgrade than they were on the initial 2006 DVD release. In the liners, Copeland makes note of waiting for technology to catch up to his vision for the film, citing Final Cut Pro as what ultimately assisted him in whittling down over 50 hours of film into a much snappier narrative. The intimate moments he chose to share are riveting. At one point, the Super 8 is mounted on a tripod back and to the right of Copeland's drum kit, and he turns to address it more than once in the middle of a performance without missing a beat.

Every scene is accompanied by Police music both familiar and unfamiliar, as Copeland went through the band's master tapes to create his own aural hodgepodge of live jams grafted into studio recordings as well as stack Sting's studio-captured lead vocals onto different live songs, in addition to other remixing twists. Hearing long-ingrained Police cuts like "Tea in the Sahara," "Demolition Man," "Behind the Camel," and "One World (Not Three)" transformed with markedly different arrangements and tempos is quite refreshing, especially in the sometimes ethereal 5.1 mixes overseen by Copeland and his longtime sound editor/mixer, Jeff Seitz.

Twenty-four minutes of extras vacillate between additional on-camera tomfoolery and brisk-paced live snippets of varying sound quality, though I would have gladly welcomed more. With Everyone Stares, Copeland reflects The Police's world-domineering trajectory to a T, and just about every little thing he filmed is magic.

Blu-ray
Studio: EagleVision
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio Format: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, LPCM Stereo
Length: 99 mins.
Director: Stewart Copeland
Starring: Sting, Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland, Kim Turner