What a Blast

Starring:What a Blast
Studio: Allumination
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
If you've ever thought demolition to be not just destructive but glorious, then you will enjoy What a Blast: Special Edition, which features three different programs that celebrate the explosive arts. "Detonation Countdown," the first episode in the trilogy, showcases dozens of demolitions and chronicles the blasts from design to detonation. The program concludes with the world-record destruction of a massive hospital complex. The second program on the disc is exactly what its title indicates: "For Kids." Education and safety are highlighted as viewers see what goes on behind the scenes of the great explosions. Background on the artists of demolition, as well as the terms and guidelines that they use, are sure to interest all ages. "Demolition Artists" focuses on the men and women behind the blasts and specifically showcases many of the top companies in the demolition field. The human side of destruction is seen, and you can sense the passion that these people have for their careers.

Amazon.com

If you've ever thought demolition to be not just destructive but glorious, then you will enjoy What a Blast: Special Edition, which features three different programs that celebrate the explosive arts. "Detonation Countdown," the first episode in the trilogy, showcases dozens of demolitions and chronicles the blasts from design to detonation. The program concludes with the world-record destruction of a massive hospital complex. The second program on the disc is exactly what its title indicates: "For Kids." Education and safety are highlighted as viewers see what goes on behind the scenes of the great explosions. Background on the artists of demolition, as well as the terms and guidelines that they use, are sure to interest all ages. "Demolition Artists" focuses on the men and women behind the blasts and specifically showcases many of the top companies in the demolition field. The human side of destruction is seen, and you can sense the passion that these people have for their careers.

Amazon.com

Watching things get blown up provides a certain adrenaline-rushed thrill, and What a Blast: Architecture in Motion provides that thrill, many times over. This exploration of the demolition industry also offers a bit of insight into the explosions that it features, in a DVD that offers education as well as entertainment. The first half of the program introduces the men and women who plan and execute the quick dismantling of those huge buildings. The second half features the music of Tangerine Dream over eight videos highlighting the beauty of destruction. The use of kaleidoscopic and multiple-image camera effects makes the explosions even more intricate, and allows the program to live up to its name. --Zachary Lively

Customer Reviews:

Explosive demolitions to music: nothing more.......2000-09-11

Let's get one thing straight from the outset: this is not so much a study of explosive demolition gangs at work, as a series of music videos using explosive demolition coverage as the source of the images. The original films have been processed - sometimes lightly, sometimes beyond recognition - as well as cut, looped, spliced and generally reordered to make it fit 7 musical soundtracks of electronic synthesiser music by the German band, Tangerine Dream, not the other way around! And while there are the occasional comments from the demolition experts, these are sampled and woven into the musical fabric more than they are used to construct anything of a documentary nature.

The result is seven short video essays celebrating the visual appeal of man-made structures collapsing into heaps of rubble. Whether or not this is the kind of things that appeals to you - and there is no denying that there is a certain kind of fascination in such spectacles for most people - I suspect that most viewers will feel that they're in danger of O-D'ing somewhere along the line here. Many of the same demolition events feature over and over - almost ad nauseam in some cases - and I for one had certainly had enough of it by the end. Some brief respite is offered by the central track, `Beauty of the Blast', through its extensive use of kaleidoscopic (and other) video processing to produce purely abstract imagery the source for which is often hard to discern. Some of these images are really quite stunning and even fairly well cued to the music! Ultimately, though, the whole enterprise comes across as rather shallow. Most of the tracks are an endless series of climaxes bereft of foreplay, of events out of context, of spectacle separated from the source of its own particular artistry.

As a series of music videos, the disc works a little bit better than Tangerine Dream's American Southwest releases ("Canyon Dreams" and "Oasis") - and way better than their "Video Dream Mixes". I suspect that this is largely because essential environmental sounds have been retained, so that there is far less dislocation between video and audio components as occurs on these others. Nevertheless, the disjointed and repetitive video footage here is difficult to watch for long (or repeatedly) except as a distraction when there's something really unpleasant you're putting off doing! Having said that, I would recommend watching the tracks in order and not availing yourself of the random play feature that the disc offers: it all works better if watched in order. (If you're watching in a widescreen TV, watch out for the track called "Dream Sculpture" - it is in widescreen format, but has a tendancy to switch the TV into different aspect ratios during play on my set!)

This DVD also incorporates 6 short films dedicated to particular explosive demolitions. These contain nothing that isn't already used to excess throughout the main music videos so don't really contribute to the package in any way.

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Explosive demolitions to music: nothing more.......2000-09-11

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