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The Movie:
Seeing as I've reviewed the DVDs for Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears (three for Spears, actually), I thought that I would give a chance to Mandy Moore. Although I can understand Spears' and Aguilera's music, Moore I think has the voice but not always the songs to back her up. Much of her work seems like a clone of the pop music that's currently dominating the airwaves. Although tunes like "Candy" are occasionally catchy, Moore remains a singer in my opinion has a fine voice, but needs to distinguish herself from the rest of the pack.
That aside, "The Real Story" is similar to Spears' "Time Out With Britney Spears" - almost too much, actually. The same format introduces us to the singer, and shows us clips from interviews with Moore and others who have been involved in her rise. There's also some additional footage of Moore live (such as her singing a remix of "Candy" at the House of Blues) and quite a bit from her work on MTV.
The interviews are fun and her young fans will likely be pleased to find out some of her thoughts about fame, but otherwise don't provide too much insight into her career. Still, I found the documentary to be mildly more entertaining than the somewhat less than intimate look at the careers of Spears and Aguilera. Moore seems genuinely sweet through in the interviews and again, I think she's got a strong voice - hopefully she can do something beyond the usual teen pop. The videos for "Candy", "Walk Me Home", "I Wanna Be With You" and "So Real" can be watched on their own.
The DVD
VIDEO: The image quality for the documentary as a whole isn't bad at all - much of the full-frame presentation of the interviews and behind-the-scenes footage looks sharp and detailed. Colors are strong, and only rarely does a minor bit of pixelation appear but causes little distraction. The irritating flaw that is visible during the some of the videos is shimmering; on "Candy", this became rather annoying. Otherwise, I was satisfied with the image quality.
SOUND: The entire documentary and the videos are presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby 2.0. The 5.1 presentation does a fine job opening up the beats of songs like "Candy" and the backing instrumentals of her ballads. The documentary footage generally doesn't go too far beyond dialogue from the singer, but occasionally there's background music that's re-inforced by the surrounds or slight "effects".
General audio quality is quite enjoyable as well, with Moore's vocals coming through crisply and a bit of a bass kick under "Candy". Although not quite as impressive as the general sound quality for the videos included in Spears' "Live and More", the audio presentation was more than pleasing for Moore's work.
MENUS:: Menus are a lot of fun, with well-done animation and background music.
EXTRAS:
Audio Commentary: Mandy Moore provides some commentary for the 4 videos included, although it becomes apparent that some of the comments were taken directly from the "Real Story" documentary, mixed with some new comments that are occasionally interesting to hear about the production of the videos. Occasional comments from the video directors are also added in. Interestingly enough, the commentary is presented in Dolby 3.0, which means that the music is playing in the two front main speakers and the commentary comes through the center.
Final Thoughts: Fans of Moore will enjoy this presentation, which offers some nicely done behind-the-scenes footage and mildly interesting interviews. Although the video quality was just respectable, the audio quality was enjoyable.
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