Heartworn Highways is a music-documentary on what is called “outlaw country” and features interviews with the stars of the era including Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Steve Earle. Available on Blu-ray and DVD April 27th.
Heartworn Highways
(1981)
Genre(s): Documentary, Music
Kino Lorber| NR – 90 min. – $29.95 | April 27, 2021
Date Published: 04/20/2021 | Author: The Movieman
PLOT SYNOPSIS |
This iconic outlaw country documentary saw filmmaker James Szalapski travel to Texas and Tennessee to capture the radical artists reclaiming the genre by rejecting the mainstream Nashville machine. Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Steve Young, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle and many others provide musical highlights including Clark’s brilliant “Desperados Waiting For a Train,” Young’s stirring “Alabama Highways” and Van Zandt’s emotional “Waiting Around To Die.”
The hard living –and hard partying –lifestyles of outlaw country’s figureheads are played out on screen as we visit Van Zandt’s Austin trailer, see Coe play in Tennessee State Prison, join the gang in Nashville’s notorious Wig Wam Tavern and witness a liquor-fueled Christmas at Clark’s house. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 2/5 |
This release contains a booklet with essays by Producer Graham Leader and Editor Phillip Schopper. Features-wise, the only items are an Audio Commentary with Leader and Schopper and the Theatrical Trailer. |
VIDEO – 4/5, AUDIO – 4¼/5 |
Kino Lorber releases Heartworn Highways onto Blu-ray I believe for the first time. The movie is presented in its original 1.78 widescreen aspect ratio and given a 1080p high-definition transfer. Given the budget was minimal and was shot on I think 35mm going back 45 years ago, the picture here looks pretty good. Detail is decent enough as are the colors and even with the numerous specs and scratches in just about every shot, I would wager this has never looked better. The disc comes with a rather good DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which really shined with the variety of “outlaw” country music which, even though I am no fan of the genre, was at least bearable and at times catchy. |
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