A true tale that took 50 years to tell, The Lost Weekend: A Love Story follows John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s personal assistant, May Pang as she recounts her 18-month relationship with John a relationship orchestrated by Yoko herself. During this extraordinary period, May helped John reunite with his son Julian and participated firsthand in his most productive period post-Beatles in which he released albums like “Mind Games”, “Walls and Bridges”, and collaborated with powerhouses like David Bowie and Elton John. Featuring moments with Julian Lennon, Mick Jagger, Alice Cooper, and Paul McCartney, May chronicles it all from her unique perspective as a 22-year-old experiencing her first unforgettable love.
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[youtube https://youtu.be/8LVGW1SoP0U?si=av_7T4FxF-WDndPg&t=4883]
Video Quality
The Lost Weekend: A Love Story comes to Blu-Ray in its original aspect ratio from a rock solid high definition master. The film is made up of primarily archival materials including vintage photos and footage along with some original animation to blend it all together. There are intermittent interviews conducted in the modern day, but these are a small sliver of an overall piece. The newer footage does look as radiant and clear as you would expect from a modern HD source.
The archival footage is considerably more inconsistent, but most of it holds up very well. The transfer is allowed plenty of room to breathe as you witness no issues with compression artifacts, banding, or other digital nuisances. Black levels are strong and do not showcase any crush. A lot of this material is in black-and-white, but the colors are saturated well and provide a visual pop off the screen. Universal Pictures has delivered a great presentation for fans.
Audio Quality
This Blu-Ray comes with a joyous DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that presents the material perfectly. Narration is given prominence here, and it is never clipped by competing elements. The archival material has some of the expected limitations, but largely the track is in good shape when it comes to clarity. The surround sound presentation seldom puts the expanded channel allotment to the test, but the music flows through the room with lovely fidelity. The audio track represents the information exactly as desired. There are optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles provided on this disc.
Special Features
There are no special features provided on this disc.
Final Thoughts
The Lost Weekend: A Love Story is a welcome reframing of a period of time that Beatles fanatics have long been curious to learn more about in a substantial way. The choice to have May Pang share her story helps get at least one version of the events on the record from someone who lived through it, even if there are understandable questions about how the narrative has been shaped through her perspective. The film is aided by having a few outside perspectives to reinforce the presented narrative, and it works well enough as a way for Pang to finally get her story out to the world. There are some quibbles about the presentation, but fans should enjoy this as a light exploration of the topic. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray that features a really good A/V presentation but no special features. If the subject interests you even in the slightest, this is worth seeking out. Recommended
The Lost Weekend: A Love Story can be purchased on Blu-Ray directly through MovieZyng or various other online retailers.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Universal Pictures has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
