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List Price: $24.99 | | Label: Image Entertainment
Salesrank: 169267
Released: July 15, 1998 |
| Our Price: $32.94 |
| Used Price: $13.59 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The ultimate Alice Cooper video featuring ultra-rare concert performances, television appearances and interviews--a comprehensive visual biography that will take you through the legend of Alice Cooper from before "I'm Eighteen" to "Poison" and beyond. All the Cooper classics are here from his private video vaults. Songs: Black Juju, Levity Ball, Ballad of Dwight Fry, Elected, Sick Things, Eighteen, Hello Hooray, Dead Babies, Billion Dollar Babies, No More Mister Nice Guy, Under My Wheels, Welcome to My Nightmare, Only Women Bleed, Cold Ethyl, From the Inside, How You Gonna See Me Now, Clones, Department of Youth, Trash, Poison, School's Out.
Description of Prime Cuts:
This 1991 documentary explores the ever-likable ghoul-rocker's history in the music biz, from the early days when Alice Cooper was, in fact, the name of a pretty good band (whose members are all unfortunately spoken of, even analyzed, here in past tense, as if they're all dead) to Cooper's elder- statesman status by the time this production was underway. Along the way, we see too-brief clips from more than 20 videos, all interrupted for reflections by manager Shep Gordon, producer Bob Ezrin, Slash, Ozzy, and the man-of-the-hour himself. The most welcome elements here are selections from the original band, including "I'm Eighteen," "Billion Dollar Babies," and "Black Ju Ju." Solo material--"Only Women Bleed," "How You Gonna See Me Now"--is an interesting reminder of Cooper's somewhat altered direction by the late 1970s. Rounding things out is the real story behind that infamous urban legend about Cooper and a chicken. --Tom Keogh
Prime Cuts Reviews:
excellent history and tidbits about Alice 
2007-06-14 - This is a great DVD that shows a lot of footage never before seen, with excellent interviews as well. The original Cooper band was the best, and to find out more info than from any other source all for this price, you'll be in love!! Quality DVD and quick shipping!
A Good Product That Could Have Been Better 
2006-11-03 - This 2 disc set includes some priceless interviews with Alice, all the original band members, his manager and producer, etc. It does in fact cover the history of Alice.
The disc game and jukebox are mostly a recycling of the videos and soundbytes from the documentary. Its good and has some vintage footage in it to be sure.
Prime Cuts & Extra Helpings
2006-09-29 - I finally recieved my copy of this today. First, the price from Amazon was right. I got my copy for $18(no pun intended) and yes, it is worth it. Most record stores will charge upward of $25.00 for this. The first disc is pretty much the same as the VHS version except with better picture quality and camera angles. There is a cool story about Bruce Springsteen and Alice drinking together, not on the VHS version.
The second disc is lot more in depth than the VHS, featuring interviews with Dennis Dunaway, Mike Bruce, Neal Smith and Dick Wagner.
The comments made by other reviewers about the game are true but if you just keep rolling those dice you eventually get to see the whole thing. The second disc also does feature full-length performances of many Alice Classics most performed with Kane Roberts on guitar. Kane plays the Alice tunes with lots of Steve Vai/Joe Satriani style embellishments. Lots of tapping and dive bombs and even ocasional nods to Yngwie. It took a second to get used to but actually is pretty cool.
The best parts have to be Dennis, Mike and Neal talking about the early days. This is truly a must-have for anyone who has been along time devoted fan. The casual fan may be bored with it as most of the interviews are assuming you already know certain things about the band which the casual fan probably doesn't.
I was definitely pleased with this and pleasantly surprised at how good it is.
The original and best DVD version of this great documentary, with, believe it or not, good picture quality!
2006-05-10 -
*** THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE SINGLE-DISC 1998 DVD VERSION (with Alice wrapped in foil with a flower in his hair on the cover), NOT THE 2-DISC "SPECIAL EDITION" 2001 VERSION ***
ALICE COOPER: PRIME CUTS, a comprehensive visual biography of the rock legend, would have to be the best introduction and summary on Alice Cooper that one can buy. And for fans, this version is the better one to buy over the "Special Edition" 2-DVD release's version as it has much better picture quality, being presented in its original 4:3 full-screen picture format! (but this one doesn't come with the Special Edition's extra DVD, which is suited for hard-core fans only)
THE DOCUMENTARY...
This informative and entertaining programme covers Alice Cooper's career from the early psychedelic days of the late 60's through the early-to-mid 70's heyday to his commercially successful comeback in 1989.
It has a strong varied selection of songs culled from live footage, rare TV show appearances, and recording studio footage, in between interviews of Alice (circa 1990/1991) as he talks through his amazing history, of what "the character" Alice Cooper is and how it came about, of his band mates, and of the songs presented, plus some great rock stories that you'd expect from a rock legend, including being a 'Hollywood Vampire' alongside John Lennon and Keith Moon. Also includes interviews with producer Bob Ezrin and long-time manager Shep Gordon, and kudos from Ozzy Osbourne and Slash.
My only criticisms are that the documentary ignores the majority of Alice in the 80's (of material he released during this commercially-lull period for him that many consider either bizarre, terrible or brilliant material, and of his 2nd more severe hospitalization in 1983 for alcoholism, he's been sober ever since), and that many of the songs featured are only excerpts, not full-length versions. However the excerpts are excusable as Prime Cuts touches on so much within the space of 87 minutes, I think they did a damn good job.
PICTURE QUALITY...
This 1998 US DVD release of Prime Cuts, the first DVD release of the video, is presented in its original 4:3 full-screen format, thus having superior picture quality over the flawed "Special Edition" 2-DVD re-release of 2001 which is presented in 'anamorphic-widescreen' (to make full-screen vision into a 'fake' widescreen they cut away the top and bottom of the 4:3 vision to make it 16:9, thereby making the vision look close-up and squashed, and in this case pixelated due to a bad digital transfer job. in my opinion, anamorphic-widescreen is an awful practice of the video industry, worse than 'pan-&-scan'). So if you already have the Special Edition version and you're let down by its bad picture quality then this is the DVD to get! Otherwise, some archive performance footage does look slightly degraded, given the age of most of it, but it's all watchable and very enjoyable.
DVD EXTRAS...
No extras with this release, just a simple stereo transfer plus song menu, which is a pity as it would've been a great opportunity to include full versions of songs which were just featured as excerpts in the programme.
BONUS...
This US version of the documentary does include an extra few minutes of footage, not included in any other country's version except Japan, of Alice talking about his heavy metal resurgence from the mid-80's with the help of Kane Roberts and Kip Winger with brief footage of the Freedom video clip!
THE VERDICT...
5 stars for an awesome documentary, with nice picture quality, but minus 1 star for being such a no-frills release with no extras. So 4 stars for Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts - a perfect place to start for any novice or curious bystander of Alice, and a must for all Cooper fans and any hard rock music fans!
I must have a bad copy of this DVD. No one else seems to mention the horrid video quality. 
2005-12-27 - Is it possible that I have a crappy copy of this DVD of Alice Cooper's Prime Cuts, or is everyone just looking past this eyesore of video quality?
I could imagine maybe a few poor videos of the earlier songs, but even the later videos ("Poison", "Het Stupid", etc.) look just as crappy as the rest of the DVD. Even the dialogue of Alice and other people involved with Alice Cooper talking between the songs is of horrid video quality.
Yes, I'm convinced now. My DVD of this Alice Cooper collection just has to be horribly defective. Because, there is no way every else can seem to tolerate this collection so favorably and disconcerned, if they are watching what I am watching. This DVD has to go back.
