Miracle (Special Edition with a 60 page version of the 180-page book)
Celine Dion's straight-from-the-heart, sincerity-stung singing, woven together withAnne Geddes' visual gifts, perform a neat symbiotic trick. If you never quite got Geddes' photographs (not everyone can find artistic merit in lineups of sleepyheaded newborns dressed as bumblebees), or if Celine's vocals seemed over-the-top emotional, this package irons out the separate but unsinkable appeal of both artists with drawstring-like efficiency. On the DVD, Celine's vocals are the musical equivalent of comfort food, zapping the weirdness out of the babies-as-blooms sequences with raw maternal warmth. And Geddes' playful images--the title track tucks a newborn into a lotus leaf, and "What a Wonderful World" blazes to life in bouquets of red rose bonnets--leavens Celine's swollen-hearted delivery with whimsy.Miracle'ssubtitle isA Celebration of New Life,and while Geddes and Dion go at it with opposite M.O.s, they meet in the middle with a box set to be prized for its exploration of the shades of a parent's love. There are a couple of reasons not to keep this package cribside, though: For one, the urge to stare dreamily at a sleeping newborn while Celine's stunning rendition of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" plays notwithstanding, her note-pounding delivery is at times un-lullaby-like. For another, the images gathered in the 57-page booklet that accompanies the DVD and CD are too captivating to risk dampening with drool.--Tammy La Gorce