The Rolling Stones - Live at the Max (Large Format)
This 1991 concert film was shot in the IMAX format and was originally  presented on enormous IMAX screens, with outstanding visual and audio  clarity. The dimensions may have been scaled down for this DVD release, but the show is still huge in energy and talent. Filmed during a European leg of  the Rolling Stones'Steel Wheelstour, this production boasts 15 songs  and an extraordinary stage set with inflatable floozies (for "Honky Tonk  Woman") and wild dogs (rather cleverly for "Street Fighting Man"). The  Stones' set emphasizes material from the late 1960s and early '70s ("Tumbling  Dice," "Happy," "You Can't Always Get What You Want"), but the band's  performance is so furious that the show is far from a pandering oldies act. Highlights include "Paint It Black," at once brutal and delicate, as well as  a muscular "Rock and a Hard Place," a psychedelicized "2,000 Light Years from  Home," and a cheeky "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll." Once kings of a gloriously  sloppy sound, the Stones prove to be as effective in their artistic maturity  with small, breathtaking touches as they are with chunky orchestration.   Guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood play as if they are of one mind,  Richards providing powerful leads while his partner captures some of the  texture of the group's original recordings. Bassist Bill Wyman, still in the  band at this phase, offers wit and an encyclopedic grasp of rhythm & blues  history, while drummer Charlie Watts adds control and swing.  Mick Jagger  prowls, climbs around the set, and delivers all the charismatic goods for  adoring audiences, even touching the forbidden fruit again in a feverish  peformance of "Sympathy for the Devil." The DVD also includes a full Stones discography.--Tom Keogh