Whither Amadeus? Hither Amadeus!

There have been rumors of a 4k Ultra HD release of Amadeus for several years now.  It's been said to be coming from Warner Bros and Criterion at different times.  I even fell for one of those shady Twitter accounts that announced it as if they had real insider information, before I found they were just posting best guesses are scoops for clicks.  I still feel a little bad for perpetuating it by posting the artwork they created on a forum and sharing a link to the fake news.  I guess you could say that this post is my penance for that.  What can I say?  I was naive!  But that naughty account has since vanished, and we're just left with the false hope.  As far as I know, there's no further reason to expect an Amadeus 4k outside of the "it's always possible" realm.  I mean, it is a high-profile Academy Award winning "Best Picture," and there have been rumors of a restoration possibly being "in the works."  But nothing's been legitimately announced.

Update and Error Correction 6/8/23 - 7/3/23: First of all, a huge thanks to Kevin and Chris in the comments for helping me set this screw-up straight.  Your instincts were completely correct!  To be clear, the 2009 DVD is the theatrical cut, not the director's cut (which is a good thing, because it means fans can still access the TC without tracking out the long OOP disc from the 90s).  And the good news for everyone is that, in the business of sorting my mistake out, I got my hands on a 1997 DVD, so we've wound up with more thorough coverage as a bonus.

Update 2/26/25: The rumors have finally proven true!  Or more accurately, perhaps, enough time has passed that the initially false rumors eventually stumbled into the facts bearing themselves out.  Whatever, same difference!  We now have Amadeus restored in 4k on UHD.  Just one cut, but what did you expect?  An edition with no compromises?

You might expect a three-hour drama about an 18th century composer to be a pretty dry, homework-like affair.  But oh no, 1984's Amadeus is a vibrant, exciting picture.  The conflict between F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce runs deep.  Think There Will Be Blood, but resonating on an even more profound level.  Milos Forman adapts the original stage play with a lavish production, clearly expenses were not spared.  Hulce gives a wild performance, but surrounded by first class players like Jeffrey Jones, Abraham and The Funhouse's Elizabeth Berridge, it all works magically.  In either cut.

Yes, I have to confess, I feel a little ambivalent on the director's cut issue.  I don't feel the longer cut hurts the pacing any - what's an extra twenty minutes when you're already pushing three hours?  You either have the attention span or you don't.  And some of the added material is pretty good, like the bit with the dogs.  It's all well done.  But I can't really disagree with critics who say it demonizes Salieri too much, with the nude scene and all making him excessively lecherous, which is kind of off-message with Mozart's genius meant to be his downfall.  And one or two scenes/ edits play a little better in the theatrical cut.  But really, the movie's strengths are still at play in either version.  Idealistically, I always think studios should err on the side of providing all the options, though, so any future release really ought to include both cuts, satisfying the filmmakers and their adherents and purists looking for the original theatrical experience.

But instead it continues to be a binary issue.  Warner Bros' original 1997 DVD, now long out of print and very hard to find, was an anamorphic, widescreen but barebones presentation of the theatrical cut as a 2-sided flipper disc (you have to take the disc out and turn it over to watch the second half of the film).  That was followed by the Two-Disc Special Edition in 2002, where they switched to the director's cut.  The two-disc version is a dual-layered disc, so the whole (longer) film plays without flipping or switching discs.  It's also a special edition, with an hour-long documentary on the second disc.  In 2003, there was a limited edition 3-disc set, but it's basically just the same 2-disc set in special packaging.  That third disc is a soundtrack CD.  Then, in 2009, they re-released the old flipper disc in an amary case - meaning back to the theatrical cut and no extras.  Also in 2009, however, WB released their blu-ray edition, which brought back the extras for their HD presentation.  There was a standard edition and a mediabook which also included that soundtrack CD.  But both are the director's cut only.  And finally, in 2025, the pendulum has swung all the way back to the other side.  Amadeus has been restored in 4k on a new UHD release from Warner Bros, but it's only the theatrical cut.

1) 1997 WB DVD; 2) 2002 WB DVD; 3) 2009 WB DVD;
4) 2009 WB BD; 5) 2025 WB UHD.

1) 2002 WB DVD; 2) 2009 WB BD.
(This shot doesn't appear on the '97 or '09 TC DVDs, nor the 2025 TC UHD.)

The original (and 2009 reissue, which is the same disc), is framed at 2.29:1, which is tweaked to 2.30:1 on the 2002 disc.  But if you look at what's actually in frame, the difference is far greater than a mere .01 in geometry.  It's zoomed in, effectively cutting off parts of the image along the sides and bottom.  Then the BD widens out it out further to 2.41:1.  It doesn't reveal more; the DVDs are just slightly vertically stretched, which the BD corrects.  The flipper DVDs are also, you won't help but notice, considerably more overcast with a warm hue, giving them a much yellower look in the shots above.  The 2002 DVD and BD are clearly using the same root master, with the same corrected colors, but the boost to HD on the blu makes a nice difference, giving a clearer cleaner image with distinctly sharper detail.  With less compression, the colors manage to appear more nuanced and naturalistic, too (look at the flesh tones in the second set of pics, for instance).  That said, even on the BD, grain is light; but this was shot on 70mm, so it should be substantially finer.

Now, the UHD is a smidgen taller again, measuring in at 2.39:1, which it achieves by revealing slivers more picture along the top and bottom.  The increased resolution is nice, too.  Look at the delightfully bored girl on the lower left corner of the first set of shots.  Even on the blu, her jewelry is largely reduced to pure white pixels, which are far more nuanced and polished in the UHD.  Her bow even suggests some subtle edge enhancement on the BD, which is replaced by pure naturalism on the UHD, where we can also see deeper hints at the pattern on the surrounding fabric.  Color-wise, besides finding more depths in the highlights like the aforementioned jewelry, the UHD returns to the warmer and yellower tone of the older DVDs.  But there it's more of a wash, whereas here, differing colors are still allowed to stand out, untarnished.  That is to say, for example, the rose in the second girl's hair is bright red when it had previously been faded, and the next girl's dress pure blue, where the yellow hue on the previous DVDs managed to make it lean greenish.  Those gold columns really shine like gold now, where they never did before.  And yet we can still see areas (i.e. the sheet music) of true white.

Audio-wise, they all give us a 5.1 mix with optional English subtitles, in TrueHD on the blu.  The 2002 DVD also had a stereo mix, though, which the blu-ray again drops.  But this is a music film that famously played in theaters with a six-track mix, so the 5.1 is the one we want.  The UHD gives it to us in DTS-HD, and the back of the case actually says 5.0, but when I examine the audio on my PC, it's still split into six channels.  Honestly, it doesn't sound hugely different from what's come before it.

As far as foreign language options, the DVDs also had a French 5.1 dub and French and Spanish subs.  The blu has a French, Spanish, German and Italian dub (all 5.1) and subtitles in fifteen additional languages.  The UHD goes back to just the French and Spanish dubs, and the back of the case suggests they're in DTS-HD, but upon inspection, they're actually lossy.  And they've cut down the massive list of subtitle options to just English, French and Spanish.

Now, the 2-disc DVD and the BD have the same extras, while the 1997 and 2009 DVDs have nothing but the trailer, plus a music-only track that actually isn't on the other discs.  The 2002 DVD and the BD have the trailer, but more importantly they have an audio commentary by Forman and writer Peter Shaffer.  It's a good discussion that answers a lot of questions and does a good job filling the entire running time.  Then there's an hour-long 'making of' documentary that talks to Forman, Shaffer, the producer, Hulce, Abraham, Berridge, Jones, Vincent Schiavelli, the music director, the AD, the production designer and choreographer.  It covers some identical ground as the commentary, but otherwise it's excellent and absolutely enough.  I'm not saying I wouldn't appreciate more good extras on another release, but honestly, we've got what we really need.

And the new UHD?  Well, if you didn't mind the loss of the director's cut (seriously, two discs with 1 cut on each disc doesn't sound that unreasonable), here's where you'll be disappointed.  That Forman/ Shaffer commentary was on the director's cut, and since that's gone, so is the commentary - what a loss!  The trailer's gone missing, too.  They couldn't at least have stuck the old 2009 disc in the package as a supplement?  Maybe they're intentionally holding back for a 50th anniversary release?  At least the documentary is still here, and we do get something new: a 23 minute retrospective, where most of the stars and crew from the documentary return to reminisce about the film via webcam.  It's a step down from the first one, and often redundant, but it's fun, and nice we got something fresh.  Oh, and the new release also comes in a slipcover.

So, bottom line?  A big "yes!" to this new disc, but with a strong emphasis on the caveat to hang onto your BDs, which I'd originally described as a "decent placeholder for now."  It turns out it's going to hold onto it's relevancy in our collections for a long time to come.  But never the less, the next time you watch Amadeus, it should be on this new 4k.

Let's Talk Scream of Stone

I've been getting caught up in new releases lately, and while I certainly intend to always cover them (and am planning another one for my very next post), I don't want to lose sight of the lesser known, but no less essential discs included in my mission statement.  And one title I've had on my list to address here is Werner Herzog's 1991 drama Scream of Stone.

Frankly, it's a very trite sports movie about two rival mountain climbers competing over a girl, but it stars Donald Sutherland and Mathilda May, the world's most gorgeous nude space vampire from Lifeforce.  Herzog regular Brad Dourif also appears in a supporting role, where he gets to play a hardcore eccentric.  And you might notice the poster says it's "based on an idea by" Reinhold Messner.  That's a mountaineer who'd worked on the 1985 documentary The Dark Glow Of the Mountains with Herzog, and who would go on to write a book called Scream of Stone in 2020 (about the same mountain, but it's not this story).  Anyway, Dark Glow is easily the superior film.  This, on the other hand, seems to mostly exist as an excuse for Herzog to travel to South America and capture stunning mountaineering footage in exotic and challenging locales.  So it's kind of a dud overall, but aspects of Scream of Stone will always hold up as genuinely impressive and worth seeing.  Besides, what kind of film fan isn't a Herzog completist in 2025?

Scream of Stone debuted on disc in 2004, from the UK label Cinema Club (the same ones who released Return Of the Living Dead 3 uncut when everybody else put out the R-rated version).  Unfortunately, even for its time, it left a lot to be desired: non-anamorphic, PAL, single-layered and looks like it was struck from a video tape master.  There have been a couple subsequent DVDs released around the world: one from the Netherlands, another in Australia (from a company called Payless, which should tell you something), a third in Italy and a fourth in Korea.  I don't have any of them to compare, but they're all marked as 4:3 on the back of their cases, so I think it's safe to assume they're roughly equivalent.

2004 Cinema Club DVD.

Again, Cinema Club's DVD is non-anamorphic, and it's window-boxed to a weird 1.50:1 AR.  It looks like a tape rip, bit it still sports film damage as well.  I guess this was mastered from a tape of a worn film print.  It's plagued with all sorts of ugly haloing and fuzziness.  But hey, surprisingly, the picture isn;t interlaced!  So that's one thing.  The audio track is a rather hissy English 5.1 mix, which surely can't be right for a low budget, German flick from 1991.  There are no subtitle options except for a few burnt in ones when a local native is approached for a quick scene.  And naturally, there are no extras, not even a trailer.  The fact that these DVDs is all we've got is made all the more frustrating because we know an higher definition master exists from 1.66:1 clips shown in Herzog's 2019 documentary, Nomad: In the Footsteps Of Bruce Chatwin.  Here's a quick comparison:

2004 Cinema Club DVD top; 2020 Music Box BD of Nomad bottom.

Ready to be even more frustrated?  There is a better version out there!  It's still a DVD, but it's dual-layered in 1.85:1 and is actually a nice little special edition, with a commentary by Herzog, The Dark Glow Of the Mountains as a special feature, storyboards, photos and yes, the trailer.  Some pressings even come in a slip cover.  Art Haus released it in 2005.  But it's not English friendly!  Yes, this movie is in English - the English audio here matches the actors' lip movements - but apparently the AH DVD is a German dub with no subtitle options.  Womp, womp.  So this Cinema Club is still the best we can get unless we're fluent in German.

Look, I know this isn't Herzog's best work, but this movie is just sitting here waiting for Shout Factory or somebody to give it a proper blu-ray release.  The master already exists, an audio commentary by Herzog is just sitting there waiting to be licensed (and they've ported over other Art Haus commentaries in the past).  Come on, guys.  There's gotta be enough die-hard Herzogians out there to support at least a small run!

The Luxury Antiviral

With Brandon Cronenberg's more recent films getting lavished with all kinds of fancy, 4k editions, it's nice that Severin has seen fit to go back and give the same treatment to his 2012 debut, Antiviral, which I still hold this out as his best work  With it's creative and genuinely insightful science fiction take, and first class execution, it was the film that suggested this nepo baby might actually be the successor capable of picking up the ball his father had seemingly dropped when he moved into more milquetoast drama.  The concept, the look, the performances (Caleb Landry Jones really goes for it), the score... every element really comes together; it instantly turned by from a skeptic to a convert.  So a fancy, new 3-disc limited edition?  Hell yeah!

IFC originally released Antiviral as a new release on separate DVD and blu-ray releases in 2013.  They've been the sole, go-to discs in the US until now.  Severin has issued a new, limited edition 4k 3-disc set, consisting of a brand new 4k scan of a 35mm protection internegative on UHD, that same transfer on 1080p BD, and a second BD including an earlier cut from its Cannes premiere.  Cronenberg tells us in the intro to the Cannes cut that "it's not better version or the director's cut, but it is a part of the film's history that was lost until now."  It's mostly the same as the final theatrical cut, but with the deleted scenes back in, and a few other minor alterations, satisfactorily concluding a subplot for a secondary character.  A standard edition has already been announced for March, but it will just be a 2-disc set, without the Cannes cut.

a scene only in the Cannes cut

So this is an interesting one.  For starters, Antiviral was shot digitally in 2k, so why are we getting a 4k scan of a 35mm protection internegative?  Isn't that just going a generation further removed?  Fortunately Cronenberg and his DP, Karim Hussain, are on hand in the special features to explain.  And it basically boils down to the limits of the color timing at the time of release - particularly in the subtle variations of white - where they had to time it differently for DCP screenings and for film prints.  This new transfer's HDR allows them to essentially merge the best of both worlds.  But this should temper your expectations for any gains in resolution with the 4k.  And it should also be pointed out that the Cannes cut included on the 3rd disc utilizes the digital transfer for anyone who would still prefer that version over the new film scan.  So let's get into it.

1) 2013 IFC DVD; 2) 2013 IFC BD; 3) 2024 Severin BD;
4) 2024 Severin UHD; 5) 2024 Severin (Cannes cut) BD.

An unexpected change right off the bat, we've gone from the IFC discs being 1.85:1 to the Severin discs (all transfers) are now 1.78:1.  That sounds like a small step backwards, but seeing how heavily involved Cronenberg Hussain seem to have been with the new restoration, I guess 1.78 is how they prefer it.  The difference amounts to a little more picture along the top and bottom of the newer transfer rather than anything extra along the sides of the old ones.  And another surprise?  IFC's DVD is interlaced.  That's pretty unusual for an HD-concurrent release that modern.  Thankfully their BD is not similarly affected, but that means there's a bigger jump in quality between the two IFC discs besides the fundamental distinction between standard and high definition.

Severin's new transfer naturally adds a layer of grain to the image that the IFC discs lack, because it's the only one taken from film.  That grain is still surprisingly soft, even on the UHD, but I guess that's no great loss since it kinda doesn't belong there anyway.  Severin's Cannes cut, naturally, does not have this grain element, and some purists will be glad to have it for that reason.  Zooming in super close to all of these reveals practically no discernible distinction in actual detail from the original picture in any of these transfers (except, of course, in the DVD, which is naturally cloudier).  But it should be noted that the UHD is able to retain imagery that all the other discs crush out in the shadows, evident in the second set of shots.  In summary, I'd say the UHD does have the generally best transfer, but it's a distinction most viewers wouldn't even notice.  And some sticklers might still prefer the IFC blu for not adding the... not fake, but extraneous grain, and maybe even for keeping the traditional theatrical AR.

Antiviral started life with a 5.1 mix, and it's on every disc.  The DVD is lossy, whereas all the blus and UHD present the film in DTS-HD.  Severin also adds a stereo mix, also in DTS-HD.  Every release also includes optional English subtitles, with IFC also throwing in Spanish ones.

In terms of special features, IFC was already satisfactorily decked out.  It has a pretty great audio commentary by Cronenberg and Hussain, which occasionally gets a little silly and immature (I recommend switching it off before their original "I want to snort your nail clippings" song over the closing credits), but is 99% very illuminating.  And then there's a terrific, half-hour making of documentary, comprised of interviews with the cast and crew and on-set footage.  There's also just over five minutes of interesting deleted scenes, with optional commentary by Cronenberg.  And there are a handful of 2-3 minute featurettes, which are pretty skippable, since they're mostly cut from the same footage used in the doc.  There may be one or two brief soundbites that are unique to them, but it's not worth sifting through.  Finally, there's the trailer and a couple bonus trailers.  Oh, and some brief test footage from their infrared cameras, used in some background shots.

Broken Tulips

Severin carries all of that over, and they add some great new stuff.  There's a new on-camera interview with Cronenberg and Hussain, which is described as them discussing the new restoration.  And they do for the first couple minutes, but then they go on to talk about the film in plenty more retrospective aspects.  And they include the short film Cronenberg made to sell this film to investors called Broken Tulips (also in 1.78).  Cronenberg and Hussain have also recorded a new introduction for the Cannes cut, though that and the infrared test footage are only on the 3-disc version.  Also exclusive to the 3-disc set is the fancy slipcover, a 30-page booklet by author Claire Donner.

I called The Mask of Satan the gem of Severin's latest Black Friday releases, but that doesn't mean it's the only one worth getting.  This is a top shelf release of an underrated classic.  Although, with that said, anyone who doesn't consider themselves an extreme fan may be content with the original IFC release, since the new transfer and additional bells & whistles aren't that far beyond what we've already got.  This is the premium, luxury edition for those who've got to have the very best.  Everyone else may be happy to save a few - or more than a few - bucks and splurge elsewhere.

Demons Part VIY: The Mask Of Satan

Ooh, I've been waiting for this one!  And I don't just mean that it took Severin approximately two months to ship my Black Friday order. 😉  Lamberto Bava's Mask of Satan is a title I've been eager to own since the days of laserdisc, but it's never been released on any format.  The best I'd been able to manage was a bootleg DVDR I purchased at a horror convention years and years ago; and I was happy to get that.  So, while this may not be the single greatest I-horror title in the pantheon, I was thrilled when Severin announced it as a special edition blu-ray.  Curiously, they describe their release as "the first time ever in North America," which is typically a delicate way to hype a quasi-debut without mentioning the film's already been released in other parts of the world, sort of like saying a scan is from "original film elements" when a label can't find the original negatives.  But if there's another blu out there anywhere in the world - Japan, Italy, Spain, anywhere - I've never heard of it, and believe me, I've searched!  I would've bought it.  But if it is out there, I'm glad I never found it now, because I'd be double-dipping for this anyway.

Mask Of Satan has always struck me as the most Demons-like of all the unofficial Demons sequels (this one was known as Demons 5).  Ostensibly, of course, it's a remake of his father, Mario Bava's Mask of Satan, a.k.a. Black Sunday, where a woman is accused of witchcraft, killed by having a spiked mask hammered into her face, and resurrected a hundred or so years later to seek revenge.  But they immediately, with Barbara Steele and her zombified husband lurking around a mansion in the original, and a bunch of yuppies turning into monstrous maniacs in an ice cave here.  And hey, Demons also had a Black Sunday-inspired metal mask starting off the horror, worn by Michele Soavi, who also has a major role in this.  The only thing really separating this from the Demons franchise proper is the fact that the demonically possessed in this film spend most of their time behaving like rude pranksters rather than feral killers.

Rewatching this more recently, I was surprised to see Nikolay Gogol's name in the credits.  Indeed, both this and the original Mask of Satan claim to be remakes of his famous story Viy, famously adapted directly in 1967.  And sure, both films feature a resurrected witch, but otherwise Mario's Mask feels even more dissimilar to Viy than it does Demons.  However, watching Lamberto's Mask with Viy in mind, yeah, now I see it.  Sure, it's a modern updating that takes plenty of liberties, but there's definitely more Viy in here than Black Sunday or Demons, especially the climax, when our hero draws a protected ring around himself in the haunted church while various monsters and spirits fly circles around him.

Putting aside its associations to other films and stories, though, 1989's Mask of Satan is a good time in its own right.  Bava's pretty much got the band back together with some wild special effects by Sergio Stivaletti (one in particular really stands out!) and an lush score by Simon Boswell.  Everything takes place on one elaborate set, enhanced by one or two impressive outdoor locations, with the kind of colorful photography we've all come to love and expect in classic I-horror (for no reason at all, one nook in the ice cave emanates a bright green glow).  You do feel the lack of gore, which is probably an unavoidable consequence of this being a made-for-TV project.  I wouldn't hold this up as high as the official Demons movies, but it's a respectable runner up.

2024 Severin BD.

Presented in a pillarboxed 1.67:1, we're told Severin's blu is a 2k scan taken from the original negative and, in terms of colors, contrast, etc, it looks pretty great.  The film's grain is barely even hinted at, though, and I know 2k ain't 4k, but you'd never see a 2k scan on 1080p looking like this come out of Arrow.  It is a dual-layer disc, with the film taking up more than half the space itself, but I wouldn't be at all surprised this is a transfer Severin was just handed from an Italian lab.  Honestly, it's the kind of thing that will irritate the "pixel peepers" among us, but most viewers won't mind or even notice, because it's such an attractive transfer otherwise.  Talk about colors "popping," that one girl's ski jacket practically irradiates your living room with pinkness whenever it's in front of the camera.

Interestingly, there is no English dub, but besides the Italian, there is also a Spanish track, both of which are in DTS-HD.  And Severin has gone the extra mile to include two sets of English subtitles, one matching each dub.

Mary Sellers

Severin's blu isn't over-crowded with special features, but what it's got is excellent.  Basically, there are three on-camera interviews, and each one is a great addition.  First, Bava himself gives an enthusiastic and comprehensive overview (except he doesn't address the Demons connection at all), talking about everything from how this was originally planned as a six-part international film series of witchcraft to the fact that this film hasn't been available on disc until now is because the negatives were lost and just recently located.  Then we've got tighter interviews with two of the lead actresses: Mary Sellers and Debora Caprioglio, who talk about their experiences on this film and their careers in general.  Yes, Debora is asked and explains her relationship with Klaus Kinski.  Besides that, though, there's not much else.  But this does come in a super cool, embossed slipcover if you order it direct from the label.

So do I recommend this?  Heck yeah, I'm dancin' in the end zone!  Not that it's a classic, but it is good - it impresses a little more now, too, seeing it in full quality - and ticks a very long awaited title off of our lists.  This is a film fans have been pestering Anchor Bay and everybody else about for decades.

Separated: Errol Morris In Standard Def

Speaking of one of the world’s greatest documentary filmmaker’s latest works coming out on DVD only, today sees the release of Errol Morris’s Separated from Kino Lorber.  Now, Morris films have unfortunately been relegated to DVD only or not at all for a long time now, starting with Virgil’s last minute scrapping of their announced blu-ray of The B-Side in 2017.  Since then, we’ve also had American Dharma on DVD, and Wormwood, My Psychedelic Love Story, Pigeon Tunnel and last year’s Tune Out the Noise all go unreleased.  I don't even know how or if anyone can watch that last one, online or anywhere.  Apparently, it's about advisors?  Maybe it's more of a feature-length work-for-hire advertisement, and that's why not much has been made of it.  But it played at festivals, so who knows?  Anyway, given that environment, I guess getting this DVD at all is cause for minor celebration.

Earlier this year, I saw Morris Tweet his dissatisfaction at NBC, who co-funded and maintained the initial rights to broadcast, for not showing it before the November election.  A warning coming too late.  Though seeing how that bore out, I doubt it would have swayed the results.  And looking at it from the opposite vantage: what would a pre-election airing have done for his doc?  Well, better timing may’ve elevated its perceived relevancy and maybe netted a few more political junkies’ eyes on it.  But with the new administration, and their 2016 policies swinging back into action, the subject matter will unfortunately still probably prove highly relevant for years to come.  And this movie shouldn’t be reliant on momentary buzz; for anyone who knows and appreciates cinema, a new Errol Morris doc is a newsworthy event in its own right.

If it hasn't already been obvious from the cover image, etc, Separated is about the child separation that was being enacted at the US's Southern border, where migrants and their children were being split apart as a deterrent to illegal immigration.  Officially, it's based on the book Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by NBC News' Jacob Sobokoff, who did some crucial first-hand investigation for Dateline at the time.  "It is not a partisan movie. It's about a policy that was disgusting and should not be allowed to happen again. Make your own inferences," Morris advised.

I was initially concerned this might be a quick NBC news item expanded into feature with Morris' name on the cover.  But no, in the music, the editing, the shooting style and his interview style, this definitely feels like an Errol Morris movie, albeit more like Standard Operating Procedure than Vernon, FL.  He gets some strong responses from his interview subjects, and the photography is impressive throughout.  But what proves a little distracting is his use of recreation to dramatize the immigrants' experience.  Morris famously used recreation to great and consequential effect in A Thin Blue Line, but since Wormwood, it feels more like maybe Morris is getting bored with the constraints of traditional documentary filmmaking, and like Josh Oppenheim, is looking to push the envelope for its own sake.  Here, it's certainly effective in illustrating every step of crossing the border, being detained, divided and deported again (in this instance with a happy ending of reunion, though the doc makes clear this has still never happened for over a thousand cases).  But the fact that he never talks with a single parent, child or anyone who's attempted that journey for real is a weak spot.

2024 Kino DVD.

Kino presents Separated in 2.38:1 (the case says 2.40, but close enough), with occasional exceptions for archival footage and creative reshaping.  Yes, this is progressive and anamorphic, no unfortunate surprises here.  And it's at least a dual-layered disc, so compression is strong for standard definition.  But small detail does look fuzzy and slightly out of focus, something which would look much stronger in HD.  But c'est la vie.  We're presented with the choice of 2.0 and 5.1 audio tracks and optional English SDH subtitles, with a handful of foreign language subs burnt in (see the second comparison shot).  The only extra is the trailer and a handful of bonus trailers.

So, it's not exactly the Criterion 4k special edition I would've liked, but I'm glad to have this on my shelf.