Amadeus (UK)

A late 20th century masterpiece. Nothing less than that.
I was way too young to appreciate Amadeus when it was released back in 1984.
The first time I saw it was on DVD a couple of weeks ago, and since I`ve watched it 3 more times.
The story of Mozart is told in a beautiful, exciting, wacky way. Not even a second of the two and a half hour movie is boring.
The video transfer of this 16 year-old movie is excellent. Despite its age, there are no scratches, nor are there any compression marks.
The audio, oh, the audio. I can only assume, that had Mozart known his masterpieces are now in DD 5.1, he would`ve jumped out of his grave and laughed with his silly laugh. I give the musical score (recently re-mastered for this DVD) a perfect 10. Being a classical music lover, I know a good tune when I hear it, but even if classical music is not your style you are bound to enjoy the amazing soundtrack of the movie.
Were the Oscars a wise decision for this movie? Yes, yes and yes!!! Each and every one of them.
The only flaw in the disk is that the features are simply not enough.
Buy this disk. Watch it over and over and over again. It`ll never bore you. It may even make you appreciate just how great Mozart was (as if you didn`t know it by now). :)

Amadeus is a masterpiece film. No wonder it did get all those Oscar`s. The way the story is told by Mozart`s greatest rival Salieri is just a masterpiece of it`s own. And then the music. Mozart wrote in his short life an enormous amount of music pieces. To select the right pieces to support this filmstory and the way it is perfomed by Sir Neville Marriner and orchestra, no words to describe. Beautiful!

My videotape is worn out in all those years. So, I was happy to see that Amadeus was released on DVD.
The transfer is okay. The picture quality is good and very clean. The image is not crystal sharp, but that`s just something that`s appropriate with a story told in the late 18th century.
The (anamophic) cinemascope format is something I missed on my old videotape (which was P&S). I loved to see it in this widescreen format on the DVD.
The sound is impressive. As you have read, I very much like the way Marriner performed it, but the DD5.1 remix for this DVD is sheer quality. Impressive, it gives me the shivers so beautiful.

Unfortunately the DVD was a flipper. You have to turn the disc halfway the movie. So I didn`t buy it.
But, Warner has re-released the DVD in region 2, because I got it as a one side (dual layer) disc. So NO flipper. But this `medal` has a backside.
The `flipper` disc has quite a few extra`s on it, my disc has NO extra`s. Nothing, just the movie (in 38 chapters) and several different subtitles.
And then..., this is a real shame! The Dutch subtitles are not good. Unfortunately, they used a wrong characterset. This means, that special characters are displayed wrong. Like Italy is in Dutch `Italië`. In the movie it is shown as `Itali%` These errors occur 16 times in the movie! Only painfull for the Dutch buyers.

So beware with Amadeus. The movie on DVD is superb. But look for the DVD that`s NOT a flipper. And beware of the Dutch subtitles.

Amadeus is really a masterpiece - Milos Forman and all the great actors, the costumes and environment of the late 18th century Vienna. And of course the music. I never get tired of this movie. I have the Swedish region 2 version. It is no flipper but has no bonus tracks either, which is a pity.