Rounding Out Our Albert Brooks' Collections, Part 2: Mother

Concurrent with their 4k restoration of Real Life, Criterion has released a BD/ UHD combo-pack of Albert Brooks' Mother from 1996.  It's a film that often gets dismissed as being his schmaltzy attempt at mainstream, family-friendly light comedy... and maybe it is.  Albert Brooks was never exactly a "From the Twisted Mind of" filmmaker.  Some of the capital r Relatable humor of dealing with the elderly is a bit easy and admittedly feels like it would be equally at home in an ABC sitcom, or even a margarine commercial.  But it's consistently smart, elevated by Brooks' distinct humor, and a mile above what might be considered its peers, like say, Dad, Corrina Corrina or Stepmom.  This is what those movies dream of being.

Debbie Reynolds is a perfect comic and dramatic foil for Brooks, and Rob Morrow is bravely uncharismatic in his quasi-antagonistic role.  Lisa Kudrow and John C McGinley also have winsome cameos, and it's both impressive and bemusing that they got Paul Simon to agree to a remake of his song for an utterly indulgent homage to The Graduate.  Maybe this isn't his most bold or important work, but it's still a lasting work of art and good for a consistent run of laughs.

Anyway, Paramount first released Mother as a barebones DVD in 2001.  And that's been the whole, underwhelming story until Criterion rescued it with their impressive new 4k restoration from the original camera negative in HD, plus HDR10 for their UHD edition.

1) 2001 Paramount DVD; 2) 2024 Criterion BD; 3) 2024 Criterion UHD.

Let's start by pointing out how Criterion has corrected Paramount's aspect ratio from 1.78:1 to 1.85:1, unveiling a tiny bit more information along the sides and slightly readjusting the framing vertically.  The DVD also has a funky red hue Criterion collections, along with some messy compression, even by SD standards.  There's some edge enhancement, too, which has thankfully been left behind in the new transfer.  Grain is completely absent on the DVD, a little digitized on the BD, and perfect on the UHD.  And fine detail is greatly improved.  So much of the smaller writing on the food products in the first set of shots is illegible on the DVD but easy to read on the BD.  Not only can you can now read that the salt in Reynolds' hand is labeled "SPECIAL VALUE," but that the top of the can reads, "IODIZED," which wasn't even recognizable as text on the 2001 release!

Both discs feature the original mono audio in Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles, but Criterion kicks it up to DTS-HD.

Paramount's DVD had nothing else to offer but the trailer.  Criterion, on the other hand, has another great interview with Brooks - wait'll you hear the lengths and permutations they went to in order to cast the titular role - plus another with Rob Morrow.  It still has the trailer, too, but importantly also includes the novel teaser that pays ironic tribute to Mission Impossible.  It's not as funny as some of his others, but it's cute.  And there's another fold-out booklet, this time with notes by critic Carrie Rickey.

And as I wrote in Part 1, these Criterion releases now leave us with Brooks' entire catalog now available in HD, save one: his last film (to date), 2005's Looking For Comedy In the Muslim World.  If Mother was Brooks playing softball, this may be the one more egregious case.  The title might send up a lot of red flags for modern audiences, but this film actually sees Brooks bending over backwards to deliver wholesome messaging.

Brooks brings his career full circle here by featuring many of his early pre-Hollywood stand-up routines to the silver screen.  And watching him play another self-effacing version of himself, bombing with his own real life material, brings to mind the parody of himself he portrayed in SNL and Real Life.  For that matter, Penny Marshall's cameo as herself feels like a scene lifted from The Muse, though Fred Thompson's is more impressive and perfectly suited to this crossroads of modern politics and Hollywood fantasy here.

With so much attention devoted to the romance between his supporting characters, this is perhaps an overly sweet celebration of cultural differences, along the lines of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but Albert brings enough of himself, and some gentle satire of American foreign policy, to again raise his film above his peers.  And come on, who wouldn't be entertained watching Albert Brooks undertake an illegal border crossing into Pakistan in the middle of the night?  That premise is like a crazy SNL short he never got to make, but he finally goes for it in his 60s.

Warner Bros released it on DVD as a new release in 2006, followed by a 2008 double-feature with Defending Your Life, and most recently reissued it as part of their Warner Archives collection in 2017. But in a massively disappointing move, that was DVD-only, too.  Oh well, at least this disc isn't too bad.

2006 Warner Bros DVD.

Typical for Warner Bros in those days, they present a 1.85:1 in 1.78:1.  God forbid we see "black bars" on our widescreen TVs.  But it's a slim distinction.  And while Warners' Looking DVD is better than Paramount's Mother, without the edge enhancement and seemingly more accurate color timing (I say with nothing to compare it to), it's easy to imagine how much better this would be in HD with clean lines and crisper detail.  Looking for Comedy was shot on 35, so there's no question Warners could easily make this look a whole lot better if they ponied up.

At least they provide the original clear, but naturally lossy, 5.1 mix with optional English, French and Spanish subtitles.

And their disc isn't entirely barebones.  Besides the trailer, they include five minutes of deleted scenes, which are nearly on par with the rest of the movie, albeit non-anamorphic.  It's enough to make us serious Brooks heads need to own the DVD, even though it's not the disc we, or this film, deserve.  Maybe some day we'll get it.  I could see a label like Kino releasing Looking, but Warners don't usually like to license out their titles.  But that could change.  And then what would we need?  A better Muse?  Hey, at least we have it on blu, with the featurette.  And even this DVD more or less does the job.  If you don't already have it, pick one up cheap and round out your Brooks collection.