Now this is what I’ve been waiting for! High Definition fans have been singing their praises for The Criterion Collection’s recent Blu Ray releases. As usual, the packaging and supplements have been top notch, and seeing some of these films in HD is a revelation. In an early press release last year, they’d listed a few non-fiction selections that were on the bill for the high definition treatment: Gimme Shelter, The Monterey Pop Festival and For All Mankind. It’s taken almost a year, but Criterion has finally announced their first documentary selection:

FOR ALL MANKIND
Al Reinert
United States
1989
79 minutes
1.33:1
English

DISC FEATURES

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by producer-director Al Reinert (with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Audio commentary featuring Reinert and Apollo 17 commander Eugene A. Cernan, the last man to set foot on the moon
An Accidental Gift: The Making of “For All Mankind,” a new documentary featuring interviews with Reinert, Apollo 12 and Skylab astronaut Alan Bean, and NASA archive specialists Don Pickard, Mike Gentry, Morris Williams, and Chuck Welch
On Camera, a collection of excerpted on-screen interviews with fifteen of the Apollo astronauts
New video program about Bean’s artwork, accompanied by a gallery of his paintings
NASA audio highlights and liftoff footage
Optional on-screen identification of astronauts and mission control specialists
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by film critic Terrence Rafferty and Reinert

For All Mankind hits blu ray July 28th.
For more information on this and other Criterion Blu Ray releases, visit www.criterionco.com.