|
 Movie
B+ |
Video A- | Audio A-
| Extras B
Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan,
Gary Cole,
Eriq La Salle
director Mark Romanek | Fox Searchlight Pictures
2002 | Psychological Thriller | R
Region 1 | DVD-9
anamorphic
widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio
| Dolby Digital 5.1
Summary: Robin Williams stars as "Sy
the Photo Guy", a film developing technician at a local super
discount store. He takes his work very seriously and takes care of
his customer with an old-fashioned special touch. But Sy crosses the
line with the Yorkins, a seemingly gorgeous couple who builds a business
from scratch, puts together a magazine-perfect home, raises a
picture-perfect family. Sy begins to make his own copies of their
family snapshots when they come in to have them developed. He
becomes so obsessive with the family that he begins to make contact with
the family outside of his capacity as a photo technician. He
considers himself "uncle Sy" to the family's child. Will
the Yorkins realize Sy's unhealthy level of concern with the family?
Will Sy find satisfaction in his casual friendship with the family?
Or will he take this obsession too far?
Robin Williams is one of few actors who can
successfully bring Sy's character to life and make this psychological
thriller truly frightening. I particularly enjoyed the
cinematography, how the color palette played into the development of the
story, and Robin William's narration from his character's point of
view. One Hour Photo is quite a delightfully chilling
film. There's quite a few lessons here. One of which is it's
time to convert to digital photography!
Special Features: commentary with director/writer/actor;
"Anatomy of a Scene" Sundance Channel featurette; "Making
Of" featurette; "The Charlie Rose Show" interview with
Robin Williams and Mark Romanek; theatrical trailer and TV spots
DVD released on 2/18/2003 | Reviewed 2/7/2003
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Additional Notes: Unless we specify otherwise, the
video and audio quality are very good when their grades are "A-"
or better. Only the highest number of channels of surround sound
format is listed (e.g., Dolby Digital 5.1). If there are both Dolby
Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks, then both are listed. All
DVD-Video discs are backwards compatible with stereo-only playback
systems.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
| 
United We Stand
