Cider House Rules (a J!-ENT DVD Review)
September 27, 2003 by Dennis Amith · View Comments
MOVIE COMPANY: MIRAMAX
CAST: Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Michael Caine, Delroy Lindo, Heavy D and more.
DIRECTED BY Lasse Halstrom
RATING: PG-13
INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0124315
DURATION: 125 minutes
Homer is an orphan in remote St. Cloud, Maine. Never adopted, he becomes the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch, who imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. When Wally and pregnant Candy visit the orphanage Dr. Larch provides medically safe, albeit illegal, abortions Homer leaves with them to work on Wally’s family apple farm. Wally goes off to war, leaving Homer and Candy alone together. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him? (Martin Lewison, IMDB)
DVD EXTRAS:
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby, Collector’s Edition
• Audio Commentary
• Deleted Footage
• Making Of “Cider House Rules”
• Full-screen and widescreen anamorphic formats
KNOWN DVD SECRET(S): (none that I know of)
DVD REVIEW:
I felt that “The Cider House Rules” was a pretty good movie and I enjoyed watching the settings and the adaptation of the popular Irving novel.
I didn’t think this was the best movie of the year as some critics may feel. I felt it was a good movie and that was it.
The video quality is beautiful especially the different scenery involved in this film. You really see the colors stand out. As for the audio, this is a dialogue movie, so no major use of your rear audio speakers. As for the DVD extra’s, you get the making of the movie and deleted footage which I felt some should of been left in the movie but I’m guessing due to the pace of the movie, the director felt the need to omit it. I really wish there was a director’s commentary though.
All in all a good movie. Very beautiful and interesting storyline.
THE MOVIE: B+
THE DVD EXTRAS: B
THE DVD OVERALL: B+
