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| DVD
Reviews - Waking Life |
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Order this DVD from
Amazon.com
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Waking
Life
(Fox Home Entertainment)
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| DVD
Release Date:
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May
7, 2002
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Length:
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100
mins.
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| Rated:
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R
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| Format:
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Widescreen (1.85:1)
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Languages:
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English, Spanish
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| Subtitles:
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English, French
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| Extras:
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Filmmakers'
Audio Commentary, Animators' Audio Commentary, Feature Length
Text Commentary, Greatest Hits from the Live Action Version, Bob
Sabiston's Animation Software Tutorial, Deleted Live Action
Scenes, Selections from Linklater's "Audition Tapes"
Featurette, Sundance Channel Special, Short Films by Sabiston,
Cast and Crew Bios, Theatrical Trailer
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This was one deep animated feature. With
no real plot until the end, it mainly had an ensemble of characters
presenting philosophical ideas in a seemingly random manner. Not quite
pretentious, it had more an air of ambitiousness. I didn't much like
it. The visual style as well was a bit of a turn off. Everything
tended to be far too fidgety for my taste. While this helped to add
both realism and surrealism, I found it to be very distracting. More
criminal than that, it lulled me from consciousness. Being so
life-like, it failed to contain the energy I've come to expect with
animation. However, to be fair, the narrative nature of the scenes
themselves played a big part in that. That's not say it was all
boring. There were some interesting sequences to watch, but there's
much more that wasn't.
Here's a rare case where I enjoyed the extras to a movie I didn't.
Featurettes on how they did it and on the software used were
fascinating. Clips of the live video prior to animation were also a
treat, as were nineteen deleted scenes and a look at early test art. A
previously done short film made by the animators was also quite
entertaining. Rounding out the bonus material were, biographies, a
trailers for this film, and a trailer for 'The Banger Sisters'. There
were also two audio commentaries and one presented as text. The first
one was informative from director Richard Linklater, producer Tommy
Pallotta, art director Bob Sabiston and star Wiley Wiggins. The second
audio one was more dull, with all the animators discussing their
various parts. The text commentary was interesting in a more academic
sense, but was ineffective as many times, the words disappeared much
too quickly.
From the start, this movie was more art than entertainment. My
horizons certainly had been broadened, right along with my frown.
| The Movie: |
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2/10 |
| The
Extras: |
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8/10 |
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| Recommendation: |
Be
Warned, Not Worth The Time |
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Phil
Wong - Associate Editor
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