The Movie: A couple years ago, everyone was raving about this movie. I stayed away, maybe because I didn't want to be disappointed, or something, I don't know. But I finally watched it and well, I thought it was just OK. Angelina Jolie won an Academy Award for her role in this movie which stars Winona Ryder. Based on a true story, Girl, Interrupted is about Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) who has just graduated from high school, hasn't found her direction in life, and ends up attempting to commit suicide... which eventually ends up with her going to a mental hospital.

I guess you could say that this movie is about Susanna's growth as a person as she's exposed to the people inside this mental hospital. It was kind of interesting, and there were some pretty great performances... but for me anyway, it just didn't hit home. Maybe it has something to do with me being a guy or something. I dunno.

One thing that kept annoying me though is that this movie was supposed to be taking place in the 60's, and everything looks and sounds like the 60's, except for Winona Ryder's hair. Why the hell is she still wearing her 90's indie movie pixie haircut in this movie? Hmmm.

Anyway. I'm sure there's some people who think this is a really great movie, but for me it was just average.

The DVD: The video transfer scared me at first, because the Columbia logo at the beginning was so grainy and dirty, and I was worried the whole movie would be like that. But fortunately, that bad transfer didn't extend past the Columbia logo, and the rest of the movie was sharp, with only a little grain, and very little dirt or compression artifacts. Overall, a good looking transfer that preserves the subtle color casts of the film.

The audio was also quite good, with dialog that is always crisp and easy to understand, and yet blends in well with the rest of the audio mix. The surround mix is rich, but subtle with a full environmental-sound mix in this dialog-centered movie.

Special features include director's commentary, deleted scenes (also with available director's commentary), a making-of, a theatrical trailer, plus two theatrical trailers of other movies, and cast/crew bios. Quite a few scenes were cut out, actually, and the deleted scenes were somewhat enlightening to see. Rather than being scenes that were cut because they sucked, I think they were cut out for pacing and time constraints, although I didn't listen to the director's commentary to confirm this.