The Movie: I am reviewing the movie-only edition of this DVD, not the 2-disc special edition slated for release 9/24/2002.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is yet another one of those movies that I should have seen a long time ago that I just never did. Then again, over the course of the last year I've been watching a whole lot of these movies that I should have already seen, but now I've seen them all. I've probably seen more of those movies than most people. But anyway...

This film is one of only a very select few that won all 5 of the "top" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay, and I found it to be pretty deserving of those awards. Jack Nicholson stars as a guy who appears to be faking insanity in order to get out of having to do his work detail at whatever prison he was serving time at. He is sent to a mental institution for observation and to determine if he is actually insane or not. He butts heads with the domineering head nurse, and does all he can to liven up the hospital, and the lives of the people living there, all the while looking for ways to escape.

For me, the movie did take a little while to grab my interest, but once it did, it never let go, and drew me in more and more right up to the very end. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is an entertaining, funny, yet emotionally stirring film that I enjoyed very much, and I'm sad I waited so long to see it.

The DVD: As I mentioned earlier, this is the movie-only edition of this DVD, which is a dual sided disc with a non-anamorphic widescreen transfer on one side, and a pan and scan version on the other. As is usually a the case with movies of this length where two versions appear on one disc, the bit rate of the video suffers, and compression artifacts abound. That being said, the grain and color qualities are pretty much par for the course for a mid-70's feature film, and it's overall not too bad of a transfer.

There is a Dolby Digital 2.0 sound track, but aside from remixing the soundtrack into stereo, it deviates little from the movie's original mono soundtrack. All of the special features are of the text variety, including cast/crew detail, and an interesting story of the 13 year long struggle to get this film made.

There is a 2-disc special edition set being released 9/24/2002, which will include a new anamorphic widescreen transfer, deleted scenes, a behind the scenes documentary, and a bunch of other stuff, so fans of this film should defintely hold out for that version.