The Movie: This, if you didn't know, is the movie that really catapulted Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to superstar status. I hadn't watched this movie since it was released in the theaters, and it was kinda fun to watch again in a "before they were stars" kind of way. They won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay on this film that they wrote together, and movie marketing folks have been using (abusing) the words "Academy Award winner Ben Affleck" and "Academy Award winner Matt Damon" in movie commercials, even though they didn't win the Oscar for acting.

Anyway. It's an uplifting type of movie about a janitor (played by Matt Damon) working at MIT who also happens to be an incredible genius. He has to overcome his past to succeed and achieve his true potential, blah blah blah, talking about it like this makes this movie sound like a movie of the week, but trust me, it's better than that.

The DVD: This was DVD was released fairly early on in the history of the DVD format, which sort of explains why there are so many special features, but the video transfer is not in anamorphic widescreen. Nonetheless, it's got some nice, bold colors, and is quite clean, and if it were in anamorphic widescreen instead of non-anamorphic letterboxed widescreen, I would have given it a 4.

The audio was nothing to write home about, but there was a decent bunch of special features, including a whole truckload of theatrical trailers and TV spots, deleted scenes, an audio commentary with director Gus Van Sant and writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, a featurettes, behind the scenes footage and a music video. Overall not a bad DVD release, but I sure do wish it was in anamorphic widescreen.