The Movie: About Schmidt is a funny little interesting movie. There's nothing about it that jumps out right at you and says "wow this is a great movie!!", yet it's beautiful in its subtle, yet powerful portrayal of complex emotions. This movie is all about the little details. The little details in the movie, and the little details in life that are what makes life so wonderfully complex.

So what's it about? It's about Schmidt, of course. Warren Schmidt (played brilliantly by Jack Nicholson), a newly retired man in his 60's that is now at a point in his life where he's not only got to figure out what he's going to do, but he's also sorting out a lot of issues regarding what he has (or hasn't) done in the past. It's got it's funny parts, its got its sad parts, its angry parts, its painful parts. This movie covers such a huge range of emotions, in such a powerful way.

No, there's no action, there's no suspense, there's no explosions. But I wouldn't call this a chick flick because this film fleshes out a whole lot of male concerns, vulnerabilities, and especially fears. I guess they categorize it as a comedy, and it is very funy in parts, but if you're looking for something that effectively conveys real emotion in film, About Schmidt might be just the ticket. Just watch out for the Kathy Bates nudity which had me curling up in the fetal position out of fear... though even that horror was just perfect for the moment in the film!

The DVD:

This is quite a well made DVD release for something that isn't being touted as any kind of special edition. The anamorphic widescreen video transfer is beautiful, rich, and clean... almost too clean, as it is completely grainless. The color is nice and strong where it's supposed to be, and weak and muted when it's supposed to be. Blackpoint is excellent, and overall, I'd say the transfer does a great job of conveying the beautiful camera work in this film.

For a movie that has so much talking in it, the DTS audio on this disc has some of the most well executed surround effects I have ever experienced... at a couple of points in the movie, I wasn't sure if the sound was part of the movie or actually coming from outside! This disc has incredibly well executed audio, especially for being the type of movie where at this point in the review I'd normally be saying "the audio was nothing special, but about what you'd expect for this kind of movie," but in this case, it really impressed me.

Special features include some deleted scenes, with introductions from the director. The scenes themselves actually did lend some extra insight into the character of Warren Schmidt, but the introductions were written in text... and stayed on the screen way too long. Would it have really been that hard to set up a video camera and record some introductions? Or to do a selectable audio commentary on the deleted scenes as is common on many other DVDs?

There are also some trailers, and some wacky short films about the Woodmen insurance building using footage that was shot of Omaha, done as an exercise in film editing. One of those was really, really bad, one was quite cool, and another was quite funny.

Overall, I'd say this is a well executed DVD release for a truly fine piece of cinematic art.