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One Hour Photo (Widescreen Edition)

One Hour Photo (Widescreen Edition)

List Price: $14.98
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A very disturbing masterpiece.
Review: I found this movie quite good and very chilling. It makes you shake a little when you realize that this very same thing(well not to this extent)could go on in the real world even as we speak.....All of the actors and actresses played very good, believable roles. Its ironic how, at the same time that Sly is doing all this you can still feel a slight twinge of sorrow in your heart for him. As I said above whats so disturbing and what makes you think so much is that whenever you and your family gets your photos developed at wal-mart or CVS or Walgreens or anywhere the lonely person behind the counter could try to latch onto your life and try to make it perfect. All in all this movie was excellent, (sadly)very realalistic, and definatley makes me want to buy a digital camera.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Creepy As Hell
Review: Wow. This is definately one of the creepiest movies I have ever seen. Robin Williams is excellent. Great flick.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Makes you wonder about who is developing your pics
Review: One Hour Photo is an interesting film starring Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting), Michael Vartan (ABC's Alias), and Eriq la Salle (NBC's ER). It features Williams as Sy "the photo guy" at Sav-Mart and Sy's obsession with the Yorkin family. It's rather creepy to see Robin Williams playing such a creepy character, but surprisingly, he does an excellent job with the wackiness.

I thought the coloring of each scene was interesting. The majority of the movie is done is white and "cold" colors. They definitely invoke a sociopathic feeling. Of course, at the Yorkin house (the one place that Sy really wants to be) there is a warm yellow-ish tone. It definitely sets the mood.

The movie is not as suspenseful as it is promoted to be. It's got a good premise, but the writing is lacking. I think that it would've been better with a little more development of certain parts.

Luckily, the talented cast makes up for what is lacking, and that's why I give it 4 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliance in Ambiguity
Review: Don't expect One Hour Photo to be spoon fed. This movie will force you to generate some of your own conclusions about you've witnessed.

Robin Williams gives one of his best performances to date as an appearingly mild mannered yet devious photo clerk who takes his job as a photo tech at the local "Sav-Mart' a bit too serious because it appears to be all he has.

His emotional pathology becomes progressively evident and alarming as he becomes increasingly 'over-involved' with a family that brings in their photos to his store for processing. Although he blatantly oversteps some major boundaries, he does so in such a way that the seriousness of his disturbance is not realized soon enough. Some of his bizarre behaviors lead your thoughts to very dark places while at the same time, the pity his character generates, makes you want to believe that maybe his motivations really aren't that pathological.

Because Williams character evokes such a wide range of emotion, your own feelings towards him vaccilate. He is devious yet likable even amidst his pervading creepiness. Although appearingly generally mild mannered and timid, he has his moments of assertiveness and later, 'over the edge' aggressiveness and righteous indignation.

The cinematography and visual imagery is excellent and brilliantly contrasts the drab, washed out and somewhat color-less life of William's character to that of the vivid and vibrant family he becomes "focused" on.

It's a good psychological thriller. Like a photo snapshot, there's much more to this film than what we see on the surface.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Dark and Disturbing work that is not for everyone
Review: One Hour Photo is one of the most unique films of the year, and is a definite one of the most worthy for any type of awards out there (although i say the academy awards and Oscars dont mean squat anymore, this is one of the few films worthy of truelly winning that, like One flew over the Cuccos NEst and ROcky).

The story behind this is that Robin Williams plays clerk at a one hour photo shop. He has been working there for 20+ years and over the pst 9 has helped this wonderful family that he truely loves. He is very friendly, but very introverted. Hoever this family fills hinm with joy, they are like the perfect family to him. However his boss does not like him, and tries to do whatever he can to get him fired. Finally when he discovers that up to 100 photos have gone missing over the years, as well as a disposible camera that Williams character gave the son over, WIlliams loses his job. In the course of this he hits a state of depression and he discovers shortly there after that the perfect family he admires, is not so perfect, as the husband has been cheating on the wife, and the Mistress has been photographing the whole ordeal. These turn of events leads to a very chilling very sad ending that wraps up this really unique movie.

I also got the feeling that either the Writer or the Director was a Neon Genesis Envangellion Fan because of frequent looks on that and also how WIlliams Character went through a shocking and drastic change much like Shinji did in NEon Genesis Envangellion (If you have no idea what I am talking about, Neon Genesis is an Anime sereis that is around 25 episodes and is very strange but very powerful).

I am giving this movie 5 stars because it is that damn good. However in all honesty it is one of those movies that you can only wath once, because after that it starts to lose it's effect. Maybe I will look back on it in a few years, but really this is a classic that should not be missed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best film of 2002
Review: I believe the title says it all. This is my favorite movie of 2002. It's also one of my favourite movies of all time. 10/10

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 4.5 star. Robin Williams, what a wonderful talent!
Review: Very simple story and much cliched but hold up tight just by the unique performance of Robin Williams who's getting older but more sophisticated and wiser. Wonderful performance, just wonderful. I am very grateful to have such a great human being existed together with my humble lifetime. Stay healthy and more productive, Sir. God Bless.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Two Hour Fright
Review: One Hour Photo shot me as a surprise. I was not thinking at all that it would get to me the way that it did. I am rarely scared by any films that come out, but this one truly did. The anticipation of what happens to Will is so great that I has so impatient to know what really happened to adulterer father. Robin Williams does a very creepy acting job as the frightening Cy which should earn him an actin award of some sort. This is truly his second best acting job after Good Will Hunting. This is one of the most suprising movies that I have seen all year. You wil never expect so much evil from an every day Joe like Cy. A violence-less movie that will frighten everyone more then they could imagine.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Portrait of a Loneliest Man in the World
Review: People at indie film company Killer Films did it again. After making impressive films like "Boys Don't Cry" and "Hedwig and Angry Inch" (or not so impressive "Office Killer"), they produced another film with a serious theme. But don't worry; despite its subject matter, "One Hour Photo" is not as schocking as "Taxi Driver." No strange haircut, no handguns in the sleeve, but just Sy, loneliest guy in the world.

Robim Willimas, after 3 years' absence, throws away any good-guy image he gathered in the 90s, and becomes Sy Parrish, one hour photo techinician working at a counter in a huge shopping center. He works earnestly, takes his job seriously, and, most of all, is utterly lonely. His only (day)dream is to be 'Uncle Sy' of his customer and picture perfect family Mr. and Mrs. Yorkin (read 'Your Kin'), whose life Sy hopelessly longs for. But soon we learn that Sy can no longer handle his fantasy, and we are going to see his illusion run amok, making him stalk around the family. And everything rushes to the disaster when Uncle Sy knows something he should not know about the family.

The film owns its enormous power to Robin Williams's creepy performance as Sy, who gradually loses the control of himself. Though you may feel he looks (or sounds) like Patch Adams at first, you soon forget that sense, thanks to his strong acting. By accepting the role of this lonely man, he once again after the good turn in "Insomnia" shows his will to extend his faculty as an actor, and he shows it well. In fact, he has already shown another aspect of acting in his cameo role of terrorist in "The Secret Agent" (Joseph Conrad's film version), but never fully achieved the result. But now he did it.

But "One Hour Photo" is helped by other factors; supporting actors Michael Vartan (Drew's teacher in "Never Been Kissed") and Connie Nielsen ("Gladiator") are both good, but the film's strength, in my opinion, comes from its production designs, music, and photography. They all contribute to creating the cold, detached atomosphere of the film, and their effort is effectively shown in the manufactured feeling of the shopping place, with symmetrical shots of the unnnaturally clean and white interiors. That comes as no surprise when you know that production designer Tom Foden's previous work was Jennifer Lopez's thriller "The Cell" and photographer Jeff Cronenweth worked for "Fight Club" (by the way, his father Jordan Cronenweth may be much more famous for his "Blade Runner").

"One Hour Photo" has some minor flaws -- dream sequence that looks out of tune, and flashback structure of narrative, for instance -- but the film is fascinating as a character study of Sy, this very lonely guy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Simple story, complex characters
Review: "Simple stories about complex characters make the best films" - so goes the old adage, and "One Hour Photo" proves it. Robin Williams gives the performance of his career as Sy, The Photo Guy. A very clever trailer and promotional campaign ensure your expectations are headed in one direction while Mark Romanek's subtle screenplay quietly reveals its true and more complex intent. Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek's unsettling score and Tom Foden's thoughtful production design conspire brilliantly to take this simple story to new levels of tension. This is not only a brilliant second feature from Romanek but a brilliant film in its own right, made all the more satisfying because it doesn't resort to explaining everything - Romanek leaves the audience with plenty of work to do, and plenty to think about: most importanty, how often do we accept the 'picture perfect' people and demonize those who are different without having any understanding of either of their lives? From the tone of the reviews, plenty of viewers were diappointed that this didn't deliver the kind of horrific, blood-soaked climax they were expecting. But that's part of the point: if you think about the kind of backstory which drove Sy to do what he did, then you realise it's far more chilling than any orgy of violence could have been. Worth seeing twice.


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