Awakenings (1990)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer-1.33:1 non-16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono Featurette-Making Of-6:05
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	115:43 (Case: 100)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Penny Marshall
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Robert De Niro Robin Williams John Heard Julie Kavner Penelope Ann Miller Max Von Sydow
Case	Brackley-Trans-No Lip
RPI	$36.95	Music	Randy Newman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Unknown to most of us nowadays, between 1916 and 1927 there was a world-wide epidemic of encephalitis lethargica or "sleeping sickness". People affected with this condition simply went into a state of waking sleep so to speak. They were conscious and awake, yet were totally inert. There was no cure.

    This movie takes place in 1969, and is based on the work of  Dr. Oliver Sacks. He postured that L-DOPA, which was used to treat victims of Parkinson's disease at that time, could be used on these patients. Why not? They had nothing to lose from it. His meek and lonely character, played brilliantly as usual by Robin Williams does just this, with startling results. Patients appear to "awake" from their sleep; and often from a sleep of twenty or more years. One such patient is played by Robert De Niro, a change from  his usual style of movie. We explore the awakening of not only Robert De Niro from his physical slumber, but of Robin Williams and his renewed appreciation of the life he has been blessed with. Unfortunately, the new found cure is short lived, and all the patients return to their previous, unmoving state. I challenge anyone to watch this and not feel the pain Robert De Niro goes through, knowing he is returning to his lethargy. This is terribly moving and emotional stuff, and draws a tear from my eyes every time I watch it.

    Robert De Niro rightfully received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of such a stricken and pathetic man. I believe Robin Williams was equally good in his own way, and the rest of the cast put in excellent performances. Of note is the young Penelope Ann Miller, who had began her acting career only a few years earlier, and puts in a fine role.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, very close to the 1.85:1 theatrical release and perfectly acceptable in my book.

    The picture is reasonably sharp and clear, however just a tad softer than the best of CTS' work. Shadow detail was there when it needed to be. There was no low-level noise in the image.

    The colours are very muted throughout this picture, mainly because it takes place almost exclusively inside a medical facility. The palette consists mainly of shades of grey and skin tones, which are well rendered. This has the effect of depressing the image and casting a gloomy pallor on proceedings, and suits the subject matter entirely. This is not a bright and happy movie by any means, and indeed some of the only relief comes in the form of little blue lights in the ceiling of the ward.

    There were hints of MPEG compression artefacts, resulting in ever so slight pixelization at times; the movie would have benefited from a higher bit rate, however this would have necessitated RSDL formatting. There were no film-to-video artefacts. Film artefacts consisted of some slight scratches on the print early on in the movie, but these soon disappeared.

Audio

    There are five audio tracks, all Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. I listened to the default English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track.

    Dialogue was at all times clear and easy to understand.

    There were no problems with audio sync during the movie.

    The musical score by Randy Newman, probably best known for his scoring of Toy Story and A Bug's Life. Here, his work is subdued and suitably mellow; essentially it goes unnoticed and serves as underscoring for the drama, as it should.

    There is no use of the surround channel save for the musical score, which has limited presence. This is essentially a mono, dialogue heavy soundtrack. The only sounds which make it as far as left and right is the score, and then only barely.

    The subwoofer slept during this movie.

Menu

U.S. Theatrical Trailer (2:44)

   Presented in 1.33:1, it is not 16x9 enhanced. It is of low quality, and is complemented by mono Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Featurette - Making Of (6:05)

    A reasonably enlightening set of interviews with the cast and crew, with an outtake thrown in for good measure. Above average.

Biographies - Cast & Crew

• Theatrical Trailer
• Featurette - Making Of
• Biographies - Cast & Crew

    The video quality is average.

    The audio is adequate given that it is a dialogue driven movie.

    A nice little helping of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall