Stars:
Julie Davis, Nick Chinlund, Caroline Aaron, Mitchell Whitfield, Jennifer
Bransford, and Jeff Cesario
Writer:
Julie Davis
Director:
Julie Davis
Feature
length: 87 minutes
Extras:
Director’s Commentary, Afterthought, Snapshot Diary, Deleted Scenes, and
Trailers
Languages:
English Stereo Sound
Subtitles:
English Closed Captions
Packaging:
Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 10
Sound:
Stereo Sound
Year
of DVD Release: 2002
Home
Video Distributor: Sundance Channel Home Entertainment and Showtime
Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Amy
Mandell (Julie Davis) is a 29-year old successful self-help author with a
best-selling series on how women can find self-fulfillment without a man in
their lives. However Amy is lonely and finds some brief solace in anonymously
confessing her desires to a priest in a confessional and then fantasizing on how
she would like to seduce him away from the church. Of course she only knows his
voice and has attached the image of what she thinks her ideal man would look
like to his voice, but the reality is that since he is unattainable, he has
become a safe way to delude herself. Then one day while doing a publicity
appearance on the radio show of a sexist shock jock (Nick Chinlund), Amy not
only ends up seeing him after the show, but they both fall into intimacy and
love. Now Amy feels a sense of guilt as she realizes that perhaps everything she
has written about may not be as truthful as she once thought.
“Amy’s
O” is a quaint light comedy that covers familiar ground visited before by
other storytellers, which despite the feminine perspective is that everyone is a
little neurotic, has erotic fantasies, and is terrified at one point or another
of letting their guard down and really taking a chance with a relationship. The
film is actually more about the things we do to avoid being happy than it is
about sex. Amy’s odyssey seems more universal to the human condition than
something specific to one gender or group of people.
Showtime
Entertainment and Sundance Channel Home Entertainment present “Amy’s O” in
a good widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratio with an image free of grain and
anomalies and a clear English Stereo Soundtrack with optional English Closed
Captions for the hearing impaired. Extra features include a feature length
filmmakers’ commentary that includes Writer, Director, and Actress Julie
Davis, a one-minute (1.33:1) trailer, a short videotaped “Afterthought”
(2:54) with Julie Davis, a reel of five deleted scenes (4:30) with mixed picture
quality and a somewhat hollow sound quality, a “Sundance Film Festival”
snapshot diary (1:44), and a (1.85:1) preview trailer for “The Sleepy Time
Gal” (1:03).
While
the film is broken up into ten chapter stops, there are no true scene
selections. Instead the menu is a seven-chapter outline of the “self-help”
book topics that the film’s narrative follows. All of the menus are standard
interactive still frames that are easy to navigate.
“Amy’s
O” is available on DVD-Video now from Sundance Channel Home Entertainment and
Showtime Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2002 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.