Monster

Cast View all

	Charlize Theron	Aileen
	Christina Ricci	Selby
	Bruce Dern	Thomas
	Lee Tergesen	Vincent Corey
	Annie Corley	Donna
	Pruitt Taylor Vince	Gene
	Marco St. John	Evan
	Marc Macaulay	Will
	Scott Wilson	Horton
	Rus Blackwell	Cop
	Tim Ware	Chuck
	Stephan Jones	Lawyer
	Brett Rice	Charles
	Kaitlin Riley	Teenage Aileen
	Cree Ivey	7-Year-Old Aileen
	Catherine Mangan	Justy
	Magdalena Manville	Bar Lap Girl
	T. Robert Pigott	Bartender
	Romonda Shaver	Employment Agent
	Glenn R. Wilder	Restaurant Manager
	Elaine Stebbins	Wife at Accident
	Kane Hodder	Undercover Cop
	Christian Stokes	Undercover Cop
	Lyllian Barcaski	Bar Girl
	Nonalee Davis	Bar Girl

Crew View all

Director	Patty Jenkins
Writer	Patty Jenkins
Producer	David Alvarado, John B. Crye, Mark Damon, Andreas Grosch, Stewart Hall, Donald Kushner, Sammy Lee, Brent Morris, Clark Peterson, Meagan Riley-Grant, Andreas Schmid, Charlize Theron, Brad Wyman
Musician	BT
Photography	Steven Bernstein

Personal

Notes

Story Synopsis:
With the help of some extra weight and extensive makeup, beautiful actress Charlize Theron transformed herself into serial killer Aileen Wurornos, and won the Academy Award® for her portrayal in Monster. Wuronos made headlines in the early 90s when the prostitute was sentenced to death for murdering several of her customers. Theron’s performance is exceptional in this story that somehow manages to avoid glorifying Wuornos’s actions. (Suzanne Hodges)

DVD Picture:
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85:1 DVD picture exhibits pleasing images that are naturally balanced. At times, the picture has an understated appearance, but is suitable for the storytelling. Fleshtones are well balanced, and blacks are deep and solid. Contrast and shadow delineation are nicely rendered in the many dark scenes. Overall, the picture is quite solid, with only occasional pixel breakup and some edge enhancement that is rarely bothersome. (Suzannne Hodges)

Soundtrack:
The DTS® Digital Surround™ and Dolby® Digital 5.1-channel soundtracks are superlative and audibly reflect the utter desperation, misery, and phenomenally depressing world Charlize Theron’s character inhabits on-screen. Speaking of Theron, it was very difficult to critique the audio content of this DVD because of her truly remarkable and mesmerizing Academy Award-winning performance. Quite often I lost myself in her portrayal and had to refocus my concentration on the task of reviewing this film. Although one might expect the soundtrack would be a little lively based on the need to highlight the more tense moments sonically; this soundtrack excels in being very active consistently throughout the presentation. Dialogue is precise in its reproduction as Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci’s voices sound very natural and well-placed within the listening environment. The front three screen channels house most of the soundtrack information with the surround channels adding excellent ambience and atmosphere. The LFE channel is mainly active during the more intense moments throughout the film; the subwoofer adds the necessary punctuation to these scenes. The musical soundtrack sets the somber and depressing tone with its execution by a very good original score by BT. The DTS version sounds more natural than the Dolby Digital version delivering better dynamic range to the presentation. (Jeffrey Kern)

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