Review of Public Access

Introduction

Whiley Pritcher arrives in the town of Brewster to start a broadcasting show, he uses the phone to listen into thoughts of his callers and questions them about themselves and asks the main question; what is wrong with Brewster? Whiley is a smooth talking, lean built man who seems a bit of the quiet type but does have a different side to his personality.
Whiley`s journey to Brewster was to find out the reason what happened here and at some point he manages to get a version from a man named Jeff, unfortunately he doesn`t buy it and the consequences turn fatal! A librarian girl who Whiley befriends stumbles across some files and papers which acts as proof to back up Jeff`s story, realising the information is right and the errors he has made he cleans up his traces and heads off out of Brewster as quick and smooth as he came in. The idea of his broadcasting job was to gather clues and information leading up to the answer of the main question.

Video

The DVD is presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 ratio but unfortunately there is a lot to gripe about on this catagory. In regards to the colours of the picture, the pallette is richly used around the `autumn` colours and there seems to be a permanent orange glow to everything throughout the movie. At first I thought it had something to do with sun glare and was a nice warming scene effect to start off with, but once faces and other scenery appeared the truth was revealed. The actual picture quality was very dark throughout with a softness to the picture too making the watchable experience really low quality.
There are definitely dropouts within the picture, some big black specks can easily be spotted near the opening sequence flashing up against the coloured sky and around other various scenes. There is also some annoying `camera wiggle` or `fluttering` making the picture wobble ever so slightly, almost as if the movie was shown with an old fashioned cinema projector, you can see examples of this in the opening credits and at the scene where Whiley meets Jeff in private outside. Apart from these drawbacks there were some nice shots used of morning, night, the town and `peaceful scenes` which only served as an intergration purpose between certain scenes.

Audio

Although low key and minimal the small amount of praise is to the use of audio in this movie. It is a Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 mix, although upmixing it to Dolby Pro Logic gives you a more defined centre speaker. The dialogue is clear enough to be heard but not of best standards compared to some disks, during certain scenes the audio seems muffled or filtered like for example the scene at the Brewster community hall, the ambience didn`t seem loud enough and the concentration seemed to be on the creating of a good hall echo effect instead.
I noticed some low bass effects as Whiley walks into the Channel 8 Broadcasting Station from another persons point of view, maybe this represents Whiley`s brooding presence. There aren`t many directionality effects used either, the only example that comes close is when the camera angle switches to people watching the TV and the sound comes from the closest speaker representing the position of the TV on screen.
Most of the musical score is of the sinister theme with some string accompaniments in places. There are a few country tunes included and others featuring the guitar, some parts were almost similar to the music style behind "Twin Peaks" or another TV series, Oliver Stone`s "Wild Palms".
The most impressive way of utilising music within this movie I thought, was when we see another side of Whiley (glasses off for starters) and "Hall Of The Mountain King" playing over a dramatic scene and getting faster then building up to a finale! During Whiley`s nightmare sequence another fast piece of dramatic music is used followed by some low bass heartbeat thumps once the ride is over.

Features

A big disappointment in this area, not even a basic trailer or production notes. The starting menu is a static backdrop and basically shows a copy of the picture from the sleeve front, featuring smooth eyes through glasses and a person on a railroad track infront of a tunnel. Only `play` and `scene index` are available, or maybe though a rare 2 disk version is available crammed with interviews and the likes!!! Yeah okay!!

Conclusion

Not much light at the end of this tunnel I`m afraid, the story is slightly wierd and slow paced, there are minimal characters in the plot and lacks a lot of everything. There are just too many shots of Whiley in his chair holding his earpiece in, while the camera circles him from different angles. The quality of the visuals and no extras either just adds more salt to the wound!!