September 11, 2001, is a day that I doubt anyone in the world will ever forget. For young Oskar, it was the day he lost his best friend—his dad. Based on the bestseller by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is an emotional rollercoaster about a preteen trying to cope with the loss of his father in his own unique way. I enjoyed the film a lot and was especially impressed with the AVC video encode with its outstanding level of detail and rich color saturation. The enveloping DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is no slouch either and features crisp dialog and pinpoint imaging.

The worst day

• Chapter 2, 00:09:45
• Detail, color saturation, surround envelopment
• Look at the detail in the clothing of all of the kids, the pattern in the man's tie, and the fire truck speeding by in the background. Also, notice the vibrant color palette and the enveloping soundstage with the cacophony of sounds in the background.

Tempting Darwin's Law

• Chapter 4, 00:38:15
• Imaging
• With Oskar standing in the street, listen to the trucks as they move across the soundstage. It's like you're standing right there with him.

Water spots

• Chapter 10, 1:30:45
• Detail
• It's common for streets to be sprayed down with water before shooting commences because the reflections off the wet concrete look better on film. If you look closely in this scene, you'll see that only two of the cars on the street are wet while the rest are bone dry. I'm sure that's one detail the filmmakers wouldn't have hoped we'd notice, but the video engineers at GDMX gave us a reference-quality encode to see every minute detail. Bravo!

Release Date: March 27, 2012
Studio: Warner