"Knowing" on DVD

Even though the critics had little good to say about the new sci-fi thriller, "Knowing," it came in number one in the box office on the weekend of its debut on March 20, 2009.

The Australian director chose to go digital for the first time, using the ultrahigh-resolution RED camera. The results create a completely grain-less and almost three dimensional quality, with such incredible depth to it that it makes you feel as if you could reach into the screen. This incredible picture and color quality gives realism to the fictional sci-fi plot.

The film begins in 1959 with students putting drawings of their ideas of the future in a time capsule and burying it in the elementary school yard. A young girl named Lucinda Embry contributes a page of seemingly random numbers. That night, she is found in a school closet complaining of hearing voices. Fifty years later, in 2009, the time capsule is opened and the pictures are distributed among the current students. Caleb receives Lucinda’s envelope and shows it to his father, John Koestler, who is an astrophysicist at MIT. John takes an interest in the paper and soon realizes that part of the numbers are dates and death tolls of every major disaster over the past fifty years. The last three set of digits are disasters yet to come. Meanwhile, Caleb hears telepathic whispers while being visited by mysterious strangers in overcoats. John witnesses two of the predicted disasters and tries unsuccessfully to stop them. The movie ends with only a few who can hear the telepathic whispers being saved from the last disaster.

Some see the apocalyptic theme thriller as a theological discussion bridging the gap between the spiritual and science. This digitally made DVD is scheduled to be released on July 7, 2009.