Posted on 12/06/2004 11:15:57 AM PST by ambrose
A plea: Avoid full screen DVDs
THE "Spider-Man 2" people sent me a "full screen" copy of their snazzy blockbuster. Glass half full: It's always nice to be remembered, especially with one of the year's best films and one of the all-time great comic-book adaptations.
Glass completely empty: I hate full screen. It's like watching only part of a movie. If paintings were presented in full screen, a Mona Lisa close-up would lack ears. Or she would appear with only half a smile.
I exaggerate, but that's my job, and you get the idea.
Most DVDs let you choose between full screen or widescreen. Some give you both options of the same disc, one on either side. Others, such as "Spider-Man 2," insist you purchase one or the other. Buyer's remorse gets you no sympathy in this business. Choose widescreen.
On standard TVs, compressed widescreen, aka letterbox, versions play across the middle of the screen. Horizontal black bands appear above and below the picture.
Reportedly, many people find the black bands annoying so they opt for full screen, which is also known as pan and scan. Pan and scan is a crime against nature. Carrying the warning, "Formatted to fit your TV screen," pan and scan fills the entire screen.
But to do so, it must cut out slices of the original images the filmmaker worked so hard to create. Often, so much of the picture is trimmed that the fragmented leftovers look like visual noise.
In "Spider-Man 2," for instance, rather than the Web-slinger swinging gracefully across vast cityscapes, he appears hemmed in by narrow passageways as he swings back and forth like a repressed pendulum. Oh, the inhumanity. When Spidey and evil Doc Ock face each other in the same frame, you sometimes get half of Doc Ock addressing half of Spidey.
This is not a horror film, but it could be. At times the camera pans from one character to the other instead of allowing you to see both at the same time.
That's not the worst sin in the universe but it comes close, especially if you view movies as art.
So let somebody else watch full-screen versions; you deserve better and so do the movies.
Buyer be aware ... If you are hunting for the perfect DVD for a holiday gift, take a peek at the Home Theater compilation of "The top 100 DVDs of all time, with a new attitude." The list was printed in the August 2004 edition of the glossy.
I'll give you the top choice in each category. You can chase down the rest on www.hometheatermag.com
Best music DVD was "The Beatles Anthology." Best TV on DVD, "Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series Limited Edition."
"The Alien Quadrilogy" was No. 1 under best extras. "Finding Nemo" earned the top slot under best video, meaning clearest image. "Saving Private Ryan DTS" was picked as best audio.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Special Extended DVD Edition" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Special Extended DVD Edition" were chosen Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in best overall DVDs.
Keep in mind that the selections were made prior to the release of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Special Extended DVD Edition." The latter comes out Dec. 14.
Around the Bay ... Five films by San Francisco residents will be screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, which runs Jan. 20-30 in Park City, Utah.
Announced last week, the selections include three features in the documentary competition: "The Fall of Fujimori" by Ellen Perry, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" by Henry Rosenthal and "Romantico" by Mark Becker.
"Ballets Russes," a documentary by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, will be shown in the noncompetitive "special screenings" division. "The Joy of Life," an experimental film by Jenni Olson, will play in the noncompetitive "frontiers" section.
Name that film ... Don V. wants to know the name of an old "farcical comedy." Here's what he remembers; The scene is a bishop's or priest's residence office. "The featured actor (Woody Allen?) is there to make some kind of request," Don writes. "The bishop's housekeeper, way up in age, is bringing them coffee(?), and it takes forever; she is a very slow walker, and she suffers from an extreme case of flatulence but doesn't know it because she is also deaf. Ring a bell?"
Maybe. Any of you know? Call or write; you know the drill.
DVD spotlight ... The December glut begins with an eclectic array.
"The Bourne Supremacy" should satisfy those in the mood for bloodletting and blurry car chases shot with hand-held cameras. The all-action, no-substance sequel to the superior "The Bourne Identity" plays better on the small screen than on the big. And Matt Damon succeeds for the a second time (eat your heart out, Ben Affleck) as troubled, amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne. Extras include a feature titled "Blowing Things Up."
Its goofiness is the raison d'etre for the Vince Vaughn-Ben Stiller comedy "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story." Any movie built around adults playing competitive dodgeball can find a spot in my house. The disc includes a blooper reel.
"Matrix" junkies will no doubt drool over the more than 35 hours of extras included in the 10-disc "The Ultimate Matrix Collection." Isolate them from the rest of the people at your party.
Out Tuesday on DVD ... "Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid," "Bandit Queen," "The Bourne Supremacy," "The Complete Pluto (Volume One)," "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," "The Girl from Paris," "Hermitage Masterpieces," "Hi, Mom!," "How to Steal a Million," "Infernal Affairs," "Julia Child! America's Favorite Chef" and "The Love Machine."
Also: "Maria Full of Grace" (with best-actress possibility Catalina Sandino Moreno), "The Mickey Mouse Club (Week One)," "Mickey Mouse in Black and White (Volume Two)," "The Phantom of the Opera" (with Robert Englund), "Smooth Talk," "Species III," "Transfixed," "The Ultimate Matrix Collection," "Wild at Heart Special Edition" (Nicolas Cage meet David Lynch) and "Young Doctors in Love."
Mail your movie-related questions, answers or insights to The Movie Guy, c/o Bay Area Living, 4770 Willow Road, Pleasanton, CA 94588. Faxes can be sent to (925) 416-4874. E-mail The Movie Guy at bcaine@angnewspapers.com or call him at (925) 416-4806.
I'm glad you have other hobbies like riding motorcycles rather than watching movies.
I have a husband who is seriously ill and lives in a wheelchair and oxygen 24 hours a day. We seek enjoyment wherever we can get it... and that includes our library of LD movies.
The world is big..
I love the easter egg feature on DVDs. I think one of the best ever is Gollum accepting the MTV award for best CGI character on the LOTR TTT DVD.
Hitting "TITLE" usually will skip all of the junk and take you straight to the title menu.
There are also ways to even bypass region coding on some systems this way. Unfortunately when I tried it on a friend's system one time (to watch a Brazilian release of City Of God) his system would not let him access the subtitles (the movie would play). We had to connect up a region free player instead.
I think that most of the rest of the world uses region free players.
France locks in French subtitles (forced display) on some DVDs (although there "has" to be a way to defeat it, there are some pointers on DVD forums).
As I say, if they'd stop being so controlling (and creating BAD technology like discs you can watch twice or discs that will oxidize after they are opened) I would be more accepting of a digital media.
"Looking for" supplements is not the same as "watching supplements".
Especially when some of the supplements are advertised quite openly on the packaging. There are times where a supplement is mentioned on the packaging and does not even appear on the disc (oops).
Screw that. Here's your new car, have fun looking for the headlights switch.
I would certainly never suggest using this for anything other than discs you already own, but a program called DVDShrink will let you rip a DVD to your computer's hard drive and get rid of all of those pesky little things like region coding, FBI warnings, locked out menus, etc.
I use this to put together DVDs with trailers, cartoons, etc., for "old fashioned movie night" at home.
Oh man, don't get me started on Vinyl! I have two direct drive and one belt drive turntable and an extensive selection of vinyl. I enjoy listening to records. I still consider it quaint and quite dead as anything other than a small niche market.
And I will personally come over there and throttle anyone who, while describing the sound of vinyl, uses, in any way, the word "warm" or any of it's derivatives.
BTW, my buddies and I were talking about "chip based" playback in 1978. I do think the day of mechanical playback of ANY sort is quickly coming to a close. I am thinking maybe a music "skin patch" which the brain can be trained to read. Perhaps it could receive a satelite signal. Perhaps it could help you make up your mind on what to do in situations from time to time. You know, like what to buy, where to go - stuff like that...
>>I have a husband who is seriously ill and lives in a wheelchair and oxygen 24 hours a day. We seek enjoyment wherever we can get it... and that includes our library of LD movies.
The world is big..<<
...and if you have DVD's instead of LV's, your home will be "bigger" with the storage space you reclaim...
Sure worked for me.
That's why they have easter egg internet sites...
I still like to have a hardcopy of what I own (for backup, packaging, resale, etc.) but the new trend seems to be uploading a person's full library to a harddrive and using THAT for playback.
No scratching of CDs, no muss, no fuss. No discs getting lost, etc.
I own a small home... 1100 sq ft... Its all about priorities... I can store a lot of LDs vs that of owning a motorcycle parked in my garage...
And Easter Egg books, etc.
Novelty. Give me functionality. I'm not a child and don't buy "Citizen Kane" so that I can play games.
To clarify: If I still had an extensive collection of LV's and a player to play them on, I would continue using it, just as I did with my Beta machine and tapes.
However, I have a DVD player in my music studio for which I paid $39 new! I use it to play mp3's and CD's. On rare occasion I will play a movie through it. BTW, It is even progressive scan.
If I were you, I certainly wouldn't buy any LV's at this point. I would get a DVD player (for the price of a movie or two) and make sure all my new movies are DVD. And I highly recommend the Pawn shops for DVD's, the selection can be amazing and most will guarantee the playability. And you will notice from my posts that you can get some real classics as well as a lot (I mean A LOT) of modern garbage...
This is all assuming that you are not a "collector" of movies, but a person who likes to watch movies. If you simply MUST have such and such version of a movie,then all bets are off. I get the impression that is not where you are coming from. 8^>
I want to do something along those lines, I want to take the trailers of all the discs I have (trailers for movies I own, not just "any" trailers) and put them together on one disc. Makes it easy to ask someone, what do you want to watch, "here, decide".
You have a garage? 8^>
Agreed. I remember seeing it in the theater as a kid.
The real question is where can one find a DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11 with black bars covering the whole screen? :-)
In the movie it actually wasn't him singing! He was dubbed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.