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 still want to buy a used copy of The Committments but still looking. I figure it will eventually show up."
Let me help you out: http://www.ebay.com
I wouldn't even say it was a resolution thing. Europe seemed to accept letterboxing for broadcast films before laserdisc was popular in America (and LD was even more of a niche market in Europe, so much so that an NTSC/PAL capable player went on the market and sold as well as the initial region free DVD players, like hotcakes).
No, the one I bought is on DVD and plays fine. It is a silly fun romp and valuable as one of those things you can watch more than once, while building a puzzle or doing needlepoint. One copy is enough.
I didn't know you live in Phoenix. Yeah, it's big. My brother-in-law used to run the Phoenix airport operations for one of the airlines (which will remain nameless, obviously).
My wife and I have toyed with the idea of moving there, or maybe the high desert. We have several snow bird friends that "live" there in the winter. My company has offices in Seattle AND Phoenix. Since my managers office is on the east coast and my clients are all over the country, I am thinking of the Snow Bird thing myself...
I don't really do ebay. Although this might be a nice start...
I guess I stand alone in preferring the so called "Pan and Scan" version of movies. I feel like a leper.
Resolution comes to mind. NTSC video is 525 lines, if I'm not mistaken.. Even a cheap 20" monitor can easily get to 1280x1024 resolution with an acceptable refresh rate.
Yet I have exactly the opposite pet peeve.
TCM was the first cable station to insist on "widescreen", which I call "ribbon TV".
It's utterly ludicrous to have 2/3 of your screen area be black bars. If you want to buy it that way, fine, but the majority of us still have standard TV aspect ration screens.
That's why letterbox VHS was highly unpopular.
That's why they make "fullscreen" DVDs. As a Laserdisk owner, I strongly believe the unpopularity of that media was due to the fact that many movies were only available in "ribbon TV". Ribbon TV killed the Laserdisk. I can tell you for sure that I never bought ONE widescreen Laserdisk, and I have something like 60 - 70. They could have sold me double that amount for a properly formatted picture.
Even though I have a 54" TV, giving up 2/3 of the screen is silly. Very little is typically happening on the extreme edges. Most of it is the "panorama", "sweeping drama" type effect, and it's negligible to me.
I'm not running an effete art theater, I'm watching TV.
That's what we're doing . . . essentially a movie jukebox. You gotta have a BIG hard drive to do that.
That's even worse! Then I can imagine Christopher Plummer lip-synching "Edelweiss" while the guy doing the singing is actually . . . let's see, who else scares me . . . Christopher Walken.
I don't know . . . I just know that two hours of Keanu's furrowed brow was about an hour and 55 minutes more than I could stand, so I went to sleep in self-defense.
Well, there's a whole lot of analysis about not much!
I buy the letterbox wide screen versions of Lord of the Rings and others.... but I have a large enough screen TV that I can watch one of those really wide films and still have an enjoyable size image.
I'd hardly put full-screen versions of film among the great tragedies of our time.
You're not a leper but the movies in Pan and Scan since they have parts missing. :-)
I have noticed that text looks like crap on a TV but the graphics from an X Box at least "seem" to be as good as anything I've seen on a computer monitor.Probably makes a difference how close you are to the screen as well.
"My brother-in-law used to run the Phoenix airport operations for one of the airlines (which will remain nameless, obviously)."
Let me take a guess at it: American West? The City of Phoenix sure got suckered bigtime by them...
The "snowbird" thingy really isn't that big here anymore. Our population remains pretty constant now. In Phx, you worry more about having an A/C for your home that's reliable or a really good battery for your car rather than a decent paint job for it.
"I feel like a leper."
Don't. It really matters what kind of audio and/or video equipment you have and use I believe that determines what kind of movie format you watch.
Nope. Wasn't America West. But that is the last guess you get. 8^>
ping
For those that are interested, you can get a good projector now for $850 or so at Costco, Sams Club and probably quite a few other locations.
It doesn't work too well for regular tv, but it TOTALLY CHANGES the movie experience from even a 42" plasma set.
Now $850 isn't free, but it wasn't that long ago that a decent 30" set went for that much. Then again, maybe that's why it wasn't that long ago that not many people had 30" sets. 8^>
The projector is the ultimate for people who have small houses or apartments, but would like a large movie experience. Couple it up with one of those $300 surround sound systems (including dvd player) and you have a better home movie experience than about 90% of american homes. Lots more.
That being said, "The Last Samurai," though not a great movie, is awesome on a 60" HD screen with surround sound. It makes even Tom Cruise look intimidating.
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.