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.
The reaosn for that is those old LDs had the pre-tampered with Star Wars which Lucas has said will never be on DVD and and Branagh's Hamlet has yet to be released on DVD.
Is Hamlet going to be released on DVD?
Weird. The only HD channels I got are STZHD, HBOHD, SHOHD, BRAVO HD and INHD. No TNT HD in Brooklyn. Is the image actually HD? Or do htey just display it in the middle of the screen with black bars on top, bottom, left and right?
I don't really see it as phoney. As I mentioned, I have sometimes seen microphones in their entirety in the area that is blacked out in the final version. I saw as story on this over a decade ago. Even though the film was shot in "tv" aspect ratio, the artistic vision was in the taped off "widescreen" area, which is why the director would sometimes miss things in the top and bottom areas like mics - and con-trails in westerns.
That said, I noticed it in My Bodyguard because the tops of peoples heads were cut off in the letterboxed version. It looks like it was filmed for tv aspect ratio.
I would assume so. I guess its a size issue with that 242 minutes film. There's a fair amount of demand for it online. Schools could could sure use a completely visualized versio of the play which otherwise only exists in drab BBC editions.
What was the resolution on the laser disc like?
I have two HDTVs... one at 51" and another at 42"... VOOM offers a HD TNT channel which actually does show HD movies at 1080i at 4:3 aspect and edits them for language and content. My feeling is... why even bother?
I understand that the genesis of wide screen movies was a response to a new form of competition: television.
It tanked, and Wayne spent the next 9 years working in ultra-low-budget Poverty Row B-Westerns.
But with DVDs there's no reason to actually offer both. You can set the player to be full screen and it only shows the center. Yeah you get no "pan and scan" but from what I've seen lately the studios have gotten really lazy and most fullscreen DVDs are merely cropped with little if any panning.
Size isn't an issue anymore... with dual layer authoring now on DVD. I've never heard that Hamlet would ever be available on DVD because of title issues. Which makes my copy of it on LD even more valuable. Same goes with my several copies of the OT of SW on LD I still own.
My Bodyguard with Matt Dillon or The Bodyguard with Costner?
>>The reaosn for that is those old LDs had the pre-tampered with Star Wars which Lucas has said will never be on DVD and and Branagh's Hamlet has yet to be released on DVD.<<
And I had Pink Floyd's Pulse concert on Laserdisk. Pre-divorce, that is...
What about Dr. Strangelove? Stanley Kubrick did not like letterboxing, approved of a mixed aspect ratio transfer in later years, and used copious amounts of "full screen" stock footage in his film.
LD offered letterboxing and 5.1 dolby digital sound which VHS couldn't.
What do you mean by title issues? They can't have another movie named Hamlet? :-)
Exactly. I have no problems watching a full-screen movie on my 32" TV.
If memory serves, it is pretty close to non-progressive scan DVD, except it isn't digital.
On a projection tv in the late seventies and early 80's even, tape didn't come close.
Tape has never been an acceptable pre-recorded medium to me, even in 1970 when I was the only guy I knew who had cassette in my car - all home recorded tapes.
And this in a crappy 1963 rambler classic!!!
Widescreen films only started being made in the 1950s.
Nice. I have a tiny 1 bedroom (rent is $ in NYC), so I am only getting ~65" image on my wall ( from about ~8 feet). HD looks pretty amazing even though the native resolution of the projector is 1024 by 768.
Half Life 2 looks niiiiiiiice :]
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