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.
Legalities of who owns the title. Not the title of Hamlet itself but rather the movie. I'll have to google it to get the exact story.
Was it 480p?
My Bodyguard - with matt.
It's a classic that all modern high school kids should be exposed to. 8^>
Benny Hill had a funny skit were they used pan and scan.
Lady & The Tramp was actually animated in Full Screen and Widescreen versions.
Why is it that television commercials and music videos have been broadcast "widescreen" for over a decade yet no network is still willing to show films this way?
I know with the new "digital" broadcast some are, but that opens a whole 'nother can of worms as the NBC logo in the corner of the screen is cropped in half on my traditional tv set.
How do the previous 50+ years of television look on those new "widescreen" tvs? Black stripes up the sides of the picture? Zoom cropped to cut off foreheads and chins?
The "solution" is to use a video projector and thus "every screen" is the right size (and original aspect ratio can be maintained).
More often than not these days, "full screen" will give you more image at times (open matte) and less image at other times (special effects closeups, and some information that falls out of the "television safe" middle of the screen). Few people in Hollywood don't consider television broadcast in the lifespan of their films.
TV shows should be windowboxed on widesreen TVs (black bars on the sides).
Since I only need it to project movies, the "wall projector" is the only way to go for us. The "flat screen tv's" are just the new replacement for tv's, and probably cheaper to mass produce than glass tubes with their accompanying high voltage chassis.
At todays prices, and for those of us who only want to watch pre-recorded material, flat screen and plasma tv's make no financial sense whatsoever - especially when the picture from a five lb. projector is BIGGER and BETTER!
Yep. My projector is only 3.5lbs and I use it for everything - I don't own any tv's or monitors. The only drawback is the high cost of replacement lamps. I had to order one today and it was $325.
Speaking of Kubrick, one of the more hilarious pan & scans was the old fullscreen version of 2001 you saw for years on TV: the scene where astronauts Bowman and Poole discuss Hal's fate in the pod.
You're supposed to see both guys at the left and right of your screen, with Hal in the middle, but in pan and scan you cut between each speaking actor without seeing Hal, who we all know was lip reading all the time.
Also, supposedly, in 'The Shining', you can see the helicopter blades at the top of the shot when the camera settles on the Overlook Hotel at end of the opening credits. You can also see the helicopter shadow very clearly during those cool sweeping shots of the Volkswagen during the credits.
I still prefer laserdisc for "instant accessibility" (no stupid menus to select chapters; no "Easter Egg" features), 50k+ frame image discs (for example art collections or NASA photos, as well as several hundred production still collections for a given film).
Animation transferred to CAV at true "1 frame" freeze frame capability.
Fast foward motion on a CAV disc was truly an accelerated version (forward or reverse) as every single frame was displayed, none of this "CD like" skipping ahead.
And although the resolution may have been "lesser" there is no compression artifacting. DVD has improved in this regard but some companies still fall short in their DVD production.
"except it isn't digital."
You mean video isn't digital but the LD format does offer digital audio.
I don't know the exact resolution. I do know video on LD was better than VHS.
What's odd about 2001 is that the production stills for that film were all at the original aspect ratio, something that few other films EVER did or do today (generally they are just 8x10 regardless of the aspect ratio).
Well, I figured that much..
"A League Of Their Own" actually makes me dizzy with the abrupt swings in the pan-and-scan version.
"Widescreen films only started being made in the 1950s."
Many studios though who library content of those movies are now expending money and rematting them for release on DVD.
I recall back in the 1970s (and even 80s) when it was common to see a movie broadcast (generally a spaghetti western) from a scope print with a flat lens.
Everyone was super thin. Sometimes this was just done for the opening/closing credits, other times the whole film would be shown that way.
You can still mimic this by setting your DVD player controls to "think" that you have a different type of tv than you actually do.
Which brings up ANOTHER beef about DVDs. I've seen several production companies that automatically ASSUME I have a 16x9 tv. I have to toggle my DVD player's setting just so that I can move the cursor over the appropriate DVD menu options.
I tried to google some facts on LD and the format is in decline. I didn't want to try what it was without having the facts.
I know this much... my SW OT LDs and Hamlet are now worth a bunch of $$$.
When art theives cut a painting (on canvas) out of a frame from the front, they DO engage in such editorial decisions.
We use a setting that "stretches" the picture horizontally slightly (essentially, anamorphic fullscreen, so to speak) -- it's a little strange for about 5 minutes, then you get used to it.
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