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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.
Well, that does explain the Venus de Milo.
It's sad to say but some people will never watch letterbox editions because either they think they are getting cheated by having black bars on the tops and bottoms of their screens or they are distracted by them. How you can be distracted by black empty voids is beyond me?
Amen! The time and money that studios expend to create butchered full screen versions of films could be spent on something that's of actual value. No one would want a novel with a bunch of sentences cut out or a painting with the sides chopped off. Pan and Scan editions of movies are lowest common denominator pandering.
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I think thke problem is that when you have a 4:3 TV that's under ~50" and you are watching a 16:9 movie, then you are getting a smallish image.
Pan and scan is unwatchable.
Never try watching a Stanley Kubrick or David Lean film in pan and scan, an aneurysm can result.
Good example. Also if you watch 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly' in full screen on a TV you will probnably see the good...very little of the bad and virtually none of the ugly.
I call it 'fool-screen'. Cause it's such a crappy thing.
Great Flick!
Just flip to CNN and see a whole bunch of Ugly!
The Kubrick estate has actually said his last 3 films (The Shining, Full Metla Jacket and Eyes wide Shut) were made with the TV frame in mind and cropped for theaters. The current DVDs reflect that. 2001 ASO however is in widescreen of course.
Most Spielberg films are ruined by pan and scan too: Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, Schindler, Private Ryan...all would be deeply scarred by pan and scan.
Our household dislikes letterbox.
This is an old, old argument...
The consensus, reached about 1982, is that since not everybody has a big, expensive widescreen TV, different versions should be made available to film-buyers/renters
Beat me by 27 seconds!
I used to have two laserdisc versions of the sound of music. One was letterboxed and one wasn't. I would show people the artistic differences between the two by comparing one scene in the movie, and the case was made:
When she is singing the title song, there is a point where she runs through a stand of Aspens spanning the screen from left to right, with a brook running through the grass below. With letterbox, the aspens dominate the screen from one side to the other as she runs from one side to the other, and then back again, zig-zagging and frolicking through the aspens.
In "panned and scanned" full screen, the camera follows her through the aspens. It is all about keeping her center frame and the aspens - and their visual impact - are greatly diminished.
We don't have tv - we only buy and rent movies. After Chrismas we will be getting a small projection tv with hdtv capability and component inputs, and roll down screen. It is literally BETTER than the theater. That will eliminate the one problem with letterboxing - small size on a normal tv.
Well his 1950s films (Killer's Kiss, The Killing, Paths of Glory) were made in 1:37 (just about TV frame). Lolita and Dr. Strangelove were 1:66 which is just teensy bit of letterboxing.
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