Skip to main content

You See Everything

I hear all the time about how something from someone's childhood isn't around anymore. Be it a musical genre, a channel that played music videos, a venue, a restaurant, etc., it's just not the proverbial same. Well, I think there are some things I'm glad aren't around anymore. High up on that list is watching movies in pan-and-scan.

Before I was in college, I never noticed the difference between seeing a movie in widescreen in a theater and seeing it in pan-and-scan on a TV. I thought Tim Burton's Batman looked the same on TV as it did on the big screen. Well, with the advent of DVD (and seeing The Matrix on DVD), I've never wanted to see a movie in pan-and-scan again. I can't go back . . . and that's fine with me.

Depending on how you view it, rewatching movies in widescreen can be a royal pain in the ass. However, seeing movies from The Muppet Movie to Kentucky Fried Movie on DVD and in widescreen, there's no contest. The more that's onscreen, the better. It's almost like watching a whole other movie. And I've never minded seeing black bars on the top and bottom of my screen.

A recent case in point for me is Lost Highway. For some strange reason (probably, like with Twin Peaks, there's a rights issue), the Region 1 version of Lynch's 1997 film is only available in pan-and-scan. The video quality is so poor that it looks like a VHS dub burned onto DVD. Yes, it's that bad. Obtaining the Region 2 version for my region-free DVD player, the movie looks amazing.

Lost Highway is a great example of how butchered a movie can look in pan-and scan. Its 2:35 width is tarnished in the 4:3 format and I wonder why such savagery is allowed. It's about as bad as watching Pulp Fiction on VHS. It's terrible-looking and rather confusing when there's stuff cut out of the frame.

Now with widescreen TVs becoming pretty much the only TVs you can buy in a retail store, the "don't care"/lowest common denominator audience will have to see everything in widescreen. Gone are the days when a certain megastore that bends over backwards for that audience sells only pan-and-scan DVDs. Maybe this has been long overdue for everyone else to deal with this. It's about time.

Comments

The seeds of a different problem are in one of your last sentences. The lowest common denominator crowd will have to see everything in widescreen, which means the TV programming in the 4:3 ratio will be zoomed in or *shudder* stretched to fit the 16:9 ratio. The latter is especially common. I don't know how people can stand to watch it.

It's not about getting more picture; it's about getting the whole picture.
jen said…
http://renaissancemonkey.blogspot.com/2007/09/toward-lost-art.html#links

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J