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Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:53 am**

I'd like to think that this is a joke:

Cleopatra DVD Version, June 12, 2007
By Brian Bellia (Edensor Park, NSW Australia)

I would really LOVE a full-screen version of this DVD. In fact I would really prefer all my DVD movies in full-screen. I won't be buying anymore wide-screen versions in future, because even though I own a wide-screen TV, full-screen versions look a whole lot better on it as far as I'm concerned.
A couple of movies I own come with double-sided discs, with a wide-screen version on one side and a full-screen version on the other. 'Forbidden Planet' and 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' are two titles that come to mind which are sold this way.
Surely this is the way to go!

Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:12 pm**

That boggles the mind, because he has a widescreen TV, so its not a black bars issue... it's a "I prefer to watch my movies zoomed in and stretched out all crazy" issue, which means he should really return his widescreen TV so someone else can use it.

Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:41 pm**

even though I own a wide-screen TV, full-screen versions look a whole lot better on it as far as I'm concerned

Honestly, I never thought I would read these words but I suppose there's a first time for every idiotic thing.

Posted: **Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:07 pm**

Possibly the idiot has not set up his DVD player to output a 16x9 signal which means 16x9 movies might appear with both vertical and horizontal black bars. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Posted: **Wed Aug 22, 2007 4:13 pm**

For Netflix users - you know how they now have a "Community" tab that scrolls latest customer reviews past, I suppose in something more or less real-time? Well, I landed on that page this morning to find this pithiness scrolling past:

The Bourne Ultimatum has entertained both sides of the coin. The male-side. And the art-geek side. The third installment rounds the series nicely. An action film that actually has more than ...
Read the full reviewTroyJ15
25%
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What an interesting coin!

Posted: **Wed Aug 22, 2007 4:22 pm**

The Invunche wrote:Possibly the idiot has not set up his DVD player to output a 16x9 signal which means 16x9 movies might appear with both vertical and horizontal black bars. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

or his DVD player is set to 4:3 and his widescreen TV to stretch, so 4:3 fills up the screen (although stretched), and 16:9 formats are letterboxed & stretched.

Posted: **Wed Aug 22, 2007 6:44 pm**

John Cope wrote:I'd like to think that this is a joke:

Cleopatra DVD Version, June 12, 2007
By Brian Bellia (Edensor Park, NSW Australia)

I would really LOVE a full-screen version of this DVD. In fact I would really prefer all my DVD movies in full-screen. I won't be buying anymore wide-screen versions in future, because even though I own a wide-screen TV, full-screen versions look a whole lot better on it as far as I'm concerned.
A couple of movies I own come with double-sided discs, with a wide-screen version on one side and a full-screen version on the other. 'Forbidden Planet' and 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' are two titles that come to mind which are sold this way.
Surely this is the way to go!

Sadly, I've heard people at Suncoast say the same, even though the clerk always tells them nicely the stupidness of full-screen. Those people should have their widescreen tvs taken aways from them.

Posted: **Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:13 pm**

starmanof51 wrote:
The Bourne Ultimatum has entertained both sides of the coin. The male-side. And the art-geek side.
What an interesting coin!

Indeed! He's just denied "art geeks" any claim to masculinity.

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:55 am**

The Invunche wrote:Possibly the idiot has not set up his DVD player to output a 16x9 signal which means 16x9 movies might appear with both vertical and horizontal black bars. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Living in Hungary I have yet to meet a widescreen owner who knew how the fuck to set it up properly. And they dont care. They're just status symbols for idiots over here.

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:46 am**

Well, how can you expect the consumer to set up his TV correctly when every 16x9 screen at the store where he bought it is running a non-anamorphic signal in stretch mode?

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:00 pm**

skuhn8 wrote:
The Invunche wrote:Possibly the idiot has not set up his DVD player to output a 16x9 signal which means 16x9 movies might appear with both vertical and horizontal black bars. It wouldn't surprise me at all.
Living in Hungary I have yet to meet a widescreen owner who knew how the fuck to set it up properly. And they dont care. They're just status symbols for idiots over here.

It's the same everywhere.

addition: I had to convince my parents to watch TV in the normal 4:3 mode because they were stretching it... it annoyed me so much I went off about it (now, however, they're very strict about aspect ratios)

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:24 pm**

I consider myself an aspect ratio nazi.

Posted: **Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:40 pm**

John Cope wrote:I'd like to think that this is a joke:

Cleopatra DVD Version, June 12, 2007
By Brian Bellia (Edensor Park, NSW Australia)

I would really LOVE a full-screen version of this DVD. In fact I would really prefer all my DVD movies in full-screen. I won't be buying anymore wide-screen versions in future, because even though I own a wide-screen TV, full-screen versions look a whole lot better on it as far as I'm concerned.

He can give his widescreen tv to me. I'll give it a good home (and with some help from you fellas, I'll even set up the right aspect ratio on the dvd player!)

On the topic of bad reviews, I was forced (kicking and screaming) to watch Pathfinder the other day. Although that movie averages a rating of one star on netflix, you can find positive reviews on amazon. Anything that rates this film over one star is quite ridiculous, I have to say (Pathfinder was truly an abomination of filmmaking). I won't cut-and-paste those reviews here, as they'll lower everybody's IQ.

Posted: **Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:06 pm**

I must admit that I'm one of those idiots. Although I have an HDTV Samsung I really haven't set the picture on it.

Posted: **Fri Aug 24, 2007 11:28 pm**

this isn't a review or comment so much as a careful cataloging of one scene from Date Movie, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Now we see a big house, similar to the one in Meet The Parents. Grant and Julia are sitting together along with Julia's parents, Frank and Linda. Grant doesn't get along with Frank. Grant goes to the bathroom to see Jinxers, the family cat farting continuously. Things go a lot worse when Grant attempts to open a bottle of champagne but the cork hits a vase that contains Frank's mothers remains. It goes to the worst when Jinxers begins humping the skeleton.

Posted: **Sat Aug 25, 2007 1:23 am**

It goes to the worst when Jinxers begins humping the skeleton.

Things usually do go to the worst at that point.

Posted: **Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:25 pm**

the following is a review of Stranger than Paradise:

The most astonishing thing about this film - stranger than paradise or hell could ever be - is that anyone let Jarmusch make another film after it wrapped. (That it won Best First Feature at Cannes in 1984 shakes one's faith in a rational universe.)

STP easily ranks as one of the worst movies ever made, it is so vapid and purposeless that at times one almost senses that the characters on screen are looking straight into the camera as if to say, "Please, please give us something to do, we just can't take another minute of this torture!"

Watching Stranger Than Paradise one feels compelled to laugh as the realization hits - Jarmusch wants this movie to be boring, slow, vacant, tedious, and gloomy, in short - lacking any quality that might be considered redemptive. He has a terribly clever, art-house idea; he wants to recreate the bleak existentialism of Samuel Beckett and J.P. Sartre on film, painting meaninglessness and pointlessness in broad strokes, black and white, hollow lives played out in the absence of hope, value, or passion.

What Jarmusch has missed, however, is that these writers portrayed their philosophical viewpoint in endlessly fascinating ways, masterfully crafting characters and situations. A boring, idiotic movie doesn't become interesting or consequential just because you say, after the fact, "I intended to make a boring and idiotic movie." That the art-house crowd fell for Stranger Than Paradise only shows that painfully chic intellectuals with delusions of hippitudinousness are more easily deceived than children - children can spot a naked emperor.

While it's hard to criticize a man who's worked Screamin' Jay Hawkins into two of his movies, (Mystery Train), good taste in music in not nearly enough to absolve Jarmusch. Repeated viewings will cause you to be dumbstruck with wonder over and over as you wrestle with the idea that Stranger Than Paradise is as bad as it is on purpose. Deep as a Frisbee, and with luck, you might be able to fling it as far.

I love this quote: the characters on screen are looking straight into the camera as if to say, "Please, please give us something to do, we just can't take another minute of this torture!"
the reviewer is so close to getting the point of the film it's ridiculous.

Posted: **Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:31 pm**

Don't you mean rediculous?

Posted: **Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:46 pm**

Lemmy Caution wrote:Don't you mean rediculous?

actually, "rediculous" is incorrect. it's derived from ridicule.

Posted: **Sun Aug 26, 2007 9:48 pm**

Actually, I believe that it's derived from ridi, to laugh.

I think Lemmy was just pulling your leg, miles.

Haven't we gotten enough milage out of this yet?

Posted: **Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:06 pm**

kinjitsu wrote: Haven't we gotten enough milage out of this yet?

most likely, yes.

Posted: **Sun Aug 26, 2007 11:33 pm**

Oh no, I hope Criterion sees that article and cancels their Stranger Than Paradise release plans before it's too late!

Posted: **Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:15 am**

domino harvey wrote:Oh no, I hope Criterion sees that article and cancels their Stranger Than Paradise release plans before it's too late!

yeah, they don't want to ruin their name and reputation by releasing one of the worst movies ever made!

Posted: **Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:08 pm**

Here's a classic from the IMDB:

There are certain things that are inexcusable in a movie. This film has a sound track that is always set at an impossibly fast tempo, no matter what is happening. There is absolutely no character development. It is repetitive. You will see a couple of sailors climb up a ladder on the ship, and then see that same shot repeated four or five times. This occurs when the sailboats are going to meet the battleship, and when the battleship is entering the fleet. Throughout the whole film there are sections where nothing is happening, (like when the sailboats meet the battleship), and you will be listening to demented carnival music when the camera will cut to an old lady, or a seagull. This film is total crap. I actually felt physical pain sitting through this movie. This is the reason why people won't watch art films. But while art films are beautiful and make you think, this is propagandist drival, filled with symbolism that it would take fifteen autistic children to understand. I felt like gouging out my eyeballs, dropping to my knees, and demanding explanation from a God that would let a film like this be made.

Battleship Potemkin, obviously - but I'd love to know what the "demented carnival music" was. Edmond Meisel? Dmitri Shostakovich? The Pet Shop Boys?

Posted: **Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:59 pm**

I can kind of see what that person is saying about Stranger Than Paradise. When I first began delving deeper into film, I compared everything I saw to Pulp Fiction(It was 94-95) and I thought Stranger Than Paradise was booooring. I think a lot of times folks need to kind of unlearn what mainstream cinema teaches us which I guess in short is the MTV Style of editing and action. It took me a couple of years to actually appreciate the deliberate style of STP. Potemkin took a couple of viewings. Same thing goes for Kane. I'm not defending the various stupid reviews that people are showing, but cinema like an artform requires a certain appreciation that not everyone has. It reminds me of how Jerry Seinfeld's Dad thought that Monet must have been near-sided cause of his style.

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