junip wrote:Not trying to sound like a snob at all, but I'd just like to mention that cinematography is very much an art form. To pull, stretch, crop, and perhaps even shrink, is paramount to clipping the side couple of inches off of a VanGogh or something. Point is: the film-makers go about making movies with specific intent with what they want to show on screen and what they don't. Its kinda sad that people accept a chopped up version of someone's labors as readily as they do.

I don't agree with this at all. To me, this argument is like saying music should only be listened to on a well-balanced high end hi-fi system, and that the experience of some poor kid somewhere on the earth listening to a crappy tranny radio isn't valid, or via the 150 million (yes, really) cassette decks sold worldwide last year. Film has multiple technical and aesthetic aspects, but ultimately is about narrative over time - something not usually affected by it's technical presentation. Yes, it's good to see things as originally intended. Yes, I appreciate cinematography and the grammar etc., and get annoyed with chop offs. But if it's a choice between seeing it and not seeing it then gimme the 80s VHS transfer in the horrid box.

andteater wrote:regarding the mention of the shining...i'm 99% sure that the shining was shot in 4:3 as opposed to widescreen (same goes for Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket and quite possibly, Barry Lyndon) - evidentally, Kubrick preferred it to widescreen.

I hear Steve Spielberg is doing some aspect ratio thing with his movies now so that the screens he shoot look equally good in any modern aspect ratio. Although, I know next to nothing about what specifically that entails, nor does it really concern me, considering War of the Worlds is probably the second or third worst movie I've ever seen.