It has been a long withdrawal for cinephiles like myself, waiting with our knuckles clenched for the New Beverly Cinema to reopen. In late December 2017, we all said our farewell to the repertory cinema in Los Angeles while it planned to be closed for the first few months to work on renovations. Unfortunately, as life happens on life's terms, the theater ended up being closed for almost an entire year, and will reopen its doors on December 1st, 2018. The New Bev holds a special place in many people's hearts as a cultural institution. For a reasonable price, one can enjoy an evening of vintage films (usually a double feature). I won't go on too much about the theater too much because its website can tell you more about its founding and programming, but I would like to take a moment and share some anecdotes about my own history with the theater.
In January 2009, I was set to have my first date with a very nice gentleman. Two days before we were supposed to meet I came down with a violent stomach flu. I kept our first date, which lasted about an hour, but had to cancel our second one. I understood that I had probably broken this poor chap's heart and needed to make it up to him so once I mended I gave him a ring and asked if he wanted to give it another go. I had never been to the New Bev, but he knew that on February 12, 2009 they would be running one of my favorite movies HAROLD AND MAUDE along with a film you could not get on DVD, ELECTRIC DREAMS. We set the date. I didn't have GPS at the time so I looked up the address on Yahoo! Maps and jumped in the car. 7165 Beverly.
Now....being someone who had only lived in LA for about 6 months I did not know the lay of the land and really wish someone would have told me that there is both a Beverly Drive as well as a Beverly Blvd. I probably flew up to the top of the Hollywood Hills and down into the pits of Castle Heights about 3 times looking for this darn theater at 7165 Beverly. Finally about my third time up (and repeatedly calling my date and apologizing profusely) I found someone who explained my error at the top of the hill. Flying down into the city, I was desperately praying that this gentleman hadn't thought I was flaking on him yet again and as I screeched past Formosa on Beverly, I saw him standing in front of the theater, leaning against the building. While I was 45 minutes late, he still waited with two tickets in his hand and we snuck in and enjoyed what was left of the film and the second feature. We didn't end up staying together but are still good friends.
Tuesday May 28, 2013 would be a life changing day for me. It was the day I was to begin a life of sobriety, free of mind altering substances that had controlled my life for far too many years. Anyone who has ever gotten sober can tell you that the first few days are agonizing-- physically, mentally and emotionally. Among other things, you sweat at random times and the sweat always smells vile. Your insomnia, mood swings, and anxiety go through the roof. Also, you don't make the best decisions. So, of course I chose to get sober in one of the hottest summer weeks of the San Fernando Valley in an apartment with no air conditioning. I was working a regular 3:00 pm-12:00 am shift at Deluxe Media at the time and was therefore able to get through Tuesday through Friday.
Then came Saturday, my first night by myself since I got sober. Without a single coping skill, I was alone and I was scared and I didn't have a single clue on what I was going to do. All I needed was something air conditioned to get me out of my head and away from the thought of getting hammered. That night the New Bev coincidentally happened to be playing a 3 hour edit of CINEMA PARADISO and without giving it a second thought, I drove to the theater. I remember being so filled with anxiety about this new sober journey I had embarked but somehow when the lights went down and the film started, everything was okay. I got home at the same time I would have if I had been at work and was able to get myself some rest.
The next night, the theater ran a double feature of MANHUNTER and ANGEL HEART, and I once again was able to make it through the evening safely without falling apart. I look back now and think about how much gratitude I really owe the theater. If it hadn't been there showing those specific films which were enticing enough to grab me in my state of agony, I don't know if I could have gotten through that first weekend.
Thursday March 20, 2014 was my first day being unemployed in about three years. I remember my head not being in such a great place as I hadn't really settled into the idea of not knowing how I was going to pay my bills. The concept of living in a box or moving back in with my parents didn't seem so wonderful. I didn't know if anyone in the industry would hire me again as I had been buried under a film bench for so many years. My mother called me three times to ask me what my career plans were and was already phoning cousins I hadn't seen in 10 years asking if they could help me get a job. Not to mention, as busy as LA is, when you're not working it can feel like the quietest place. That night, feeling unsure of myself and forlorn, I wandered into the double feature of CAT PEOPLE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. While I had seen both films several times, I used the screening as a time to think. What was I doing with my life and where was I headed? Did I even want to stay in the film archive and restoration field? Seeing the beautiful suspenseful shots of a black panther's shadow walking in and out of street alleys, I made up my mind that I would try to give working in my beloved field one last 'good old college try'. That try turned into working for the USC Shoah Foundation where I know have been employed for over 4 years.
So you see, The New Beverly Cinema is more than just a theater that runs old movies. It's more than just a 'neighborhood institution'. It really is a magical place that has touched me personally. I'm sure these three stories will just prompt many readers who have also gone there to say 'Well, let me tell you MY New Beverly story!' to which I simply say, bring it on. Let's all tell our stories. Let's all share why this theater is so important to all of us, and why we hold it so deep in our hearts.
Monday, November 26, 2018
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Things in cinema that don't make sense!
Ah, cinema. We laugh, we cry, we enter the worlds of the characters and become one with them. And yet, there are always things in the world of cinema that for years we have always turned a blind eye to. Why? Because we've become accustomed to doing so. We've been raised to believe that this is just 'how things are' in the world of cinema. Here's a list of five things that will make your head spin.
1) The British Accent
via GIPHY
The classic Doctor Zhivago is the first to come to mind, but why is it that if an English language film takes place in a European country where the language of the characters isn't English, the characters have a British accent? Are we to assume that British English is the universal European dialect? Surely if filmmakers don't want to shoot the film in one of those high-falootin' foreign languages, Hollywood could at least teach the actors to LEARN an accent, right? Be it the Russian Revolution, World War II or a sword and sandal epic about Jesus hanging with his people (sorry, bad pun), it's a little, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah...."racist".
via GIPHY
2) The VCR
via GIPHY
We've all grew up using the VCR, we've all taught our grandmothers how to use the VCR, we all watched things we weren't supposed to be watching using the VCR. When, oh when, did a VCR ever make a fast-paced sound when it fast forwarded or rewound a videotape during playback? But for 20 years every time a film had a character fast forwarding or rewinding a tape, we all heard the chipmunk screeching coming from the TV and no one questioned it. Was this a gimmick that became standardized in the industry, or is it safe to assume that directors in Hollywood have never used a commercial home video player before? This special effect really bugs because movies are supposed to provide a look to future generations about what our world was like at one time. Now, thanks to these buffoons in Hollywood, everyone 40 years from now watching films from the 80s and 90s is going to think that VCRs made this noise when they never did. Way to go.
via GIPHY
3) The Telephone
via GIPHY
It's 2018, and nearly every time we see a character putting a phone to their ear, all of a sudden we hear what their ear is hearing on the other end of the line....except not really because the 'telephone sound' filter being used is the same one from the 1960s which makes the phone sound like it's, well, from the 1960s. Phone signals are digital now Hollywood Moguls! Quit living in the past. And quit being tightwads as well. If you can afford to show one side of a phone conversation, you can probably afford to show the other side as well. Fail.
via GIPHY
4) Period Costumes
This is allegedly Cleopatra, with 1934 fashion.
via GIPHY
This is also allegedly Cleopatra, with 1963 fashion.
via GIPHY
Here is Michelle Pfeiffer sporting a very 1980s version of a 1960s look in GREASE 2.
via GIPHY
And here is Melinda Dillon sporting a very 1980s version of a 1940s look in A CHRISTMAS STORY.
via GIPHY
Now fashion in films is very hard to translate 100% to the decade in which a film was made, but honestly. How hard did the hair and makeup people of these four examples try to represent the era the character was supposed to represent? Could you even DO a perm like Melinda Dillon's in the 1940s?
1) The British Accent
via GIPHY
The classic Doctor Zhivago is the first to come to mind, but why is it that if an English language film takes place in a European country where the language of the characters isn't English, the characters have a British accent? Are we to assume that British English is the universal European dialect? Surely if filmmakers don't want to shoot the film in one of those high-falootin' foreign languages, Hollywood could at least teach the actors to LEARN an accent, right? Be it the Russian Revolution, World War II or a sword and sandal epic about Jesus hanging with his people (sorry, bad pun), it's a little, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah...."racist".
via GIPHY
2) The VCR
via GIPHY
We've all grew up using the VCR, we've all taught our grandmothers how to use the VCR, we all watched things we weren't supposed to be watching using the VCR. When, oh when, did a VCR ever make a fast-paced sound when it fast forwarded or rewound a videotape during playback? But for 20 years every time a film had a character fast forwarding or rewinding a tape, we all heard the chipmunk screeching coming from the TV and no one questioned it. Was this a gimmick that became standardized in the industry, or is it safe to assume that directors in Hollywood have never used a commercial home video player before? This special effect really bugs because movies are supposed to provide a look to future generations about what our world was like at one time. Now, thanks to these buffoons in Hollywood, everyone 40 years from now watching films from the 80s and 90s is going to think that VCRs made this noise when they never did. Way to go.
via GIPHY
3) The Telephone
via GIPHY
It's 2018, and nearly every time we see a character putting a phone to their ear, all of a sudden we hear what their ear is hearing on the other end of the line....except not really because the 'telephone sound' filter being used is the same one from the 1960s which makes the phone sound like it's, well, from the 1960s. Phone signals are digital now Hollywood Moguls! Quit living in the past. And quit being tightwads as well. If you can afford to show one side of a phone conversation, you can probably afford to show the other side as well. Fail.
via GIPHY
4) Period Costumes
This is allegedly Cleopatra, with 1934 fashion.
via GIPHY
This is also allegedly Cleopatra, with 1963 fashion.
via GIPHY
Here is Michelle Pfeiffer sporting a very 1980s version of a 1960s look in GREASE 2.
via GIPHY
And here is Melinda Dillon sporting a very 1980s version of a 1940s look in A CHRISTMAS STORY.
via GIPHY
Now fashion in films is very hard to translate 100% to the decade in which a film was made, but honestly. How hard did the hair and makeup people of these four examples try to represent the era the character was supposed to represent? Could you even DO a perm like Melinda Dillon's in the 1940s?
Thursday, July 19, 2018
"Tell me about the rain tree........" Raintree County, Rarity, and Homosexuality
I figured I could capture readers with a title like that. No, I am not suggesting there is homosexuality in the film RAINTREE COUNTY (although that is a paper for another day), but I do have a homosexual story about RAINTREE COUNTY that I must share. It goes a little something like this.
As a dweeb, I collect not only DVDs and VHS, but also laserdiscs-- a hybrid of the two formats that has sadly become defunct over the years. The SD quality transfers are very special to me because they come from a time when studios didn't "restore" their films to a point where their manipulations share little difference from a Ted Turner colorization (read my earlier post "Blue Bombs Everywhere" to see what I was talking about). I also love that many laserdiscs have many special features that did not make their way to DVD and Blu-ray for some reason or another.
Well, my laserdisc player started to go kaput, and a good friend of mine, for a cheap price, sold me two new players and a ton of discs. In this batch my wonderful friend, also gay, blessed me with RAINTREE COUNTY, seen here.
A 3+ hour GONE WITH THE WIND knockoff from 1957, this 70mm epic is one of those bizarre films from that era when it didn't matter how good it was, as long as it was long, lavish, and expensive. The film has also never been released on DVD in the United States.
The first time I attempted to rent this film, after hunting, I got a DVD copy of a VHS from an anonymous source. It was, of course, cropped to 1.33:1, and being an early widescreen movie that was meant to COMPETE with the small screen of television, it did not fare well to the pan and scan process. Also, most VHS tapes made after 1983 have two audio tracks on them: Hi-Fi and Mono. The DVD was made with the Hi-Fi track, and the track had worn out, so the entire time there was a buzzsaw like static on the tape. After about 20 minutes, I called it a day. So, my little heart went a-flutter when I found this disc in my bundle, as I could now enjoy the film as intended.
Now, where's the gay link in this, beyond the fact that its main male star, Montgomery Clift was gay, and Elizabeth Taylor, the female lead, was a gay icon? Well that goes back to my history of the 1982 gay classic MAKING LOVE, with Harry Hamlin, Michael Ontkean, and Kate Jackson.
In this film, Hamlin plays a gay Los Angeles writer who sleeps with a married man, but before doing so, breaks fourth wall to talk about how much he enjoys his life as a bachelor in LA. In that moment, we see him popping a Betamax tape into a tape player, flipping on a video projector and enjoying a scene of RAINTREE COUNTY with a bowl of popcorn.
I first saw MAKING LOVE when I was 17 and it would be years before I would see it, but this scene had always stuck with me from my initial viewing. I remember thinking how much I was like Bart in that moment-- having friends, but being an outcast, preferring to spend my Friday night watching an obscure film at home. I ran to my computer to find out what film Bart decided to watch on that evening. IMDB led me to the answer of my connection of cinema to this character: for me, it was MAKING LOVE, for Bart, RAINTREE COUNTY. Years later, I would obtain a video projector, like Bart, and spend my evenings in Los Angeles winding down with movies alone with a big bowl of white popcorn on a nightly basis...that is until I was domesticated.
After receiving my laserdisc of RAINTREE COUNTY recently, I thought again about this scene in MAKING LOVE, and just how much a four shot sequence of Hamlin watching the film can add to his character. For starters, home video machines were very expensive at this time-- many over $1000, and that was 35 years ago. He's also not watching this on a TV but a video projector, another home entertainment rarity of the time! Bart clearly enjoys lavish things.
But it goes beyond the equipment. Did anyone else notice that the cover of the Betamax is solid brown and not with an official label? Thus adds another layer to the character. In doing an online search for RAINTREE COUNTY, I found that the film was not officially released on any home video formats until a 1986 release by MGM/UA (verified in this Tom Shales article from the Washington Post). And yet, the filmmakers chose to purposely illustrate that Bart is watching RAINTREE COUNTY, even if it wouldn't be released for another four years on home video.
Another point in fact: RAINTREE COUNTY is an MGM film, MAKING LOVE was a 20th Century Fox film. Why would the producers go through all of that trouble to secure a film not available on home video from another studio's library as Bart's film choice when Fox has a NUMBER of films in its library that gays idolize? The shot of the screen over Bart's shoulder specifically has Liz Taylor say to Monty Clift the most memorable quote of the film: "Tell me about the rain tree......." The filmmakers wanted the viewer to know that Bart was watching RAINTREE COUNTY for some reason. And yet, no reference to the film is made.
The questions just kept on rolling as I thought about this: Where did Bart get his copy of RAINTREE COUNTY from? Wealthy cinefiles in Los Angeles, such as actor Roddy McDowall (also gay), were known to have high quality, albeit bootleg, copies of films in their homes, going back to a time when home video wasn't an official market. In fact, according to this Mental Floss article, when McDowall was investigated in 1975, FBI agents found 1000+ video cassettes in his garage of movies-- none of which were officially released on home video. Sidenote: McDowall would also be the main source of contact with the restoration of CLEOPATRA, another Liz Taylor film.
Could the character Bart be in a clique of wealthy gay cinema nerds such as McDowall who pass around bootlegs of films? Was it possible that Bart was modeled after McDowall? Could RAINTREE COUNTY be a reference to CLEOPATRA? Was it possible that it was a cheap replacement for CLEOPATRA footage, even if CLEOPATRA was a Fox film and RAINTREE COUNTY was from MGM?
Another possibility: could Bart have taped the film off of TV? Listings show that the film was run on TV as far back as 1972. Betamax was released in 1975 but the film did run on TV several more times that decade, according to afternoon and late night movie listings in newspapers. Perhaps Bart or one of his friends acquired it this way? Could this potentially be one of the earliest examples of someone watching a film they taped off of TV?
I do not know the answer to any of these questions. Perhaps one day, when RAINTREE COUNTY finally makes its way to DVD and Blu-ray in the United States, answers will be given. Still, it stands to reason that using archival footage in a film can really add to the depth of it, and MAKING LOVE is a perfect example of this.
As a dweeb, I collect not only DVDs and VHS, but also laserdiscs-- a hybrid of the two formats that has sadly become defunct over the years. The SD quality transfers are very special to me because they come from a time when studios didn't "restore" their films to a point where their manipulations share little difference from a Ted Turner colorization (read my earlier post "Blue Bombs Everywhere" to see what I was talking about). I also love that many laserdiscs have many special features that did not make their way to DVD and Blu-ray for some reason or another.
Well, my laserdisc player started to go kaput, and a good friend of mine, for a cheap price, sold me two new players and a ton of discs. In this batch my wonderful friend, also gay, blessed me with RAINTREE COUNTY, seen here.
A 3+ hour GONE WITH THE WIND knockoff from 1957, this 70mm epic is one of those bizarre films from that era when it didn't matter how good it was, as long as it was long, lavish, and expensive. The film has also never been released on DVD in the United States.
The first time I attempted to rent this film, after hunting, I got a DVD copy of a VHS from an anonymous source. It was, of course, cropped to 1.33:1, and being an early widescreen movie that was meant to COMPETE with the small screen of television, it did not fare well to the pan and scan process. Also, most VHS tapes made after 1983 have two audio tracks on them: Hi-Fi and Mono. The DVD was made with the Hi-Fi track, and the track had worn out, so the entire time there was a buzzsaw like static on the tape. After about 20 minutes, I called it a day. So, my little heart went a-flutter when I found this disc in my bundle, as I could now enjoy the film as intended.
Now, where's the gay link in this, beyond the fact that its main male star, Montgomery Clift was gay, and Elizabeth Taylor, the female lead, was a gay icon? Well that goes back to my history of the 1982 gay classic MAKING LOVE, with Harry Hamlin, Michael Ontkean, and Kate Jackson.
In this film, Hamlin plays a gay Los Angeles writer who sleeps with a married man, but before doing so, breaks fourth wall to talk about how much he enjoys his life as a bachelor in LA. In that moment, we see him popping a Betamax tape into a tape player, flipping on a video projector and enjoying a scene of RAINTREE COUNTY with a bowl of popcorn.
I first saw MAKING LOVE when I was 17 and it would be years before I would see it, but this scene had always stuck with me from my initial viewing. I remember thinking how much I was like Bart in that moment-- having friends, but being an outcast, preferring to spend my Friday night watching an obscure film at home. I ran to my computer to find out what film Bart decided to watch on that evening. IMDB led me to the answer of my connection of cinema to this character: for me, it was MAKING LOVE, for Bart, RAINTREE COUNTY. Years later, I would obtain a video projector, like Bart, and spend my evenings in Los Angeles winding down with movies alone with a big bowl of white popcorn on a nightly basis...that is until I was domesticated.
After receiving my laserdisc of RAINTREE COUNTY recently, I thought again about this scene in MAKING LOVE, and just how much a four shot sequence of Hamlin watching the film can add to his character. For starters, home video machines were very expensive at this time-- many over $1000, and that was 35 years ago. He's also not watching this on a TV but a video projector, another home entertainment rarity of the time! Bart clearly enjoys lavish things.
But it goes beyond the equipment. Did anyone else notice that the cover of the Betamax is solid brown and not with an official label? Thus adds another layer to the character. In doing an online search for RAINTREE COUNTY, I found that the film was not officially released on any home video formats until a 1986 release by MGM/UA (verified in this Tom Shales article from the Washington Post). And yet, the filmmakers chose to purposely illustrate that Bart is watching RAINTREE COUNTY, even if it wouldn't be released for another four years on home video.
Another point in fact: RAINTREE COUNTY is an MGM film, MAKING LOVE was a 20th Century Fox film. Why would the producers go through all of that trouble to secure a film not available on home video from another studio's library as Bart's film choice when Fox has a NUMBER of films in its library that gays idolize? The shot of the screen over Bart's shoulder specifically has Liz Taylor say to Monty Clift the most memorable quote of the film: "Tell me about the rain tree......." The filmmakers wanted the viewer to know that Bart was watching RAINTREE COUNTY for some reason. And yet, no reference to the film is made.
The questions just kept on rolling as I thought about this: Where did Bart get his copy of RAINTREE COUNTY from? Wealthy cinefiles in Los Angeles, such as actor Roddy McDowall (also gay), were known to have high quality, albeit bootleg, copies of films in their homes, going back to a time when home video wasn't an official market. In fact, according to this Mental Floss article, when McDowall was investigated in 1975, FBI agents found 1000+ video cassettes in his garage of movies-- none of which were officially released on home video. Sidenote: McDowall would also be the main source of contact with the restoration of CLEOPATRA, another Liz Taylor film.
Could the character Bart be in a clique of wealthy gay cinema nerds such as McDowall who pass around bootlegs of films? Was it possible that Bart was modeled after McDowall? Could RAINTREE COUNTY be a reference to CLEOPATRA? Was it possible that it was a cheap replacement for CLEOPATRA footage, even if CLEOPATRA was a Fox film and RAINTREE COUNTY was from MGM?
Another possibility: could Bart have taped the film off of TV? Listings show that the film was run on TV as far back as 1972. Betamax was released in 1975 but the film did run on TV several more times that decade, according to afternoon and late night movie listings in newspapers. Perhaps Bart or one of his friends acquired it this way? Could this potentially be one of the earliest examples of someone watching a film they taped off of TV?
I do not know the answer to any of these questions. Perhaps one day, when RAINTREE COUNTY finally makes its way to DVD and Blu-ray in the United States, answers will be given. Still, it stands to reason that using archival footage in a film can really add to the depth of it, and MAKING LOVE is a perfect example of this.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
John Wayne's Southwestern Casserole
After a long hiatus, celebrity recipes are back! Here is me making John Wayne's Southwestern Casserole.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Barbed Wire, DVD Matting, and Lying
My partner and I decided to snuggle on the couch with a hot dish (we're Midwestern bred), some sodas, and a classic movie last night to have a cozy Friday evening at home (we're also past the age of going out). The film we chose was the cinema verte neo noir gem, BARB WIRE, starring the very serious method actress Pamela Anderson. This 1996 erotic thriller was.....not good. In fact, we made it about 40 minutes in before I couldn't take any more and we threw in the towel.
As I was watching though, something struck me as very odd. This DVD was put out by Polygram USA Video in 1999, clearly before the company went through a series of mergers and became obsolete. That being said, me picking on them is the equivalent of picking on the fence outside my window, but I did want to point out why this DVD became a bee in my bonnet last night.
So in the menu, one gets a choice as many DVDs at the time offered-- standard or widescreen? Meaning, do you want to watch this 1.85:1 or 1.33:1?
Let's look at this picture for a second. The DVD menu is suggesting that if you watch the Widescreen version of the film, there is more image to the left and right than if you watch the Standard version of the film, which looks like it is pan and scanned here.
So we choose Widescreen and the titles start. During this wonderfully executed title sequence of boobs flying all over the place, I notice that in a few shots, the top of the frame seems like heads are missing.
My initial thought is "Hrm, a DP probably wouldn't have framed it like that when he was shooting....perhaps this was shot 1.37 and matted? But that doesn't make sense because the DVD said the fullscreen version was pan and scanned...." So, later that evening in a bout of indigestion I took a look at the fullscreen/standard version of the movie and look at what I found:
Aha! It was shot 1.37 and matted for widescreen!!! But this was just the title sequence, so maybe the rest of the DVD was pan and scanned from the 1.85 version. It's a possibility, right? I did a little more digging. Well.....
And....
So here's the deal. Clearly this isn't a pan and scan version of the movie, so why is the DVD menu saying that it is? AND the disclaimer before the film is warning the viewer on the fullscreen/standard version that it's been modified from its original version in that it's been formatted to fit their square TV screen? What bull dropped that on the barnyard floor? It hasn't been reformatted-- it's just been transferred without the mattes on the top and bottom of the frame. This is so misleading and gives people the wrong idea about how fullscreen and widescreen works. So, Polygram Home Video, RIP and thanks for playing, but you totally took your viewers for a ride with this one didn't you?
As I was watching though, something struck me as very odd. This DVD was put out by Polygram USA Video in 1999, clearly before the company went through a series of mergers and became obsolete. That being said, me picking on them is the equivalent of picking on the fence outside my window, but I did want to point out why this DVD became a bee in my bonnet last night.
So in the menu, one gets a choice as many DVDs at the time offered-- standard or widescreen? Meaning, do you want to watch this 1.85:1 or 1.33:1?
Let's look at this picture for a second. The DVD menu is suggesting that if you watch the Widescreen version of the film, there is more image to the left and right than if you watch the Standard version of the film, which looks like it is pan and scanned here.
So we choose Widescreen and the titles start. During this wonderfully executed title sequence of boobs flying all over the place, I notice that in a few shots, the top of the frame seems like heads are missing.
My initial thought is "Hrm, a DP probably wouldn't have framed it like that when he was shooting....perhaps this was shot 1.37 and matted? But that doesn't make sense because the DVD said the fullscreen version was pan and scanned...." So, later that evening in a bout of indigestion I took a look at the fullscreen/standard version of the movie and look at what I found:
Aha! It was shot 1.37 and matted for widescreen!!! But this was just the title sequence, so maybe the rest of the DVD was pan and scanned from the 1.85 version. It's a possibility, right? I did a little more digging. Well.....
And....
So here's the deal. Clearly this isn't a pan and scan version of the movie, so why is the DVD menu saying that it is? AND the disclaimer before the film is warning the viewer on the fullscreen/standard version that it's been modified from its original version in that it's been formatted to fit their square TV screen? What bull dropped that on the barnyard floor? It hasn't been reformatted-- it's just been transferred without the mattes on the top and bottom of the frame. This is so misleading and gives people the wrong idea about how fullscreen and widescreen works. So, Polygram Home Video, RIP and thanks for playing, but you totally took your viewers for a ride with this one didn't you?
Saturday, February 3, 2018
DVD Popularity, or Lack Thereof, in 1997
21 years ago, the technological life of consumers was changed forever: the birth of the DVD-Video.
via GIPHY
Different sources list different titles as the first to be released on DVD. A Google search listed TWISTER in 1997 as the first commercial release, yet on this site the first releases are listed as on December 20, 1996: POINT OF NO RETURN, BLADE RUNNER, ERASER, and THE FUGITIVE. Over the years, we have seen the format grow to include our favorite films, heard controversies by critics on review sites like www.dvdbeaver.com, seen it grow into formats such as Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, and now, of course, seen it start to dwindle and fade away as streaming becomes more mainstream.
People were instantly attracted to the number of special features that were once limited to laserdiscs, its compact nature which made it much cheaper than laserdisc, the clarity of image and sound compared to VHS, and as time went on these other formats were left behind. And yet, as hard as it is to believe, not everyone got on board the DVD Popularity Train when the format started making its way into stores and eventually consumer living rooms. Here were some early arguments people had with the format.
via GIPHY
1) "I DON'T WANT TO SEE BLACK!"
The plus side to DVD was that it was beginning to standardize presenting films in their intended aspect ratios as they would have been seen in theaters. Few people owned a 16x9 television set when DVD came out, so most would see these films in their letterbox formats on their square 4x3 tv sets. While today, a 2.35:1 aspect ratio film presents a thin black line on the top and bottom of a16x9 TV, when DVD first came out, two thirds of the screen (above and below the image of the film) would be black. While it is nice that DVD allowed for the entire film frame to be seen, on the average TV at the time the image would now appear quite small. Also, many people still hadn't grasped the concept of seeing a rectangle in a movie theater vs. a square when they were in their homes and thought that there was more magical image above the frame line that didn't exist. They didn't understand that the image was getting cropped to the left and right of what would fit on their TV.
Of course, if you read this blog's PORKY'S article, you would have learned about the open matte 1.85 films, which did have a 4x3 image that was now being matted for DVD. Here's another example-- the fullscreen vs. widescreen versions of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, available on Sony Home Entertainment:
Years later, people are still arguing about how their DVDs for CARRIE and PORKY'S are censored because their is less nudity than on their old VHS tapes, not understanding that the nudity was always cropped from the widescreen image. Thankfully, by the turn of the century, 16x9 TVs were becoming more commonplace, people were understanding how aspect ratios worked, and things calmed down.
2) "I CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS AND VHS"
via GIPHY
I get it, the first reaction I would have too is "Are you vision impaired?", but believe it or not, this was a legitimate argument for many consumers at that time. The average TV still operated with tube technology-- the image it produced was soft, yet bright, so that whether you were watching network TV, HBO, a laserdisc, or a VHS tape, the image was similar. Of course, with a VHS recorded in SLP mode or that was a dub of another tape, one would see anomalies, but if one was looking at a consumer VHS vs. a consumer DVD on the average 1990s TV, the difference in quality was only slightly different due to the technological limitations of the TV....and most certainly not worth repurchasing one's entire home video collection. A good sounding Hi-Fi track could suit the needs of the small speaker on a 1990s TV the same way that a DVD could. In fact, because the VHS tapes were mixed specifically for those TVs and DVDs tended to be mixed more for 5.1 surround systems, chances are the average consumer would have a better audio experience with the VHS than the DVD.
3) "TOO FRAGILE"
VHS was an incredibly durable format-- beyond the Hi-Fi track going, which we discussed earlier. If there was a section that was damaged by a machine, there would be a few seconds of bad video (still viewable in most cases), and the tape would chug through and get a better signal. Usually, it does not take more than a minute for VHS to clear itself from audiovisual issues, which tend to be no more than some green and white dropout lines scrolling over the screen and the audio fading in and out.
via GIPHY
Hence, people were a little rougher with VHS tapes. They didn't need to obsess keeping them in their sleeves, worry about dropping them, etc. DVDs on the other hand were much more fragile due to not just the technology, but the size. A smudge of a fingerprint could make a DVD freeze. A 1/2" scratch, if it is deep enough, could ruin an entire 20 minutes of program for the viewer permanently. And one couldn't simply sit through and still make out what was going on during this bad portion like they could with VHS dropout lines. Now, the entire disc would stop working and the consumer had to hope that turning the machine off and on again would resolve the problem, which would then result in them needing to start the program over and skip to where the problem existed and hopefully to where it resolved itself...which leads into our next problem people had with the format.
4) "I CAN'T START WHERE I LEFT OFF"
via GIPHY
Today, most DVD players can resume where one leaves off on a disc when they turn their players back on after powering it off, but this was a feature that was only on more expensive DVD players when the format was first introduced. This means that if someone watched half of a movie and wanted to return to it at a later time, they would have to find where this moment was, either by skipping through the chapters in the film or by using the menus, which were hard to navigate. This leads us to our last complaint.......
5) "HOW DO I WORK THIS DARN THING?"
via GIPHY
Today, we live in an age where technology is much more a part of our lives than it was back in 1997. At that time, only 36% of Americans had a computer in their home according to the US Census. VHS tapes were pretty self-explanatory in how they worked. By putting a commercial tape in a machine, it would start automatically. There were a handful of buttons one needed to operate a commercial tape-- Play, Fast Forward, Rewind, Stop, Pause, and Eject. Then came DVD with its FBI warnings that one couldn't skip, its menus that required a little bit of a technological background to get around, and the many different features of a disc (sound, subtitles, different versions) that required navigation-- all a bit much for a population that hadn't necessarily all been exposed to a home computer on a regular basis. For people who didn't want to "see black" and wanted to watch the film full screen (a 1.33 aspect ratio for 4x3 TVs), many times two sided discs were available, one with the full screen version, one with the widescreen. Whether side A or B had a specific version was never standardized, meaning the customer was obligated to squint and look at the tiny writing on the disc to determine which side they wanted to see. This being said, if a film was longer, in the early days of DVD both sides of a disc were used to fit the entire program on it (i.e. ROBIN HOOD PRINCE OF THIEVES).
via GIPHY
It may seem puzzling for people today that there was a time when people thumbed their noses at the DVD format. After it took off it very quickly wiped out the VHS market and forced studios to go through a restoration and remastering process of their libraries to get the films ready for the new format. It standardized how the consumer watched movies until Bluray and streaming began taking over. As the days of DVDs wane and we begin to look at this format nostalgically, let us not forget to tip our hats to those who noticed the flaws and suffered through the early days...and hope that they have now embraced DVD as we all have.
via GIPHY
Different sources list different titles as the first to be released on DVD. A Google search listed TWISTER in 1997 as the first commercial release, yet on this site the first releases are listed as on December 20, 1996: POINT OF NO RETURN, BLADE RUNNER, ERASER, and THE FUGITIVE. Over the years, we have seen the format grow to include our favorite films, heard controversies by critics on review sites like www.dvdbeaver.com, seen it grow into formats such as Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, and now, of course, seen it start to dwindle and fade away as streaming becomes more mainstream.
People were instantly attracted to the number of special features that were once limited to laserdiscs, its compact nature which made it much cheaper than laserdisc, the clarity of image and sound compared to VHS, and as time went on these other formats were left behind. And yet, as hard as it is to believe, not everyone got on board the DVD Popularity Train when the format started making its way into stores and eventually consumer living rooms. Here were some early arguments people had with the format.
via GIPHY
1) "I DON'T WANT TO SEE BLACK!"
The plus side to DVD was that it was beginning to standardize presenting films in their intended aspect ratios as they would have been seen in theaters. Few people owned a 16x9 television set when DVD came out, so most would see these films in their letterbox formats on their square 4x3 tv sets. While today, a 2.35:1 aspect ratio film presents a thin black line on the top and bottom of a16x9 TV, when DVD first came out, two thirds of the screen (above and below the image of the film) would be black. While it is nice that DVD allowed for the entire film frame to be seen, on the average TV at the time the image would now appear quite small. Also, many people still hadn't grasped the concept of seeing a rectangle in a movie theater vs. a square when they were in their homes and thought that there was more magical image above the frame line that didn't exist. They didn't understand that the image was getting cropped to the left and right of what would fit on their TV.
Of course, if you read this blog's PORKY'S article, you would have learned about the open matte 1.85 films, which did have a 4x3 image that was now being matted for DVD. Here's another example-- the fullscreen vs. widescreen versions of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, available on Sony Home Entertainment:
Years later, people are still arguing about how their DVDs for CARRIE and PORKY'S are censored because their is less nudity than on their old VHS tapes, not understanding that the nudity was always cropped from the widescreen image. Thankfully, by the turn of the century, 16x9 TVs were becoming more commonplace, people were understanding how aspect ratios worked, and things calmed down.
2) "I CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS AND VHS"
via GIPHY
I get it, the first reaction I would have too is "Are you vision impaired?", but believe it or not, this was a legitimate argument for many consumers at that time. The average TV still operated with tube technology-- the image it produced was soft, yet bright, so that whether you were watching network TV, HBO, a laserdisc, or a VHS tape, the image was similar. Of course, with a VHS recorded in SLP mode or that was a dub of another tape, one would see anomalies, but if one was looking at a consumer VHS vs. a consumer DVD on the average 1990s TV, the difference in quality was only slightly different due to the technological limitations of the TV....and most certainly not worth repurchasing one's entire home video collection. A good sounding Hi-Fi track could suit the needs of the small speaker on a 1990s TV the same way that a DVD could. In fact, because the VHS tapes were mixed specifically for those TVs and DVDs tended to be mixed more for 5.1 surround systems, chances are the average consumer would have a better audio experience with the VHS than the DVD.
3) "TOO FRAGILE"
VHS was an incredibly durable format-- beyond the Hi-Fi track going, which we discussed earlier. If there was a section that was damaged by a machine, there would be a few seconds of bad video (still viewable in most cases), and the tape would chug through and get a better signal. Usually, it does not take more than a minute for VHS to clear itself from audiovisual issues, which tend to be no more than some green and white dropout lines scrolling over the screen and the audio fading in and out.
via GIPHY
Hence, people were a little rougher with VHS tapes. They didn't need to obsess keeping them in their sleeves, worry about dropping them, etc. DVDs on the other hand were much more fragile due to not just the technology, but the size. A smudge of a fingerprint could make a DVD freeze. A 1/2" scratch, if it is deep enough, could ruin an entire 20 minutes of program for the viewer permanently. And one couldn't simply sit through and still make out what was going on during this bad portion like they could with VHS dropout lines. Now, the entire disc would stop working and the consumer had to hope that turning the machine off and on again would resolve the problem, which would then result in them needing to start the program over and skip to where the problem existed and hopefully to where it resolved itself...which leads into our next problem people had with the format.
4) "I CAN'T START WHERE I LEFT OFF"
via GIPHY
Today, most DVD players can resume where one leaves off on a disc when they turn their players back on after powering it off, but this was a feature that was only on more expensive DVD players when the format was first introduced. This means that if someone watched half of a movie and wanted to return to it at a later time, they would have to find where this moment was, either by skipping through the chapters in the film or by using the menus, which were hard to navigate. This leads us to our last complaint.......
5) "HOW DO I WORK THIS DARN THING?"
via GIPHY
Today, we live in an age where technology is much more a part of our lives than it was back in 1997. At that time, only 36% of Americans had a computer in their home according to the US Census. VHS tapes were pretty self-explanatory in how they worked. By putting a commercial tape in a machine, it would start automatically. There were a handful of buttons one needed to operate a commercial tape-- Play, Fast Forward, Rewind, Stop, Pause, and Eject. Then came DVD with its FBI warnings that one couldn't skip, its menus that required a little bit of a technological background to get around, and the many different features of a disc (sound, subtitles, different versions) that required navigation-- all a bit much for a population that hadn't necessarily all been exposed to a home computer on a regular basis. For people who didn't want to "see black" and wanted to watch the film full screen (a 1.33 aspect ratio for 4x3 TVs), many times two sided discs were available, one with the full screen version, one with the widescreen. Whether side A or B had a specific version was never standardized, meaning the customer was obligated to squint and look at the tiny writing on the disc to determine which side they wanted to see. This being said, if a film was longer, in the early days of DVD both sides of a disc were used to fit the entire program on it (i.e. ROBIN HOOD PRINCE OF THIEVES).
via GIPHY
It may seem puzzling for people today that there was a time when people thumbed their noses at the DVD format. After it took off it very quickly wiped out the VHS market and forced studios to go through a restoration and remastering process of their libraries to get the films ready for the new format. It standardized how the consumer watched movies until Bluray and streaming began taking over. As the days of DVDs wane and we begin to look at this format nostalgically, let us not forget to tip our hats to those who noticed the flaws and suffered through the early days...and hope that they have now embraced DVD as we all have.
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