DVDs I Wish Existed
Submitted by jim on Thu, 03/07/2002 - 13:49
Tags:
- Aladdin (1992)
- Babe (1995)
- Brazil (1985): See obsessive-compulsive comments below
- Cold Comfort Farm (1995)
- Emma (1996)
- Ju Dou (1990)
- Midnight Run (1988)
- Mulan (1998)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
- Nobody's Fool (1994)
- Raise the Red Lantern (1991): Criterion Collection Treatment
- Some Like it Hot (1959): By all accounts the current DVDs are non-anamorphic and of fairly poor quality
- The Sting (1973)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
- Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
- Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)
- Red Sorghum (1987)
Author Comments:
Above the line are ones I want to own. Below the lines are ones I've never seen and would like my first viewing to be on DVD.
Some of these exist on DVD already, but either in non-Anamorphic widescreen or (shudder) pan-and-scan. I gravitate towards the Widescreen Anamorphic prints in anticipation of having a home theater someday (probably in the distant future, when DVDs will be obsolete anyway :-).
New entries are highlighted. More to follow.
Jim, what's wrong with the current Babe widescreen DVD?
I'd love them to be wrong, but according to Amazon, Babe is presented, shamefully, in full-screen.
Oops, I guess there isn't one. The current Limited Availability Babe DVD is Full Frame, correct?
OK, I just spent a few minutes reading the Ultimate Guide to Anamorphic Widescreen. So Anamorphic Widescreen DVDs will take advantage of those High Definition TVs somewhere down the road but at the present moment an Anamorphic Widescreen letterboxed movie played on a standard TV looks the same as a Non-Anamorphic Widescreen letterboxed film?
Isn't that a great article? I love the widescreen vs. fullscreen scene comparisons.
From that article, I understand that there are two main reasons why anamorphic prints are desirable. The first is made clear on pages 15 and 16 of the PDF: anamorphic prints fill much more of the screen on digital televisions. So your collection is more future-proof (of course, regular widescreen transfers will still play on digital TVs, but they won't be nearly as nice). The second reason is not as well-defined, but the section of the article titled "I don't have a digital TV - Why Should I Care?" suggests that anamorphic prints still look better (albeit subtly) on non-digital TVs.
It's mostly the future-proofing I care about. Being the compulsive fellow that I am, I know it would bug me if I upgraded my TV and I saw those huge black bars on my non-anamorphic DVDs. I'm enjoying replacing my VHS movies with DVDs, but I don't want to do another round of replacements until DVDs are rendered obsolete. As far as I know, all the DVDs I own are anamorphic, and I'll probably keep it that way.
Jim, can a film with an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 have an Anamorphic Widescreen version?
I don't know, but I don't see why not. What has a ratio of 1.66:1? The only ratios I've heard of are 1.33, 1.85, and 2.35 (?) to 1.
Cold Comfort Farm has an aspect ratio listed as 1.66:1. I was thinking that you might be waiting forever for Cold Comfort Farm to be released as anamorphic widescreen as it was originally a made-for-tv movie but I didn't know if that made sense.
Interesting! And thanks for checking these out for me! I think Cold Comfort Farm was a BBC release, but I don't know if it was made for TV or not. I have some hope that if anamorphic is possible, that's the way they'll go, since I don't think it exists on DVD at all currently (at least, Amazon doesn't seem to carry it). My highly unprofessional sense is that more and new DVD releases are anamorphic. If CFF were already out on non-anamorphic DVD, I'd probably give up hope for a new printing. That's the fear I have for Emma - it's currently out in non-anamorphic DVD, and since it's not a big moneymaker, I'm betting it will be the only choice for quite some time - possibly forever.
Loads of modern films have that ratio. And yes, you can produce an anamorphic DVD with a 1.66:1 ratio.
Check this page out:
http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Great article! Not as flashy, but much clearer than the "Ultimate Guide to Anamorphic Widescreen" referenced above. While the article does show that 1.66:1 anamorphic DVDs are possible, it also makes it sound like they are fairly uncommon. Too bad Amazon doesn't let you filter search results on aspect ratio so I could get a sense of the 1.66 landscape.
You can search by ratios at IMDB, but I'm afraid you'd have to check separately for information about whether the DVD is anamorphic or not.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Re: Beauty and the Beast. Does this fit the bill?
Woo-hoo! Sure does! I'm very pleased to see they will be including the original version in addition to the enhanced version. Thanks for the link!
I've updated accordingly, and added a couple more Disney. Mulan is out now in what looks like a nice release. But sadly it's non-anamorphic. Hopefully they'll remedy that in a future edition. I'm a bit surprised at myself that it matters so much to me, but I keep not buying such discs, so I guess it does
Steven is working on Raiders of the Lost Ark. He has given no official announcement yet, but word on the street is to look for it by Christmas this year or summer next.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs (who loves sharing great news and is also anticipating this particular DVD)
Excellent! I love this list - it keeps bringing me good news. Of course, Raiders and Beauty and the Beast were inevitable, but it's still nice. Now if only a few of my long shots would come in . . .
Bad news...
The Raiders DVD has been delayed and supposedly will certainly NOT be out by the end of the year.
Next year is the scent in the air.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I came across this list on DVD Review called the Anamorphic List. I don't how current it is but I thought it might come in handy.
http://www.dvdreview.com/movies/html/anamorphic_list.html
Gee, you're not satisfied with the Criterion Brazil?
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I makes me drool in all regards except the non-anamorphic print (I'm guessing it was an early Criterion foray into DVDs, before anamorphic transfers had gained much momentum). It's possible I'm being overly compulsive in my "must be anamorphic" DVD purchasing restriction, but I fear I'd be irritated by the grey vertical bars or the loss or resolution due to stretching should I purchase a widescreen TV. If I'm going to pay to own movies I love (in many cases replacing movies I have on VHS), I want them to look as good as they can on my dream TV, not just the crappy analog 4:3 TV I have now!
Ah well the joys of living in the uk and being region 2 are finally paying off after us all having to pay for our dvd players to be cracked and made multi region so we can ship our favourite films on dvd across the pond at great expense in region 1 encoding. we have To Kill A Mockingbird on release here and also Cold Comfort Farm,not to mention Mulan, and The Sting (oh i am so enjoyng this after years of feeling the second rate consumer) and if your really desperate you can get a vcd version of raiders to keep you going until it gets released. The whole region encoding thing sucks and should be scrapped it makes no sense.
I'm all for scrapping the region-encoding system. I think we have To Kill a Mockingbird here, but not with an anamorphic transfer (a point over which I'm quite the stickler). We also have The Sting, but not in widescreen. Cold Comfort Farm is completely absent though, which does make me jealous.
The DVD regions will never be dumped until the studios begin releasing films in America and other parts of the world at the same time. As it is now, to save money on cutting prints and to try to build hype, most films are released to America and England (not to mention other parts of the world) at different times. The region codes are designed to prevent the DVD of, say, Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels from American viewers until the film is formally released in America (and this DVD *was* available in England before the film was released here, I believe; at least I know the disc was selling in England before the film arrived at my town!).
Would I love it if they would release films simultaneously across the world? Sure, and with internet pirating, I think the studios are looking at that idea more than they used to. It would mean cutting more prints of each film, and that ain't cheap. It also means they lose a bit of their marketing strategy (a film like The Full Monty does better in America, for example, if they can plaster, "The # 1 British Hit Movie," across the posters, so they love to use that releasing delay as way to build interest in other countries).
You both probably already know all of this, but just in case somebody reading doesn't...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Another problem, of course, which I just remembered is split deals, where two different companies fund a film and one company taking the domestic gross, while the second company takes the foreign gross. Regions obviously help keep these funds straight. Ah, well...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I'd heard some of that, but not all of it. I can see where staggering theatrical releases makes sense, but it would be nice if they could just roll out the DVD everywhere, simultaneously. Of course, your LS&2SB example torpedoes this, since it would require that the theatrical release be complete everywhere before the DVD comes out. I've heard the biggest victim of region encoding is Australia, which often gets their releases late (if at all, in some cases).
Hmmm I have heard these theories banged out by the companies time and time again Yes from their point of view the encoding is a way of restricting a films dvd release until its theatrical release has happened but this point of view is one that is introspective. I dont live in the US, I want to see a film on dvd thats not released here so i ship it in and have my player decoded and i am not the only one to do this, just look at the trade on ebay.uk in region one dvd's and who is losing out? the very companies who created encoding. i know they sold the copy originally but resale is big buisness and sort of akin to the "napster" trading the music industry faced and was decimated by. As a sort of side note i'm a big Hitchcock Fan and own almost all on dvd but shipped from Singapore and majority are good quality prints etc these had their theatrical release a long time ago and have been transfered to digital so why the wait in the uk and us. It makes no sense at all especially on older movies
Well, those are the reasons, and to some degree, they are legit. The real question is, do they lose more money from the region system than they gain. I'll be honest; I've no idea.
I do know that I personally don't like the system, and I would love to see films get a standard release date world-wide. Could be a while. Heck, smaller films don't even have a standard release date within the same country!
Still, I do hate the region system. As a reader of many UK magazines, I'm well aware of the wide-spread de-regioning of the DVD players over there. But hey, you do have that snazzy Raging Bull, and we still don't! :)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Jim, I am hearing major rumors that both 3 and 4 Musketeers are being rereleased by Anchor Bay on DVD around 1st quarter 2003.
Just rumors, but I thought they still might put a bit of a smile on your face!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Wow, thanks for the great news! Of the unreleased movies on the list, I thought those were in contention for "longest long shot." I did a quick search and found this announcement over at Anchor Bay:
MUSKETEERS COLLECTION, THE - February 2003: From director Richard Lester comes the original swashbuckling comedy THE THREE MUSKETEERS and its worthy sequel THE FOUR MUSKETEERS in a special 2-Disc Set. Widescreen (16x9), Theatrical Trailers, All- New Featurette with Cast Interviews, Original Behind-The-Scenes Featurette, and more!. Closed Captioned for the Hearing Impaired.
That does indeed put a smile on my face. What a nice way to start the day. :-)
Terrific. These two fun films are certainly screaming for excellent treatment on DVD.
:) See, mine too!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
From digitalbits.com:
A&E is delivering Homicide: Life on the Street: Seasons 1 & 2 on 5/27,
Wow, so season 1 and 2 will arrive at the same time. They have a shot of cover art, and it appears that it is one package with both seasons!
:)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I can't wait! I've marked the date on my Palm Pilot (a geek through and through, I am). I'm psyched seasons 1 and 2 will be packaged together too, as I seem to recall that season 1 at least was quite short. Maybe 6 or 8 episodes? Is that your recollection as well?
Cold Comfort Farm and Nobody's Fool are coming to DVD! I'm looking forward to removing them from this list!
I have excellent news for you BRAZIL is on dvd.The cinmeatic release version and the directors cut.
Yeah, but last time I checked it wasn't anamorphic widescreen. I'm a bit of a zealot on this point, as I fantasize that someday I'll own a widescreen TV. LBangs understandably expresses incredulity that I'd turn my nose up at a Criterion Collection release above.
I forgot where you were discussing this, but the first season of The Wire hits stores (well, is planned to hit stores) 4/27.
I read a tentative date for Angels in America yesterday, but I can't remember where I spied it. I think it also was April. Or June. Or...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Excellent! I'll probably have wrapped up season 2 of 24 by then and I'll be looking for something new. I've been very curious about that show ever since jgandcag recommended it.