Suzan and I went to see Charlie Wilson’s War last night … a fantastic movie. It has great dialog, good scenery and very solid acting. Yeah, a lot of naked women as well … but they’re actually contributing to the plot (the reader, she thinks I’m kidding).
After spending a lot of holiday shopping time looking for movies on DVD, I really appreciate a good movie.
I had to return the copy of The Bourne Supremacy I bought for Suzan for the most common holiday return reason … it was the wrong size. Somehow I grabbed the “full frame” (4:3 aspect) version instead of the “widescreen” (16:9 aspect) version. A Jason Bourne movie is full of motion & action that really need the full surface area of my HDTV.
To paraphrase Brad, a fellow podcaster, “If the director wanted you to see it in ‘full frame’ the movie theater would have shown it on a 4:3 screen”.
Of course, Wal-Mart doesn’t have the movie in widescreen … neither does Target. I’ll be buying it from Amazon to avoid any more trips to the store. What the stores do have now is a crapton of movies in full frame that they appear desperate to get rid of. It’s a combination of very sad movies that nobody really wants and movies people really want but should be viewed on widescreen televisions.
It’s Wal-Mart’s own fault for selling all of those cheap HDTV units. Now everybody has a widescreen TV, even if it’s not the sharpest image on the planet. So full frame versions of The Matrix Revolutions sit in the $5 bin because (a) nobody wants an action movie in 4:3 aspect anymore, and (b) the last two Matrix movies suck in any format.
But where do movies really go to die … bundles. When Wal-Mart can’t sell one bad movie in full frame, they’ll sell two together at the same “please buy me” price. These combinations make for strange bedfellows. Buy The Bourne Ultimatum in full frame, get The Rundown with it for free … which would seem to kill the appeal of the full frame version, having a giant Rock stuck to it much in the way Tony Soprano would weight down one of his goons before tossing him in the river.
But this bundling isn’t all bad. If you want to get cheap tickets to The Golden Compass then this might be an opportunity for you. Check the $9.99 bin for movies that have a free movie ticket bundled with them (only good through 1/6/08, so move quickly). The free ticket is attached to movies like The Lord of the Rings and Snakes on a Plane … no, I don’t see the connection either. Since a full adult ticket now goes for $9.50 in Snellville, this is pretty good deal in any aspect ratio.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to give Amazon my credit card number. The edges of my TV will thank me later.
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