September 26, 2005
Tuesday September 27, 2005

Savant's new reviews today are

Zulu Dawn  Tango
Django - Unbarmherzig wie die Sonne & Django Shoots First  Koch Media/Cinema Club; PAL Region 2 double review by Lee Broughton
Torture Garden  Sony and
Anything Goes  Paramount

A worthwhile note from reader Mark Cheney: "Finally, I'm going to stick my neck out and mention something that may have already been pointed out to you. When I first started reading your reviews I wasn't terribly familiar with specific aspect ratios, and for a while I went nuts trying to understand the way you represent them. I understand that a ratio with a 1 representing the height is commonly written with the :1 dropped, but when you drop the :1 from, for instance, 1.33:1, you change the decimal to a colon, which makes it look as though you mean 1 to 33 instead of 1 point 33 to 1. Of all the ARs I've seen in your reviews, only 16:9 is written correctly. I really dislike seeming to nit-pick, but this confused the hell out of me for a while."

Here's how I answered, for better or for worse: "Mea culpa. I drop the extra 'to one' in the 1.33 to 1 just as shorthand. I'm an editor and we just say 'one three three' or 'academy' or 'scope' or 'two to one.' I've been dealing with those concepts since about 1974, way before anybody but drunk projectionists and crazy editors worried about such things. So that's habit. Also, projection prints are commonly marked as I write them, not as they technically should be. So I'm guilty for perpetuating confusion."

Come to think of it, I also often say 'anamorphic 16:9' when 16:9-enhanced DVDs aren't really anamorphic (as in a Bausch & Lomb Lens), just squeezed. This also creates confusion when flat-widescreen movies are 16:9 enhanced ... they were never anamorphic, even in the camera. So build Savant's gallows extra high.

I've been updating some reviews with good correspondence, questions and corrections .... should any of the following interest you... The Elephant Man, We're No Angels, A World Apart. Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Posted by DVD Savant at September 26, 2005 12:59 PM