Does This Look Right to You, Stupid?

Roger Ebert is back writing movie reviews and commentaries on the world of cinema and that's a good thing. One of his more recent articles made me stand up and scream "Amen" as if I were watching the Gospel Network. And, naturally, that means you going to be the recipient of some of that emotion as well.

I even stole the picture above from Roger's website, so I'm going to be totally compliant with regard to charges of plagarism. It's obviously the famed airport scene from Casablanca. And this is the way somebody would actually watch it if they didn't bother to successfully manage the aspect ratio on their widescreen television. Even the most uneducated film fan can tell you the image is wrong. All of a sudden, Rick and Ilsa look like Shrek and Fiona.

Now I'm a full-fledged card carrying citizen of the plasma TV world, I must admit that the varying aspect ratios from channel to channel and program to program is maddening. Unless you are on one of those HD-dedicated channels, you literally have to adjust the screen size for every channel you turn to. I pretty much watch Turner Classic Movies religiously and it's a great place to practice your screen dimension prowess. Movies from the 30s and 40s are not widescreen. You use the 4:3 screen. If it's one of those widescreen epics from the 50s or 60s, you experiment between Full, Wide, Cinema, or Zoom. You can easily tell what looks right. And you modify as you go along.

At least, you have that option these days. I can remember back when I was a kid. Channel 7 in NY had this great 4:30PM movie and they would not be ashamed to air movies that were way out of their league. They simply ran all of them pan and scan. If it was a Cinemascope movie from Fox, you would have a dialogue between two people, but see neither of them on the screen. You'd hear an invisible voice coming from the left side of the screen and another disembodied voice from the right side. And all you would see on screen in the center of the screen is a lamp on an end table. It was a disaster. But, nobody knew any better then.

But, here we are almost 40 years later and people still don't know any better. As I go about my daily travels, you run into widescreen TVs being used in restaurants, hotels, and other public venues. None of the screen sizes are adjusted correctly. Baseball players are squeezed from top to bottom as if they all are playing in a Danny DeVito-sponsored beer league. It's as if we have all accepted the inevitability of living our lives with cataracts in both eyes.

And then there's the dimwit that sits at home and watches Casablanca in the aspect ratio shown above. When you ask Joe Schmo why, he replies, "Well, I don't like to look at the bars around the screen." Duh? Would you read War and Peace and not read the paragraph at the top and bottom of every page? Films are an art form. You look at the whole Mona Lisa, not just the blouse she is wearing.

It's amazing how hard some people make the world around us.

Dinner last night: the glorious buffet at the Dodger Stadium Club. No Dodger Dogs this night.