widescreen please

Paul, with Blu-ray dominating the market (and sales hopefully ramping up) there is hope for all those lackluster DVDs that have sat around collecting dust and are in dire need of an upgrade. Warner's recent Frantic BD was a nice widescreen upgrade - I can't imagine any studio releasing anything full frame on Blu-ray these days. Here's my short-term wishlist:

The Journey of Natty Gann
Runaway Train
Death Becomes Her
Deep Rising (this one is a Disney title and should look awesome in hi-def)

"Arthur"
"MacKenna's Gold"
"Picinc"
"Annie"

All these films need to be in widescreen. "MacKenna's Gold" is coming out on DVD again this srping  - but will it still be Pan and Scanned?

Its 2010 - why would the studios put anything out pan & scan? Do studio executives not know that retailers only sell widescreen TVs? What am I going to do with a fullscreen DVD?

It appears to me that MAR only verison of films being released on DVD has dramatically declined.

If I sell you a pan and scan DVD today, I get to sell you a widescreen DVD later. And then hopefully a BluRay. Maybe a remastered-in-simulated-3D BluRay. No fair skipping steps!

Maybe we'll finally get the proper 2.35:1 version of Matilda. I love the movie so much that I couldn't wait, so I bought the full frame version. But it really gets me that the clips that they showed in the behind the scenes stuff were great widescreen.

Matilda is available in the proper  2:35 in Region 2 - I went out of my way to buy it after the second release was still pan & scan. MacKenna's Gold was widescreen on a flipper disc when first released, I'm sure one can locate a copy. Nice job of MGM starting the credits on Sharkey's Machine in widescreen and then cutting to full frame when the actual movie started!

Not sure why SONY did it but TROOP BEVERLY HILLS and The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking was in pan/scan versions so I never did buy them.

also the thing with a lot of SONY titles like PICNIC mentioned above was that it was originally released on DVD in Widescreen. Newer pressings are Pan/Scan only. Not sure why that is? so odd. If you look hard enough you could find a WS PICNIC on DVD, it is always good to e-mail a seller on amazon and just verify if they can see on the back of the case if it contains the WS version or not.

Also I still don't get why UNIVERSAL did Death Becomes Her as pan/scan also.

Journey Of Natty Gann is available from the UK at 2.35:1 PAL, region 2. I've listed a bunch of others in the "hot topics" link above.

Just watched my region 2 anamorphic widescreen copy of Sudden Death last week. Pretty good looking disc for it's age.

The two films I always mention when this topic comes up:

Deathtrap

The Witches

Cowboy (Glenn Ford/Jack Lemmon)
The Shadow (Alec Baldwin)

Thanks for mentioning the Missing in Action movies - MIA 2 is one of the best Chuck Norris films ever and it's a crime that it has never had a proper release. 

Some other Disney oversights: Tall Tale (2:35) and Operation Dumbo Drop (2:35) and George Of The Jungle and Jungle 2 Jungle (1:85). UK Region 2 of Tall Tale is widescreen. MGM's Larger Than Life (1:85); Amazing Panda Adventure, Forever Young and Born To Be Wild ( all 1:85) - shame on you WB! Sony's Alaska (2:35). Universal's The Cure (1:85). They aren't Oscar winners but still mostly entertaining - and they should be OAR regardless. I'm sure there are more.
Edited by Brent Avery - 4/5/10 at 12:14am

Disney's The Moon Spinners also needs the anamorphic widescreen treatment.

"Return to Snowy River" is a beautifully filmed 2.35:1 movie, but the DVD is a pan 'n' scan abomination. At least with Blu-ray, there's a remote possibility they'll redo this and put out a proper widescreen release (though the p/s DVD might have sold so poorly they won't bother ever releasing it again).

Not everyone can afford to get a region 2 capable player, can they ?

Not for nothing, but I got a Philips from Best Buy for 75 bucks that does PAL and can be region unlocked through the menus.  It didn't seem to be that difficult to aquire. The thing also has HDMI out and upconverts.

I thought Picnic was enhanced for 16x9? I would like to have Doc Hollywood in 16x9 and Final Analysis also

The new release of Picnic in the Kim Novak box set is enhanced.  It was the older release that was not.
 

No, I believe the older release was 16x9 as well. It's just this new release has much better color.

 

Well my older one, released in 2000, is not.  I looked at it when the new one came in. 

My copy of Picnic, which I thought was the original release, is a flipper with a pan and scan version on one side and the anamorphic widescreen version on the other.

The original release I have is a flipper with pan/scan on one side and an anamorphic widescreen version on the opposite side.

Actually, many of the cheapest, off-brand players can easily be made region-free. Some even are right out of the box. If you can afford to buy movies, you can easily afford a region-free player.

 

Back to Bataan was from 1945. Widescreen is from 1953 on with a few early silent exceptions. But Back to Bataan is definately 1:1.33. So if AMC showed it Widescreen then it was cropped which is a bad thing.

I paid $40 for my region free player. The best investment I ever made allowing me to watch films still unreleased in the USA.

 

My DVD of The Cassandra Crossing via Artisan (now Lionsgate) is wide screen though not anamorphic.