Last Seduction dvd: FF or P&S? (1 Viewer)

The laser disc is matted and the framing looks fine.

No, the laser disc is not matted. It's full-frame, despite a misprinted cover that says "widescreen". And it looks anything but fine. I saw the film theatrically, and the LD (which I still have) is both misframed and features a poor transfer with weak, washed-out colors. I refused to buy the DVD, because Artisan has a history of recycling LD transfers, and I couldn't get anyone to confirm that the DVD transfer is new.

As I have said in previous threads on this subject, the film was shot and framed for theatrical exhibition. It debuted on cable because the filmmakers initially couldn't get a distribution deal. I await a proper treatment on DVD. After all, it took Artisan three tries to do a half-decent job with Stargate. Who knows how many it will take with Last Seduction?

M.

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The excellent notices for Linda Fiorentino's performance caused the makers to book it in a few theatres in New York and Los Angeles

It played much wider than that. It was here, in Minneapolis, in December 1994. Other cities included Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Phoenix--basically most major U.S. cities, although at art houses in all of them. The point is that its eventual theatrical release was more than just an Oscar-qualifying run.

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Ah, but we haven't determined whether it is or isn't p&s yet, have we?

I don't care whether you call it full-frame or P&S -- if it's not the intended theatrical framing, the composition will be wrong. Besides, there's a widespread misimpression that the video transfers of certain films simply involves "opening up the mattes" to reveal more image. Wrong! Selectively, on a shot-by-shot basis, the frame may be zoomed, panned, tilted or otherwise modified during the transfer to video for a whole variety of reasons (boom mikes, dolly tracks, film damage, etc.). So "open matte" isn't the panacea that some people think it is.

M.

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