Jayne ,'Serenity'
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I'm watching The Outsiders right now, and off the top of my head I can't remember a worse pan-and-scanned movie. The shots are so cramped, and you can really feel them sliding around and trying to compromise, with everyone bleeding off the side all the time.
I'm inattentive enough that even when I notice egregious scanning, I'm not usually made as tense as this is making me. It's not a technical point -- it's affecting the mood of the piece.
Luckily I never saw that one fullscreen.
A&E has just taken The Outsiders widescreen for the last few seconds. It would be jarring except it's more jarring how they scrinch the credits over to the left while they run an ad for This Old House with audio right on the tail of Sodapop's ending.
The worst pan-n-scan job I've ever seen was on Wild Things. The fake pans during the threesome were hysterical.
The full-screen version of The Graduate (to redeem what's left of my film cred after just having admitted to seeing Wild Things) has such obvious panning and scanning that the AMMI uses it in their "What is Pan & Scan?" exhibit. (The shot that they use is a gorgeous two-shot of Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft talking to each other, each in close-up profile on opposite sides of the screen. The full-screen version pans back and forth between them, utterly ruining the effect.)
The full-screen version pans back and forth between them, utterly ruining the effect.
I've seen that cited a lot, but again never saw it fullscreen. If you didn't know that pan and scan existed, would it still be egregious, or is it "merely" ruining a beautiful shot?
I've never seen the whole movie fullscreen either, so I'm not sure. My guess is that it probably wouldn't stand out from the rest of the panning and scanning, but you might be left wondering why people think this is such a good-looking film.
When they framed The Outsiders they made it so more than one fullscreened conversation involves half-eyeballs. Distracting.
Speaking of Wild Things, I noticed this in IMDB's trivia section for it:
Director John McNaughton says he deleted a scene that would have shown 'Dillon, Matt' and Kevin Bacon showering together, as it was gratuitous.
Yeah, because they sure were concerned about making sure nothing gratuitous made it to the final cut. Good looking out, BASTARDS.
Yeah! Whatever happened to equal-opportunity gratuitous nudity?
Yeah. The threesome scene was brilliantly gratutious (and is, as far as I'm concerned, the only excuse for Denise Richard's presence in ANY movie), but chicks should have had something to ogle, too.
and is, as far as I'm concerned, the only excuse for Denise Richard's presence in ANY movie
I thought she was great in Undercover Brother. She plays a good parody of herself.