I was dead wrong. This was the type of film that would have been a severe loss if I did not see it. Quite simply it added a new aspect of story telling that I had previously not seen. The jumping of topics at first seemed disjointed and bizzare. Normaly I do not like narration. However in this movie they worked together perfectly and made the story work.

In the end I still wouldn't put it in my favorite movie section of my brain but I would have been sorry if I hadn't seen it.

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I saw this again today with a small group who hadn't seen it. They liked it, and I liked it even more than the first time. I was able to pay more attention to things like scene composition & cinematography. Director Wes Anderson and DP Robert Yeoman make great use of the wide frame.

The end credits say "Filmed In Panavision". Why does anamorphic source material almost always look so much better than Super 35? I love the look of this movie! Should make an awesome DVD too.

Generally, a larger image area on the negative reduces the graininess and improves the sharpness. The negative image area that ends up on the screen for anamorphic 2.39:1 is 0.825 x 0.690 inches. For Super-35, it is only 0.945 x 0.395 inches:
http://www.bksts.com/testflm.pdf

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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- dave
Crab juice, or Mountain Dew?

I enjoyed this movie, but it was a shame that I was so distracted the entire time I was watching it. I found it funny that the Regal Cinemas logo was cut off on the sides after the "roller coaster" trailer (a pre-Pepsi-girl one). This movie is one of the worst "scope at 1.85:1" experiences I've ever had. This movie is showing on just one screen in Huntsville/Decatur, so I had no choice since I made up my mind to see it after reading people's reviews here. There were many words placed on the screen during the movie and many of them had their beginnings or endings chopped off because they fell in the outer 23 percent horizontally. I heard mild chatter every time it occurred, but I doubt that anyone but me knew why it was occurring. From the opening "Touchston" logo to the end, I believe this movie was specifically made to nail all of the theatres that do not show scope properly. I wish the higher-ups at Regal would get off their dead asses and get this corrected. I'm tempted to write a letter to Touchstone and tell them about it. It would tickle me if studios would stop letting this theatre show scope movies.

Anyway, the movie was very good. I had a few problems getting the time setting correct. While watching the movie, I was thinking everything was happening during the 1970s, and was surprised to see the "2000" on the tombstone. The old 1970s style record players and televisions they kept showing and using mislead me and confused me.

The red jogging suit thing was a bit too much. I love jogging suits, but I couldn't stand to wear the same kind every day. He wore a black one to the funeral. I wanted to yell "Product placement" every time the red Adidias jogging suits were shown.

On the way out of the theatre, I saw Maria Moon, the manager, and she asked me if I liked the movie, and I said yes, and told her that many of the words were cut off really badly and that it was a fairly major distraction. It affected the composition of many shots too, with actors often half out of the image.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

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