Search Results for: bob furmanek

There’s a new Olive Films Bluray of Robert Wise‘s Odds Against Tomorrow (’59). The only thing that distinguishes it from the 2016 BFI Bluray version, according to DVD Beaver‘s Gary. W. Tooze, is the 1.85 aspect ratio — a brutal cleavering of the BFI’s 1.37 version. Tooze is such a toad about aspect ratios. In … Read more

Six days ago I reported that the forthcoming Cannes Film Festival screening of a digitally restored version of Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks would offer a mixed blessing. While the vivid, wider-than-ever VistaVsion images will surely look beautiful, the aspect ratio presentation will not be within HE’s favored 1.66:1 aspect ratio, nor 1.75:1 or even 1.78:1, … Read more

By God’s grace or some other influence, non-Scope films produced by United Artists in the ’50s and ’60s have been mastered for home video (laser disc, DVD, Bluray, streaming) at 1.66 for the most part. This tradition has led Kino Lorber to issue their forthcoming Bluray of Stanley Kramer‘s On The Beach (’59) in that … Read more

A Bluray of Delbert Mann and Paddy Chayefsky‘s Oscar-winning Marty (1955) will be released on 7.29. It gives me no comfort or satisfaction to report that the Bluray’s aspect ratio will be in the dreaded 1.85 with the tops and bottoms of the protected 1.37 image (seen on TV, VHS, laser disc and DVDs for … Read more

Exhibition scholar and aspect-ratio authority Bob Furmanek has posted what appears to be the most fully researched and most definitive study of the aspect ratio changes implemented by the major studios in 1953, a.k.a. “The First Year of Widescreen Production.” The study will “hopefully help to dispel many of the myths associated with this era,” … Read more

HE reader “Criterion 10” attended a discussion with the Criterion Co.’s Kim Hendrickson and Curtis Tsui at Columbus, Ohio’s Wexner Center Tuesday evening, during which they mentioned Criterion’s upcoming On The Waterfront Bluray “and how they were having a difficult time deciding which aspect ratio in should be presented in. And so, they said, it … Read more

This goal of this post is to marginally discredit the aspect-ratio theology of Bob Furmanek, who is (a) one of the leading advocates for the 1.85-ing of films shot and/or released starting in April or May of 1953 and (b) is perhaps chiefly responsible for persuading the powers-that-be to present the forthcoming Blurays of Warner … Read more

Where is Bob “all ’50s and ’60s films must be Blurayed at 1.78 or 1.85” Furmanek when we really need him? Is he going to let this outrageous British Film Institute Bluray of John Cassavetes Shadows stand unchallenged? Because it’s being presented at 1.33, and that’s a blatant defiance of Furmanek’s belief that all non-Scope … Read more

“Boxy Summertime Soothing,” posted on 5.30.20: David Lean‘s Summertime is a concise story of a 40ish unmarried woman from Ohio (Katharine Hepburn) enjoying her first visit to Venice, Italy, and then falling in love with a covertly married native (Rossano Brazzi). But it’s primarily a glorious atmosphere film — a swoony, Technicolor dreamboat dive into … Read more

This morning Kino Lorber announced a new Bluray of Mark Robson‘s The Bridges at Toko Ri (’54); ditto a forthcoming 4K Bluray of John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate (’62). I immediately wrote KL’s Frank Tarzi, who became a true HE hero nine years ago after releasing a boxy (1.37:1) Bluray of Delbert Mann‘s Marty, and … Read more