Released at Christmas of 1999 as one of the very last movies of that decade, the science-fiction adventure spoof Galaxy Quest was a solid box office hit, if not quite one of the year’s huge blockbusters. Marketing for the film presented it as a goofy Tim Allen comedy vehicle, like The Santa Clause in outer… Read More Grabthar’s Hammer and the Suns of Warvan | Galaxy Quest (1999) 4K Ultra HD
Despite having once again sworn that he was done with Transformers and ready to hand the directing reins over to somebody else after the very successful Age of Extinction, Michael Bay wasted almost no time jumping right back in to helm the next sequel himself anyway. Unfortunately, by this point, even longtime fans had enough.… Read More Shit’s Getting Out of Control | Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) 4K Ultra HD
After Transformers: Dark of the Moon hit a franchise high for box office, Michael Bay announced that he’d be leaving the series on a high note to go make smaller, personal films. He did exactly one of those (2013’s Pain & Gain, which underperformed) before crawling right back to the safe haven of the robots… Read More I’m All About Bad Ideas | Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) 3D Blu-ray
A huge blockbuster smash like the 2007 Transformers requires a sequel, and Michael Bay got to work cranking one out as fast as he could. Ready for release just two summers later, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is even bigger, longer, louder, and dumber than the first film. Consequently, it was another massive hit, despite… Read More Bad Robots Suck | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) IMAX VAR Blu-ray
Culture often seems to move in thirty-year cycles. Growing up back in the 1980s, it felt like nostalgia for the 1950s was everywhere, as my parents’ generation hit middle age and started pining for their own youths. Now here we are another three decades hence, only to find the United States in a renewed Cold… Read More Don’t Think, Just Do | Top Gun: Maverick (2022) 4K Ultra HD
Hardly all that long ago, all TV series were photographed in a common, standardized aspect ratio designed to fill a television screen. The idea that anything intended for home viewing on a TV might – intentionally – not fit the screen seemed almost inconceivable. Nowadays, however, we’ve experienced an explosion of shows shosiret in widescreen… Read More List of TV Shows with Aspect Ratios Wider Than 16:9
IMAX is neither the first nor the only film format to incorporate the concept of a variable aspect ratio. Filmmakers have toyed with the shape of their projected images at least as far back as Abel Gance’s 1927 silent epic Napoléon. In a separate post, I maintain a list of movies that alternate from a… Read More List of Other Variable Aspect Ratio Movies (Not IMAX)
This post contains a reference list of movies that played in IMAX theaters with either a Variable Aspect Ratio (VAR) or otherwise alternate aspect ratio presentation that differed from their appearance on regular cinema screens, along with details of each title’s availability on home video. As explained in Part 3 of my Philosophy of 2.35:1… Read More List of IMAX Variable Aspect Ratio Movies
In my article series The Philosophy of 2.35:1 Constant Image Height, I attempted to explain what Constant Image Height (CIH) display is, how it differs from watching content on a traditional 16:9 television or home theater screen, and why it’s important. For this first addendum, we’ll examine the mechanics of setting up a CIH system… Read More Best Practices for 2.35:1 Constant Image Height
Home theater can be complicated. As explained in the first two parts of this series, it’s not only as simple as putting a big screen on the wall. What shape should that screen be? Even after doing your research, just when you might think you’ve got this aspect ratio stuff all figured out, the IMAX… Read More The Philosophy of 2.35:1 Constant Image Height – Part 3, The IMAX Problem
The Video File Blog 