It compresses itself into 4:3 on my widescreen TV.

Ever have this problem?

Check your dvd case front lower right corner.
you probably purchased the full screen version

Nah, widescreen.

It might not be compatable with my DVD player or someone might have fucked with the settings, because I tested it with another flick and anamorphic worked fine.

Thanks.

Check the label on the disc itself to make sure a fullscreen disc wasn't accidentally packed in a widescreen case. It happens.

I don't have this disc yet, but some discs include a "pan-n-scan" track on their anamorphic widescreen releases. DVDs without this flag and track play fine but in order to play a disc with the pan-n-scan track in widescreen you need to expicitly tell your player that the tv display is "widescreen" or "16:9" or something like that.

BUT, if this is the case with ESOTSP I think it would be a first since usually this extra flag and track are used when there is only one (widescreen) edition of a DVD.