digiboy

This Studio series is apparently some kind of budget line bare bones presentation. No menu's, full screen only as previously reported. Looks like they want to see if they can get titles out at minimal cost with no features and still move product. But these are not cheesey second rate movies. There are good titles being put out in this series. The corporate weasels at Univeral obviously have no respect for the value of their own catalog.

The Forbin Project on DVD in the Studio series is a crime, being presented in Pan and scan. We probably won't see any other version of it released any time soon. Thanks a lot Universal.

Charlie Varrick was matted for it's theatrical release and suffers less in this full frame version which is presented open matt. It's really just that I wanted to see the movie again. I can deal with open matt better than pan and scan processing and as long as extraneous objects like boom mics don't come into frame, I can live with it if there's no other choice. FWIW the film looks pretty good in full frame and the sound and picture quality are acceptable for an older film, certainly better than VHS. True, it's not in the OAR and for the hard core OAR fans, open matt is no substitute. But now that it's out in this version, we probably won't see another, hopefully better, release of it for quite some time. So there's really not much choice. If you have it on LD or have some other decent quality source, don't waste your time on the DVD. But if you just want to see the film again, or have never seen it, I'd say it's an OK deal. Still wish it was OAR.

Come on, Universal, wake the hell up.

Walter Neff

So what was the original aspect ratio of Charlie Varrick? 1.85:1? Because, if so, does that mean I can use the zoom function on my widescreen TV and make it close to the proper ratio? I realize, of course, that you lose resolution that way, but at least I could watch it at the proper ratio, no?

digiboy

I don't see a specific listing in IMDB for the OAR but others have said it's 1.85. It was shot with 35mm spherical. You can almost guess where the matt is from the way the opening credits on the DVD sit in the middle of the screen.

I don't know how the zoom function works on a widescreen set so i don't know if it would be correct. You'd have to be concerned that the zoom might cut off the sides. If viewing it normally gives "pillarboxing" (?) on your set (vertical black bars on the sides, not on the top and bottom) then the zoom might work to mask it out to the right OAR.

Geofferson

Sucks that we won't see this in its original OAR.

Drexl

Cloak and Dagger is a Studio Selection, but it's widescreen.