Ice Age has both the Full Screen and Widescreen versions on that movie's DVD.

Thanks for pointing that out, but hopefully you know what I mean.

Why do I get the feeling that this poll is severely skewed as well?

I guess Ebert is a Joe6P now.

The saddest irony to it all is that the true movie lover, and I"m sounding terrible snobbish here, but so be it, but the true movie lover wants widescreen. The average joe renting a movie who refers to the apsect space as "those black bars" will rent no matter what. They are probably the only fools crazy enough to rent at Blockbuster these days. 5 bucks for 2 nights of a DVD or buy the damn thing for $17 or less in most cases in the first week at the discount chains and own it for good. These people don't care in the long run. The will accept and rent what's given to them and be happy. But I would never, ever watch, buy or rent a full screen Insomina, as a recent example of a film availble in FS only at BB. I don't really care if I can't get Big Fat Liar or Goldmember in WS, but damn it, if you've got a halfway decent movie, let it be seen the way it should be seen! Joe Six-Pack doesn't care! What are they going to do, go to a mom and pop shop and find full-screen? That is if they can find a mom and pop shop, since that big blue and gold turd has driven all them into the dust.

What's happened to that minor revolution of including both Pan and Scan AND widescreen on the same disc? I guess some suit finally said, "Hmmm... we could be making twice as much with these....yeah..."

I found his reply to be true. A general statement, but true.

If it's a movie I only want to see once...

How is paying $5 for that viewing instead of $17 the act of a "crazy' "fool" ???

Sounds to me like I saved $12.

I was absolutely astonished when I tried to rent About a Boy from BB yesterday and only saw about 30 unrented copies in Full Screen. I can deal with multiple versions since widescreen tvs are still just starting to happen, but not being given a choice is unacceptable.

By doing this BB is only perpetuating the ingnorance of normal dvd renters who haven't learned that WS is the preferred way to view the film. I was flaming pissed when my sister came home with the Full Frame version of Unfaithful. We have a 65" WS tv and she was lamed into renting a Full Frame version of a dvd because she wasn't paying attention.

Personally I will never rent from Blockbuster again, which is about as much as can be done. Somebody at Blockbuster made a serious mistake when they decided not to carry WS versions of dvds.

As for Ebert's comment, I think its unfortunate. I would have rather heard a simple, "Its stupid, they should only carry widescreen." But oh well.

I hate to say it, but you're not getting the version the director wanted you to see in the first place if you're watching your WS movies on a 13" TV.

Blockbuster is there to make money. There are more J6P's out there than there are of us enthusiasts, and many of them don't and won't rent unless it fills up their screen. Which is why we're in the situation we're in now. And it won't change until the standard TV becomes HD 16x9.

And if you say educating them is the answer, check this out: I was over at my fiance's aunt's house when she started to complain about DVDs that had the black bars (on her 60" Mitsu no less). I started to explain OAR when she unbelievably said, "yeah yeah, that's the way the director wants it and that's how it looks in the theater but I want my TV screen filled up!" I'm sure there's many like her out there that don't give a crap about artistic vision and what not. They just want their TV filled up.

The only solution is to stock both, which is why Blockbuster sucks hard knob. Screw it. Let Blockbuster have their J6P's and only stock full-frames and laugh at them when widescreen only becomes the standard and J6P is wondering why they have grey bars on the sides of all their DVDs.

Well said!

I was considering ending my account with netflix but now what has happen, I think I will cancel my BB membership instead.

Exactly. A few weeks ago, I heard someone complain that there wasn't a fullscreen version of Barbershop. She pointed out how the theater screen is shaped a certain way and it has to be cropped for television. She understood widescreen, but she didn't care. She just wanted her screen filled.

It's like those guys who cruise down the street with the bass cranked up so you can hear it a mile away. You could argue that that's not what the recording engineers had in mind, but they don't care. They just want that bass!

What's up with Walmart only stocking fullscreen stuff lately. I had to drive an extra 25 minutes to get One Hour Photo in widescreen since wally only had it in fullscreen(i really need to start preordering online). I've been getting stuff there for awhile and they usually have both versions available. Now it seems they are going strictly with full. sorry to get off the subject

Fair enough I'll grant you that. I base that on my experience however, where I'll see anything that remotely intrigues me in the theater for 6 bucks, where the extra dollar gives me the proper format to view the movie. Then by the time the DVD arrives, I know if I want to buy or not.

But I will grant you, crazy fool may have been overstating the situation.

I was at Blockbuster the other day and try to rent "Attack of the clones" Full screen. They didn't have any. They're all WS.
I just want to show my roommate the different between Full and WS. He hates WS . Just want to show him what's he's been missing from his screen all these times. I bought the WS version, Well, almost all my movies are WS. Couple movies that I rented from them are WS.
I don't really see that many movies are released in Full screen anymore. Unless it's was a huge hits in theater like Spiderman and Attack of the clone..ect

I still haven't seen the Ya-Ya Sisterhood... because all they had was P&S...

Buying it on sale and then watching it once on eBay makes me think that's a better way to go sometimes.

Why were you going to do that? I see only 2 problems with Netflix
1) I now spend even more time watching movies than I did before.
2)Many of the new releases are very long waits. The way to get around that is to hold onto a least one return until the Saturday before. That way it gets there by Monday and they ship out a new release on that day. Problem solved.

Edit: I thought of a third one:
3) Movies over 2 discs are counted as 2 rentals. Stupid policy.

Since he's advocated widescreen since long before many people had giant TVs, I don't think that's what he really meant, except maybe from the standpoint of it making financial sense for them to do so (after all, they are a business, they should rent what people want, even if people are WRONG).

Also, he probably gets tired of arguing about it, and was trying to move the conversation ahead to the present.

Still, he could've said something like:

Blockbuster's policy may have made financial sense when most people had small-screen TVs, but as screens grow larger and home theater systems more popular, it is lingering in the dark ages.

I totally agree. In this DVD talk community it's almost a sin to watch P&S, but the majority of movie renters don't care and prefer to have the screen filled up. Call them uneducated and explain to them it's not the true drirector's vision all you want, but people want what they want. It's just a movie- it's just a rental- don't get all worked up about it.

In some cases, the directors of films will supervise or give the ok on P&S conversions.

There should be a choice. Not just the choice for us to have WS versions at Blockbuster, but also to have PS versions of popular films there as well. As Widescreen TV's grow (as of yet, widscreen Television doesn't penetrate more than 3% of homes), then the rental market will follow.

Blockbuster isn't ant-WS as some people here think. Like I said before, it's their business. Who's saying the company that has patents on marketing systems and is known for being one of the most agressive retail outlets, doesn't do the research. If they are going to rent and then sell more copies of a PS version then they will concentrate on the PS version. Plain and simple. They are not in the business of pleasuring every home theater enthusiast- they are in the business of making money.

Honestly, do you think that even 90% of the movies out there end up being the true director's vision anyways?