We watched The Haunting (1963) tonight. :)

"No one lives any nearer than town. No one will come any nearer than that."

Despite the efforts of a few dinglecheeses at the cemetery, The Haunting is still one of my all time favorite horror films.
:)

wow..forgot completely about that. yeah, good one. now I have to go find it


The Thing (original or remake)
The Raven, although it barely counts as "horror"
Young Frankenstein is one I would watch a lot on Halloween as well as Silence of the Lambs

Love the hair...

I'm watching both DVD versions of The Shining simultaneously on different monitors. It's undeniably odd.


<<<< (not at this part yet)



The earlier version is indeed the original camera negative, simply a bigger and "more" picture of the image that was shown on screen. There's a significant space of "extra" image at the top and bottom, and even more image on the sides (a lot more on the right than the left, for some reason).

The color timing on the new DVD is simply more beautiful, but I can't say how accurate.

Nor can I say which is the "real" version of The Shining.


Even if it's true that Kubrick filmed the movie so that it couldn't be pan&scanned for TV, did he compose the shots for the widescreen frame? The TV frame? Both??


The widescreen matting is much more pleasant ... but now that I know it's simply a matte covering over the existing image, I have a harder time accepting it as the "real" film. Are most films like this ... with a larger negative image that's simply matted into the widescreen and 'scope aspect ratios shown theatrically?


I don't suppose there's any way to confirm that Kubrick intended audiences to see the widescreen compositions, but I assume he had enough clout that the release version is his director's cut in every way.


It's tough to suddenly think of the some of the picture "missing" from The Shining, but it's nice to finally have the theatrical version of the film on DVD.

According to editor Gordon Stainforth's comments here at the Kubrick FAQ (scroll down just a little, it's the first question) the film was intended to be screened in theaters in the 1.85:1 ratio, which I presume is what you see on the widescreen DVD (which I'm burning to get, but I haven't got HD TV yet, so it makes little sense to buy it right now). Kubrick seems to have preferred the "fullscreen" ratio for video releases in his lifetime, though who knows what he would think by now. This FAQ kept me up for hours when I first stumbled on it, so beware.

Poltergeist is also a really fun rollercoaster at Fiesta Texas...

Poltergeist scared the absolute crap out me when I first saw it in a preview (with some extra footage never seen again.)

Oddly, there was a Kubrick connection. It was screening as a preview after 2001: A Space Odyssey. We got high in the bathroom and, to this day, are sure the drugs were spiked with something ... because we have never had a high like this. (and we know high)



Anyways, 2001 was awesome and Poltergeist was frightacular.

I saw it like 15 times that first summer. It's also got a whole lot of comedy gold, so it's become an enduring classic to me.