There’s a new video rental place in town, and we decided to check it out. We were going to rent Sideways, since we didn’t see it in the theater, and we were glad to see that the store had about 20 copies in… but they were ALL FULLSCREEN!

AAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Excuse me while I rant and rave for a minute and get this out of my system:

FULLSCREEN SUCKS! Why, oh, WHY did the manufacturers of DVD EVER decide to start offering movies in EITHER fullscreen OR widescreen? WTF??!!? There's no excuse for it. If they MUST produce the shabby, pointless pan-and-scan fullscreen versions, they should only do double-sided discs with one version on each side.

But, they shouldn't produce fullscreen versions of theatrical movies in the first place. Fullscreen is for TV. Movies, which are filmed in the widescreen ratio, are intended to be viewed in widescreen! Lemme break this down to third-grade terms... A movie screen is not a square, like a tv screen, is it? No. It’s a rectangle! Like a widescreen!

Wendy and I had a nice conversation with the guy at the counter at the video store, who sympathized with our situation, and understood that, yes, movies are SUPPOSED to be viewed in widescreen… but he told us that, by far, most movie renters prefer fullscreen. In other words, most movie renters prefer to watch tv rather than movies!

What is with these idiots that prefer to only see part of a movie? I don’t mean only part of the chronology of a movie… I mean only part of each image. Why would anyone prefer that? Is the idea of a small black bar at the top and bottom of the screen really that big a deal?? After ten minutes you don't notice it anymore, anyway.

For God’s sake, a fullscreen version of a movie like The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King shouldn’t even exist. Need proof? Check this out.

The guy behind the counter told us that some recent study shows that people who buy movies tend to buy the widescreen DVD and that movie renters tend to prefer to rent the fullscreen DVD. That’s all well and good, I suppose… if you can AFFORD to buy every movie you have a mild curiosity about. But if you aren’t 100% that you’re going to love, oh, for instance, Ocean’s 12, why should you be forced to see it in the dumbed-down fullscreen mode just because you’d rather rent it than buy it??

Look, movies are filmed in the widescreen ratio and should be watched in the widescreen ratio. If you don’t get that, stay home and watch Fear Factor. Leave movies to those of us who actually appreciate them.

I feel better.