Hmmm.
I just watched about the last half of this movie on the "ESCAPE" over-the-air broadcast channel, and noticed some of the cinematography looked a bit choppy.
The broadcast was 720x480, or 1.5:1, (DVD Full Frame/Standard is 640x480 or 4:3), and another comment in this thread stated the original movie was filmed in Panavision, which is a 2.35:1 ratio, NOT the ratio of the broadcast, which explains most/all of the 'choppiness', all by itself.
If an air broadcast keeps the full width of the original Panavision, and fills the frame with 'black bars', only roughly the center one-half of the screen is NOT 'black bars'! So, you can see why the broadcast version was pan-and-scan, which undoes a lot of camera work/direction that follows actors and/or action.
In an extreme "worst-case", you may see an actor get shot completely unexpectedly (in pan-and-scan version) when the original Panavision version shows both the shooter and victim in the frame, staring at each other across a room from before the shooting, and maybe even a witness in the original frame! Sometimes what the viewer sees was not the original movie, since there is usually no "coming back" from an edit like that example.
just sayin'
(If you are a STAR WARS fan, Lucas has said Han Solo did not fire first on the bounty hunter in the cantina... He did say the bounty hunter's shot was just out of the frame. *snicker* After so much "Lucasizing" (i.e. reworking with CGI), there is really no way of knowing now... Unless you happen to have one of the original widescreen laserdisc copies, which was the very first digitized version of the film.)
I did notice the film seemed to focus and zoom on things as a way of bringing tension to the viewer. I certainly don't know what versions the OP saw originally, and then on Showtime as he mentioned about his second viewing.
I have noticed the cable channel delivery versions of so-called HD they use is not the full 1080P, but 720P which allows them to stuff more channels into their limited bandwidth, (technical issues), and still call it HD, (and even sometimes also using black bars too!). Another thing I have read about is additional compression of the images, which can lead to visible pixelation, especially when your flatscreen HD TV expands that to the full screen 1080P to fill your big screen.
Be warned about that. And it could be worse if you have a 4K TV.
Just as a point of perspective and interest, the movie immediately following HARD EIGHT on the "ESCAPE" channel was BASIC INSTINCT which they rated as TV-14. That should give you an insight into how much "edited for content and to run in the allotted time" that network uses.
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chicago85
8 years ago
Last year I watched HBO's Project Green Light that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck produce. They get new talent and surround them with professionals and the money to make their movie.
Last year they got a bull headed greenhorn who blew his budget on using film instead of going digital. They even tried to show him a way of faking digital into looking like vintage film.
He spent all his time arguing and letting prime locations slide until he got a total crap movie. But by God he got it on film for all time.
Plot and acting is more important to me than optics. I watched "The Hateful Eight" which was shot with wide angled panorama lenses not used since the 1980's by Quinton Tarantino. He got outdoor shots of a stage crossing snow covered landscapes alright. But there were only a handful of cities in the US where you could appreciate it since those wide screens and the projectors needed are almost all gone. Most of the movie was shot in a cramped snow bound cabin.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else
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