CinemaScope

As somebody once said (the quote has been attributed to many people, including Fritz Lang), the only thing CinemaScope is really good for is photographing funerals and snakes.

The 'Scope Trial Jaime J. Weinman 2004

It used to be that if you wanted to see a widescreen version of a movie made in CinemaScope or Panavision (the 2.35 aspect ratio, almost twice as wide as the screen used for pre-1953 movies) and you didn't have a laserdisc player, you had to hope for a widescreen VHS to be released, and there weren't many of those.

The 'Scope Trial Jaime J. Weinman 2004

A 7,000 square-foot Hollywood Hills home with a living room dominated by a CinemaScope theater — complete with a JBL Synthesis system and 7.1 Sonance architectural speaker layout — a dedicated game room with a three-screen race car simulator, shimmering outdoor pool, indoor hot tub, extensive electronic home controls and plenty of mood lighting and animal print rugs and throw pillows. [via freshome] [...]

3602 Apollo Bachelor Pad in Salt Lake City 2009

The early wide-screen technologies, like CinemaScope and Cinerama, used huge screens to immerse the audience, and even with today's smaller multiplex screens, I can recover something like that sense of being snugly wrapped in the movie's world.

The Fans in the Front Row David Bordwell 2012

One standout is John Sturges's "Bad Day at Black Rock" 1955, an eerily beautiful, noirish tale set in 1945, with striking CinemaScope compositions.

Hollywood's Heroic Villain Kristin M. Jones 2011

Many big-budget movies today are shot in the 2.35:1 CinemaScope aspect ratio, which means that black bars appear above and below the image when viewed on standard 16:9 HDTV.

CES 2011: Vizio launches 21:9 ultra-widescreen 3D HDTVs 2011

The CinemaScope "A Time to Love and a Time to Die" 1958 found Sirk home in his native Germany for the first time since 1937, shooting an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque 's novel.

Cinema's Warm Embrace Steve Dollar 2011

Film Forum's series, which starts a two-week run on Friday, also includes "Moonfleet" (1955), a swashbuckler shot in CinemaScope — which Mr. Lang famously said was good only for snakes and funerals — as well as flawed, haunting tales that deserve another look, such as "Secret Beyond the Door" (1948) and "The Blue Gardenia" (1953).

Fritz Lang's Western Union Kristin M. Jones 2011

Also on the bill: "The Tarnished Angels," with more glorious CinemaScope, daredevil stunt flyers and Rock Hudson.

Cinema's Warm Embrace Steve Dollar 2011

VistaVision was also modern in that it could be exhibited in any widescreen ratio from 1:66 to 1 the preferred ratio to 2:1—very close to the way most neighborhood theaters showed CinemaScope, which had started the whole widescreen revolution in 1952 and 1953.

Empire of Dreams Scott Eyman 2010