ISSUE #136
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: SPENCER EVERHART & GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Welcome back to BEAM FROM THE BOOTH, the official newsletter of the GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
Folks, our community-vote MOVIE MARCH MADNESS bracket has come to a close and we have our winner: DAVID CRONENBERG’S VIDEODROME (1983)!
An admirable win, certainly, besting even Kubrick himself — you all are some freaks, I think is the biggest takeaway here. [positive]
Our screening is set for MONDAY, MAY 18th at 8:00pm, and TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE NOW. Stay tuned for further details for this special event, and a big thanks to everyone who took part in voting! This is democracy at it’s finest.
Likewise, we couldn’t be happier with how our latest MOVIE TRIVIA IN A MOVIE THEATER event went last week, and a huge congratulations to our winning team: SEX BOB-OMB! We are already underway planning our Summer 2026 event, and we can’t wait to share more as we get closer to the event.
The thing I have always loved most about film fans is the way we can care so deeply about even little details in movies that the average viewer is likely never, ever going to consider. On that note, here is Jackson Campo with this week’s excellent feature!
MAY BLACK BARS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR: EXPLORING CATCHING FIRE’S HOME MEDIA RELEASES
[BY: JACKSON CAMPO]
If you have seen the second film of the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, you may be aware of the film’s IMAX sequences and now-iconic shift from widescreen to the larger IMAX frame. Halfway through the film, Katniss Everdeen speaks to her stylist, Cinna, to say farewell before she enters an elevator on her way into the arena for the second time. After they say goodbye, Katniss is locked in the elevator, powerless to help as she watches her friend beaten by Capitol police and taken to his death. As she panics, the elevator goes up, bringing her into the battle. Simultaneously, the film’s aspect ratio expands from letterboxed 2.35 widescreen to a full IMAX 1.43 image. The entirety of the 75th Hunger Games is presented in this taller aspect ratio, lending gravity to the action and making these games feel larger and more dangerous than the previous film.
The Hunger Games franchise is a favorite of my wife and I’s, and — along with Lord of the Rings and Twilight — has now entered regular rotation in our household. For our most recent rewatch last year, I finally bought the films on Blu-Ray in a four-movie collection. Catching Fire is my favorite film of the original series, and I was looking forward to seeing this moment in context for the first time (I did not see it in theaters and had only watched it on streaming where the film maintains a widescreen ratio throughout). I awaited the Games with anxiety, unsure if my copy would actually preserve this presentation (prior to watching, I did peek at the back of the case which stated the film only had one aspect ratio, a fact I hoped was a simple misprint). When Katniss got in the elevator, it was a rapid realization. She got all the way to the top, into the arena, and the film remained in widescreen throughout the Games. I yelled at my TV, cursing Lionsgate for putting out this version of the film.
Anticipating another rewatch this year due to the upcoming release of Sunrise on the Reaping, I bought Catching Fire on Blu-Ray again. Despite a quick scare when the disc arrived at my house — the back of the case on this release also states the film is presented in only a single, widescreen aspect ratio — this solo version of the film does maintain the IMAX sequences, filling the 1.78 ratio of a modern display (a concession made to keep IMAX feeling large at home; the true IMAX 1.43 aspect ratio is only seen at the thirty or so fully-capable IMAX theaters in the United States). Now I could rest easy knowing the next time I watch this film it would not be marred by cropping, which is, in my opinion, nothing less than cinematic vandalism. Imagine going to a museum to see a Van Gogh in person, and they cut off the edges of the painting to fit in a smaller frame.
With that weight off my chest, I wondered why Lionsgate would have put this compromised version of the film in the boxset. After all, the frame expanding in the elevator is a celebrated moment in the series (I knew about it before I even saw the film). Why would you not want to preserve that experience for an enthusiastic home audience? I loaded both discs into my computer and did some digging. The file size for Catching Fire on the boxset, without IMAX expansion, is 22.6 GB. The film shares a 50GB Blu-Ray disc with the first Hunger Games film, which comes in at 20.7 GB. With the IMAX sequences preserved on the solo disc, the file size of Catching Fire expands to 29.1 GB — not a small increase. To get a little nerdy here, simply putting the IMAX version of Catching Fire on the double disc along with the original film puts the file size for the whole disc at 49.8 GB, which is technically possible but most 50GB Blu-Ray discs keep the file size between 45 and 46GB to prevent compatibility issues with some players. I’m sure there is some way to get it to work out, perhaps by lowering the bitrate of both films a bit to squeeze them both in that container, but then you’re compromising quality in another way.
A troubling fact I learned while working on this piece is that the 4K UHD disc for Catching Fire crops the IMAX sequences as well, possibly due to licensing issues with IMAX or perhaps another simple file-size limitation. As of now, the only way to watch this film with the presentation intended by the filmmakers is to get the standalone Blu-Ray release from 2014, as it has now been abandoned on both the latest physical media format and on streaming. Already most of the people who watch this film in a given year have likely never seen it in theaters and aren’t even aware they are watching a cropped version of the film. A key element of the film’s intended presentation will be largely lost to time. Those of us who own the original disc will maintain the film’s IMAX legacy when it is no longer widely available due to technical or legal headaches. I will be buying a copy to put in GRFS’s media cart for anyone in the area’s future Hunger Games marathon, if only to keep this incredibly cool moment alive for as many people as I can.
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Look for ISSUE #137 in your inbox NEXT WEEK!
Until then, friends...
