Ask any 1.85 fascist (like occasional HE commenter Pete Apruzzese) to explain the basic aspect-ratio laws and you’ll hear the same thing time and again: All non-Scope films released after the fall of 1953 should be presented at 1.85 unless otherwise specified by the director. They’ll allow for exceptions among some 1950s and early ’60s releases (various British films, United Artists releases) and/or when the director specifies 1.66 or 1.78 or whatever. But their general attitude is 1.85, 1.85 and 1.85 unless otherwise noted. Most of the 1.66 Bluray croppings are found in films from the ’50s and ’60s, but they begin to radically thin out when you move into the ’70s and beyond. (One glorious exception: the 1.66 aspect ratio of John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday.) Which is why my heart soared when I noticed a 1.66 aspect ratio being used for the Criterion Bluray of James Ivory‘s A Room With A View (’86). The fact that the a.r. was approved by Ivory kills any pushback, but the thought of Apruzzese and Glenn Kenny and all the other 1.85 strict constructionists seething and gnashing their teeth is just heaven to me.