Last night I was browsing through some HBO Max films, and was startled to discover that the boxy (1.37:1) version of Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket (’87) is being HD streamed. Which is certainly cause for celebration.

One, I hadn’t watched this version of FMJ since the early aughts, or soon after the release of the 2001 “Kubrick Collection” DVD version, which was mastered in 1.37:1. Two, until last night I’d never seen the boxy version in 1080p HD, as the ’01 DVD was naturally presented in 480p. And three, Kubrick preferred the boxy version to the cleavered 1.85, which is how 99.5% of the home viewing public has seen this Vietnam War classic.

Full Metal Jacket as it currently appears on HBO Max, with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio.

Same scene within the standard 1.85 a.r., which is how almost everyone has seen Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 Vietnam War classic over the last 15 or 20 years, give or take.

HE is advising all HBO Max subscribers to stream the boxy FMJ as soon as possible before it disappears. Because the sworn enemies of “boxy is beautiful” will be doing everything they can to erase this version, despite the fact that Kubrick personally preferred it.

Seriously, hurry. If I know Bob Furmanek and the 1.85 fascist cabal they’ll soon be hounding HBO Max to swap out the boxy with the 1.85. These guys are fanatics. They hate boxy and will stop at nothing.

Perhaps someone on the HB0 Max tech team made a “mistake” in uploading the boxy version, but it’s a good mistake, trust me.

Consider the following 2008 DVD Talk interview with longtime Kubrick employee and collaborator Leon Vitali, in which he explains Kubrick’s visual aesthetic:

DVD Talk: “One of the areas of greatest debate in the DVD community is about aspect ratios. The two films that people talk about the most in terms of aspect ratio are Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, maybe because those are the ones that have been seen theatrical by the DVD buying audience. But people will go through [these films] frame by frame and say ‘in the trailer of Eyes Wide Shut, you can see a sign on the street that you can’t see on the full frame video. You can see an extra character.’ So how do you address the differences between the theatrical releases of Eyes Wide Shut and of Full Metal Jacket in the DVD releases?”

Vitali: The original video release of Full Metal Jacket was in the supervised hands and owned by Stanley. The thing about Stanley, he was a photographer. That’s how he started. He had a still photographer’s eye. So when he composed a picture through the camera, he was setting up for what he saw through the camera — the full picture. That was very important to him. It really was. It was an instinct that never ever left him.

From the N.Y. Times’ Mike Hale via Facebook:

From Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:

so powerful pic.twitter.com/yIk9HbHfNM

— kylee (@tomakeupwityou) May 31, 2020

Clint Eastwood‘s acting was always mounted upon steely defiance and seething disdain — the squint, the snarl, the snippy retort. His best performances used this mannered foundation to reach outward and inward to explore the sadder, more tender realms. For me his greatest streak in this regard happened between ’92 and ’95 — Unforgiven (’92), In the Line of Fire (’93) and The Bridges of Madison County (’95 — Robert Kincaid was arguably his saddest and most sympathetic role). Clint surged again with two roles in the mid aughts — Million Dollar Baby (’04) and Gran Torino (’08). Five performances for the ages, and all delivered in his 60s and 70s.

After his three-year, three-picture hot streak (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon), Peter Bogdanovich injured himself and his career in three significant ways.

One, the casually smug and arrogant thing, which seemed to intensify after Peter and Cybill Shepherd were the focus of a 5.13.74 People cover story. Two, Bogdanovich seemed to give up on the idea of substantive, reality-driven subjects after The Last Picture Show (post-’71 he never delivered another poignant scene that touched bottom and emotionally penetrated like “Sam the Lion at the swimming hole”). Three, he concurrently began to over-invest in the mythology of nostalgia and old-time Hollywood — the result was a one-two-three punch (Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, Nickelodeon) that totally took the wind out of his sails.

Saint Jack, They All Laughed and Mask (a director-for-hire gig) restored some of the lustre, but the magic dust had evaporated.

If Bogdanovich had decided to switch horses right after Paper Moon and directed a couple of films that delivered reality currents (some kind of divorce drama or a paranoid political thriller or maybe a Rainman-type family thing) that were tethered not to the ’30s but the ’50s, ’60s or ’70s, things might have turned out differently.

Plus for all his acumen as a director-writer and film historian, Bogdanovich’s social-political instincts were not brilliant.

Over the last couple of centuries many honorable writers have been put behind bars, regardless of the charge…Jean Genet, Oscar Wilde, William S. Burroughs, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Jack London, Malcolm X, etc. To this list we can now add David Poland.

pic.twitter.com/fKwVCgbyZy

— David Poland (@DavidPoland) May 31, 2020

“Some say it’s your nose, some say it’s your toes, but I think it’s your mind.” — Frank Zappa, Mothers of Invention.

Husband and wife beaten with 2x4s while defending store in Rochester, NY. from r/Rochester

what the actual fuck pic.twitter.com/rIRSyNgZCS

— gianna (@lonelyfilms) May 31, 2020

I mean. They couldn’t stop themselves from blatantly escalating things. Even for a few days, even cynically, even for the optics. pic.twitter.com/YVDjnvVGnY

— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) May 31, 2020

This is now a documentary pic.twitter.com/xIY1Xhp0c7

— Gary (@splungekik) May 31, 2020

Shot and edited by Tatiana Antropova:

The chaos, looting and anarchy that I saw first-hand on Melrose Ave. an hour ago (including a small fire just east of Fairfax that was being put out) had nothing, repeat, nothing to do with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last Monday. It was a “get all you can” free-for-all.

Mostly I saw Average Joes with vaguely alarmed expressions standing around and eyeballing the destruction, but here and there I saw teenaged and 20something POCs in masks and hoodies grabbing all they could. Madhouse looting, small stores.

Way to go, guys! — raise high the flag of freedom. Donald Trump says “thanks!”

If poor George Floyd is watching from above, it’s a safe bet he’s feeling a mixture of shame and disgust. (Thanks to the fearless Tatiana Antropova for taking most of these stills and videos.)