But then you have directors like Robert Aldritch, who'd compose a passable action shot in 1.33:1 aspect in a B-movie as if it was a fucking Caravaggio.

I think the rationale behind the 1.33:1 ratio was that it used the largest amount of the frame possible within the mechanical limits of how much film the camera had to pull through the gate to achieve a speed that would give the illusion of motion. A larger image would translate to a better projection, because with…

Do you mean composing with the subject in the center of the frame? Or that back in the day they were shooting in a format that was closer to a square?

It's like when you first get Photoshop, and spend about three days screwing with the smear tool until you get bored of it — except these people didn't get bored of it.

Ah! I botched it!

And we can watch mediocre movies distilled into two-minute clip shows of their best parts on YouTube. So we've also got the ability to cheaply excise mediocrity.

Especially hilarious when it's related to medical care.

I presume you did not land much work in Smell-O-Vision films?

Those two Russian sleeper agents in Cambridge, Mass., who were busted by the FBI back in, what was it, 2011? They were transmitting intel about CIA operations to Moscow.

I think you're correct there.

Spies and super-professional political journalists, maybe.

I missed that one. Were they also responding to other people during the exchange? Because that thing a while back with the hundred-ish-or-plus tweets by a Backpage escort about her being held against her will in a hotel room translated well into a linear narrative, but only, I think, because the tweets were posted…

Well, at least then it would be public domain entertainment and wouldn't feel unnervingly like a WikiLeak.

Am I alone in feeling very uncomfortable whenever someone initiates a serious personal conversation such as this over email, or at the mere idea of having a conversation this intimate over email?

But he couldn't hide from the telltale signature of firsts followed by replies with diminishing returns on upvotes.

I'd wager it's on account of "motherfucker" being part of the names of about a hundred bands out of Austin.

Reposting, edited for extreme clarification, and I guess I should rethink my exception regarding direct quotation, because this comment got flagged for moderation on account of using the word.

Whoops. Wasn't thinking of the moderation policy. Reposted with asterisks.

I believe your client's testimony was struck from the record.

I don't think the term ruins it at all. He's talking about hyper-media-literate moviegoers who're more likely to use academic-type irony to make a bad film more enjoyable.