Giant stuff-up

After years of wanting to watch Giant, starring James Dean, I finally bought it on DVD the other day. The disc is double-sided and in my experience that means that the disc contains two copies of the film; a regular television-size version on one side and a widescreen version on the other side. I couldn’t tell which side was which so I just put the disc in the machine and pressed 'play'. At the end of the film I was a bit confused about the plot and there seemed to be a lot of gaps in the story line. I knew that Giant had been nominated for several Academy Awards, and James Dean’s performance greatly lauded, but I couldn’t see why. There were just too many unanswered questions.

I pondered this for a while and then had an “uh-oh!” moment. I put the disc back in the machine – the other way up this time – and my suspicion was confirmed: I had watched only the second half of the film.

Doh!