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I'm not familiar with Horse Whisperer (though it sounds like it was a problem with the projectionist and not a decision by the filmmakers) or Strangelove (didn't see this one yet), but Galaxy Quest did something a little different with their aspect ratios.
If you remember, the movie starts out with scenes from the old TV show. These scenes were shown 4:3 in the theaters to similuate the TV viewing expereince. Then the film's perspective changes to the Galaxy Quest convention and the aspect ratio changes to 1.85:1 (your most common movie aspect ratio). Now, I didn't see this in the theater, but at some point (I think it's when the aliens first take Commander Taggert on their ship) it expands to the 2.35:1 aspect ratio (normally used for epics and big screen action flics).
On the DVD, they went from 4:3 directly to 2:35 because they didnt' think the effect would work as well on most people's smaller TV screens (as compared to the theaters' screens).
As for the trailers, as was already mentioned above, they just take finished film and either pan and scan it or remove the mattes to create a trailer of the size they want (anywhere from the original aspect ratio to 4:3-standard TV picture size)
-David
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