Need Advice: KING OF KINGS: Theatrical Or Blu Ray? (1 Viewer)

[Professor Echo]

Greg, sorry I misinterpreted your post and took offense at it.


And I guess I thought I had mentioned in the first post that it was an American Cinemetheque presentation at the Egyptian in Hollywood, but I see now that I didn't. It gives me cause for concern because of the aforementioned bad prints I have seen there in the past and the fact that they have--or at least used to have--a very strict No Refunds Or Exchanges policy. They would not give me my money back after the first ten minutes of the rotten print of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST nor when they showed a beet red print of DARK OF THE SUN. I have also had issues with them not offering any notice prior to screening 16mm prints. I have generally avoided them in the past few years.


On the other hand, I have reflected upon the insight submitted in this thread and one question keeps haunting me: Now that the Blu Ray is out, will this film ever be screened again in a theater? Most revival and repertory theaters, at least in L.A., seem to be focusing on titles that are not available on DVD in order to lure people away from their home theaters. It is not by any means a title that is much in demand on any historical or critical level, so this may be my only chance to see it on the big screen and I certainly do agree with those who have posted here about that experience not being replicated elsewhere, though the trade off with a great home theater is certainly giving it a run for its money these days. I do think that the Blu Ray experience, when done and presented right, gives one an intimacy with a film that is unlike anything else.


I earn at least some of my living as a film historian, teacher and writer, and have to constantly sort out what I can spend at any given time on both theatrical screenings and my private collection, the latter of which numbers in the tens of thousands, as well as all my other responsibilities and interests and passions, which often makes for certain sacrifices and compromises. I almost envy those who have one singular passion in life and can devote as much discretionary income toward pursuing it as much as possible. For me my loves are joyfully diverse, judiciously embraced and consistently enthralling. In the end, there remains grand pleasure in wanting everything, yet not having everything.

 

[GMpasqua]

well you do take a chance when going to a theater - the print can be bad, but sometimes the print is so good you're so glad you went. So many times, I've left the Egyptian theater so glad I went to a screening because the print exceed all expectations. I 've only had a few bad print experiences there.


I did see a beautil print of "Once Upon a Time in the West" there years ago and some of the 35mm prints were so clean, colorful and beautiful I would have kicked myself for missing them. Of course if I didn't like the film much I wouldn't by the DVD/Blu-ray - shelve space for many is limited too

 

[benbess]

So Prof. E--what did you end up choosing? In any case, once you've seen it perhaps you'll share a quick review of it with us?

 

[Professor Echo]

Un-EFFING-believable!!!!


I finally made the decision to go to the theater tonight and see it and wait to buy the Blu Ray when it comes down in price. So what happens? I drive all the way over there, circle to find a parking space that isn't metered with $2.00 an hour, pay my $11.00 and sit in the theater for a half-hour waiting for the film to start. Finally, a programmer for the American Cinematheque comes out and announces that the 35mm print they got was red and pan and scanned, so because they couldn't get another print, the programmer went out and bought the Blu Ray and that's what they were going to show.


!!!


I was able to get a refund, but, of course, am still out the gas and time. So that's it with me and the Cinematheque. I should have known not to trust them, should have listened to all the advice in this thread about just buying the Blu Ray and being happy with that. Oh well.


Oh yes, though this wasn't anyone's fault but my own, to top it off, I also got a $58 parking ticket!


I'll laugh about it all tomorrow.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Glen, sorry to hear about your experience -- I had a couple similar experiences with a couple different theaters here in NYC, and I realized after the fact that they were both owned by the same company. The first offense was a screening of "Vertigo", a film I had never seen on the big screen before. I didn't expect to see a 70mm print, but I figured even a 35mm print of the restoration would be spectacular on the big screen. (Since that's a movie that's not yet on Blu-ray, that made it easier for me to decide to go even with limited resources, and believe me, I understand where you're coming from there.) To my utter dismay, when the movie started -- it was obvious they were showing the DVD (and not even the more recent, 16x9 enhanced version... they were actually showing the 4x3 letterboxed version zoomed in). It looked terrible, no refund was offered, and they even turned up the house lights five minutes before the movie ended. I know I'm too old to have a temper tantrum but I was tempted to. The other experience was a screening of the brand new Metropolis restoration, with the recently discovered footage reincorporated. I know for a fact there were new prints made, but this theater just showed the new Blu-ray. It looked very nice and all, but the advertisements for the week-long run made it seem like there would be a print. I spoke to the manager afterwards (who had the projectionist in tow), and she said that the studio gave her the choice of getting the Blu-ray or the new 35mm print, and she picked the Blu-ray because "HD is higher quality than film". The poor projectionist looked like he wanted to die when she said that. Another theater I'll never go see a classic film at if they ever show one again.


On the other hand, if you do ever find yourself in NYC, check out the Film Forum. Though it's by no means a huge space (each screen has about 200 seats), they know what they're doing there, and they do it right. They don't charge extra if a film is being shown in 3-D (they played a bunch of 50s 3-D films last summer). They almost always get 35mm prints, usually in better than expected quality, and if it's not 35mm it says very clearly in their calendar what the source is. The people that work there are well informed, so if you have a technical question about something showing there, if they don't know the answer offhand, they can find out or put you in touch with someone who does. And, if you pony up for a $75-a-year membership, you can get in for $7 a ticket (which is about half of what pretty much all NYC theaters charge). Also, most of their classics are shown as double features: you can't beat $7 to see two films, properly projected, usually with great prints, and always with a good audience that truly gets into seeing great classic film. I've been in NYC since fall of 2009, and the Film Forum has been the best discovery I've made in that entire time!

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Sorry to hear about your experience Usually, the American Cinematheque is pretty good about disclosing things like print quality on their website. I remember a while back when they screened Superman II, but stated fairly clearly on the site that the only print available was a little faded. It's a shame to hear they dropped the ball with this one: maybe they just didn't get the print in time, and the studio didn't let them know what shape it was in.


Panned-and-scanned?! Was it a print made for television or something? Why would the studio be sending that out for theatrical showings?


By the way, where did you park? I usually park at Hollywood & Highland; it's a little bit of a walk, but they validate at the theater, and it's $2 for 4 hours (or at least it still was a few months ago).

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Originally Posted by Bryan Tuck

Panned-and-scanned?! Was it a print made for television or something? Why would the studio be sending that out for theatrical showings?

I'm just taking a wild guess, but back in the day when schools and other educational institutions would rent 16 or 35mm prints, the option of panned and scanned or anamorphic prints would be made available by the studios. I know this because I had the opportunity to peruse several of the catalogues when I was in school. It was mostly 16mm prints that would be P/S. It is possible that this was the print the studio sent out w/o bothering to check if it was suitable for the occasion.


On a side note, even an upscaled Blu-ray on a 4K projector would look pretty decent compared to even a 35mm release print, which would be as many as four generations removed from the OCN.

 

[benbess]

Probably the projected blu-ray would have looked pretty good.

But I'm so sorry about your suffering and loss of money. As you say, maybe it'll feel funny in time, but for now I hope you'll pop in a movie. I humbly suggest Charlie Chaplin, Brazil, or some comedy that makes you laugh...

 

[Professor Echo]

Of course, it's not as a big of a deal as I am probably making it out to be, but I've been burned before by this venue and organization over the years, especially with regards to not revealing major flaws in the presentation until one has already arrived at the theater and purchased a ticket. That just seems like such a slimy move to me, more or less betting that once you have come all that way and are ensconced in your seat, you won't bother about a refund and will just accept whatever they present. For someone who has spent the last 25 years patronizing screenings at other L.A. venues, e.g. LACMA, UCLA, even the NEW BEVERLY, all of which are run with the professionalism that Josh posted about the Film Forum in NYC, I have always looked at the Cinematheque as a poor relation. I have been attending their screenings from the very start (when they were still at the DGA), but have avoided them in recent years. Maybe they've gotten better and this was just an unfortunate echo of my disconcerting past with them, but there was no mention on the web site saying the previously stated "35mm" presentation had been changed nor any signage anywhere outside the theater warning prospective customers about the change.


And in the interests of full disclosure, I have had business dealings with the execs at the company over the years and have consistently found the entire enterprise to be poorly managed and maintained. When the people who ran the 3D Fest took over the theater operations for their festival, it was like night and day. But lest I paint this door too black, I hasten to add that I have also attended many good series and seen a number of great films in solid presentations at the Egyptian and under the Cinematheque banner, so it's not as cut and dried as my rants may indicate. But given the choice, I would much rather take my business elsewhere.


(And quite frankly, I don't care how good the Blu Ray would have looked, it wouldn't be worth $11.00 to me when I could own the same thing and watch it at home. Digital projectors are fine and presentations on them often look great, but I paid to see a FILM, not a video. The whole point of the evening was to watch a good old fashioned epic MOVIE on celluloid and projected on a big screen).


Bryan and Ben, thank you for you sympathy. I was still in the mood for an Easter movie, as I am every year at this time, but having my plans thwarted and not yet owning the Blu of KING OF KINGS, I thought I would watch my Blu of THE ROBE. But my heathen girlfriend, LOL, decided she would rather watch TWILIGHT for the infinity and beyond time, so I waited until she went to sleep and then decided I wasn't in the mood for THE ROBE after all. I thought about the silent DeMille KING OF KINGS, but didn't really want to see a passion play filmed in California. At which point I threw out all those ideas and changed gears a bit with an idea to watch a film I have never seen, Michael Curtiz' FRANCIS OF ASSISI. I figured it would at least be about faith and spirituality and honor the holiday somewhat. But ten minutes into it, I changed my mind once again and dug out my copy of THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, which I have always enjoyed and did again. And while it may not seem on the surface to carry such an inspiration and didn't make me laugh, as per Ben's great suggestions, it did put me in a good mood, one which I hope will sustain me as I pay my parking ticket tomorrow.

 

[benbess]

Last Temptation is a good choice. I saw that movie back in 1988, and I don't want to get into any of the controversial arguments about it, but it was interesting to me that one of my best friends from HS was protesting peacefully right next to me as I walked into the theater. We remained friends, although in the last decade I've lost touch. I thought Last was a good film and that the director really believed in the topic. I haven't seen it since, but I'm pretty sure I'd pick it over the 61 Kings. In Last I really enjoyed David Bowie's portrayal of Pilate. His expression of sad defeatism is well done imho. He's my favorite Pilate.

 

[GMpasqua]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

Well, first off, you are to be congradulated for making the choice to view the film in the theater!


second - this is so unacceptable - The Egyptian Theater usually shows first rate prints, once in a while something comes along that isn't up to standard - but this is unacceptable - a 16mm pan and scan red print? and then using the blu-ray? of an Easter themed film and on Easter Sunday? What happened to the Egyptain? Whoever booked this film should be dismissed.


I haven't been to a screening there in over a year, but have they really sunk that low? Considering Warner Bros just released the film on Blu-ray - WB usually strikes a new print. But even so, they couldn't find a 35MM print???????


In the past when the Egyptian screens a film they know will be 16mm or faded to pink they will note it on their website (some times they will not even charge admission). This is a crime - how many people faced the traffic and paid to park to be subject to watching a blu-ray in a theater and paying $11.00 for the ticket???

Well at least the "King of Kings" blu-ray is on sale at Amazon $12.99 (I will wait for the evenutal $9.49 price drop as was the case with "Quo Vados" and many other WB catalog titles not released in the Digibook format


Than again, the screening of "The Ten Commandments" last fall was exceptional , so many people couldn't believe how good it looked!.

 

[Scott Calvert]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg
I didn't expect to see a 70mm print, but I figured even a 35mm print of the restoration would be spectacular on the big screen. (Since that's a movie that's not yet on Blu-ray, that made it easier for me to decide to go even with limited resources, and believe me, I understand where you're coming from there.) To my utter dismay, when the movie started -- it was obvious they were showing the DVD (and not even the more recent, 16x9 enhanced version... they were actually showing the 4x3 letterboxed version zoomed in). It looked terrible, no refund was offered, and they even turned up the house lights five minutes before the movie ended.

DVD, really???? Did anyone complain or demand a refund? That is completely unacceptable! It even seems like it would be some kind of copyright violation. I would have torn into the manager something awful.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

Of course, it's not as a big of a deal as I am probably making it out to be, but I've been burned before by this venue and organization over the years, especially with regards to not revealing major flaws in the presentation until one has already arrived at the theater and purchased a ticket. That just seems like such a slimy move to me, more or less betting that once you have come all that way and are ensconced in your seat, you won't bother about a refund and will just accept whatever they present. For someone who has spent the last 25 years patronizing screenings at other L.A. venues, e.g. LACMA, UCLA, even the NEW BEVERLY, all of which are run with the professionalism that Josh posted about the Film Forum in NYC, I have always looked at the Cinematheque as a poor relation.

At least the theater made the decision to go out and get the Blu-ray to show in its proper aspect ratio, instead of showing the panned-and-scanned print. I wonder if the print just didn't show up until it was too late to do anything about it - for places that don't show a lot of classics, in other words where the schedule hasn't been programmed months ahead of time based on the theater's research of available materials when putting together a series, I can see how that kind of thing can happen. Doesn't make it any better, of course, but in this case I might be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt - while still in general wanting to avoid them for the reasons you stated. Sometimes when a theater or a company does things poorly or cuts corners frequently, they've used up all the good will that might have been in place if this had been the first time something like this had happened. A genuine mistake coming after a series of intentional cut-corners is less forgivable than a genuine mistake at a place where such things rarely happen.


I would completely share your frustration, I agree completely about wanting to see old films actually shown on film. It doesn't bother me to see a brand new film being show digitally; these days, most films are edited and timed digitally anyway, so seeing a digital "print" of it is in a way closer to how the filmmakers finished it than 35mm would. It doesn't seem weird to me to catch the latest Harry Potter in digital projection, and if it's a project like Tron Legacy that was shot on digital to begin with, it seems the logical way to go. But if it was shot on film and released at a time where film projection was the only presentation standard, that's how I want to see it. Some people might think it's weird, but I'm completely with you in that if it's just a digital presentation (usually of the same master that was used for the Blu-ray I might already own), it doesn't seem worth going out to see.


I was lucky enough to attend a members-only breakfast at the Film Forum with the directors/programmers of the theater. Even though the three screen movie house dedicates only one of their screens full time to classics (the other two screens are used for new indie/foreign/documentary releases), most of the audience was interested in hearing about the classics. From what Bruce Goldstein, the guy who programs their classic screen, was saying, when he puts together a series or the quarterly calendar, the planning at minimum goes back months, sometimes even years. If he wants to do a restrospective on a certain star or filmmaker and some of the films aren't currently available with actual prints, he'll hold off on doing that subject until he can do it properly. I find it admirable, but it seems like something that very few places would be willing to do. I also wasn't aware that the Film Forum is one of the leading "customers" for classic 35mm prints - they said that studios will often strike a new print especially for them (not so unbelievable considering how far in advance most things are programmed), and then it's that new print that then becomes the one put out in circulation. So because of the Film Forum in NYC, a new print might then be available to theaters elsewhere in the country after its screening there, which is really great if you think about it. Currently, they're doing a W.C. Fields retrospective, and a lot of the films are owned by Universal (many were originally Paramount productions that Uni's had the rights to for decades). Remember a few years ago there was a fire in one of the storage warehouses on the Universal lot and a lot of their print library had burned up? Because of the Film Forum's interest in those titles, and because the existing release prints had been destroyed, new prints were struck for a lot of those films, and that means that now there are brand new prints available to other theaters that might want to show them, but wouldn't have otherwise had the clout to get them made. In an era where a lot of moviegoing has gone digital, I find that to be very heartening.

(Is it weird that sometimes I recognize specific prints? I've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey projected many, many times. When they did the rerelease in the year 2001 in 70mm, they had only two new prints struck, and one of them is in better condition than the other after having gone through the rounds - I can tell which one I'm seeing. I've also seen the same 35mm reduction print in different states. It's kind of fun sitting there and seeing a certain type of scratch on the print, dirt, a frame missing, whatever, and realizing that I'm seeing the exact same copy I might have seen a year earlier in a different city.)


One concluding thought: as a rule, any theater showing classic films, particular theaters doing it more as a one-off than as a regular practice, should include in their listings what source they're using. If it's not listed, at the least, you should be able to call the theater and get a straight answer. I passed up on a screening of "The Shining" at the IFC Center because they were showing a digital print, and then ended up seeing it a couple weeks later at the Landmark Sunshine because they had an actual 35mm print going.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

I love the Egyptian. I've seen far more great prints there than bad. The recent Indiana Jones trilogy showing was a disgrace, but as I've said, I've had way more positive experiences there than negative. And in the case of King of Kings I admire them for going the extra mile and presenting something more pleasing than what they were provided. The ideal of course would be a great looking print, but they had the opposite, so they took action. The Egyptian has excellent digital projection and the sound is first rate there too, so this sounds like a great way to see the movie under the circumstances. I'm a proud member of the American Cinematheque and I look forward to going there many more times.

 

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by Neil S. Bulk

The ideal of course would be a great looking print, but they had the opposite, so they took action.

Ideally, they could have posted on their web site and had notifications outside the theater stating that they would not be showing the original print as advertised. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt that there wasn't time to post it on the site and let's extend an even more generous benefit of the doubt in near impossibly assuming they didn't have any proper materials or personnel to alert people at site before they purchased their tickets. Either way, the IDEAL "action" they should have taken would have been to apologize, offer complete refunds to anyone who wanted them and show the Blu Ray for free to anyone who wished to stay.


That's going the EXTRA MILE. Not going to Fry's and buying the Blu Ray in a panic for fear that there would even be more refund demands if they showed the bad print they got. Sorry, but I don't see their efforts as altruistically as you do, but we can agree to disagree and move on.

 

[JohnMor]

That's why I stopped supporting and attending the Cinemateque. I no longer attend the New Beverly either as too many times I've shown up and been subjected to a 16mm print when NOTHING said so on the calendar or in the paper. The quality of retrospective screenings in L.A. has reached really sad lows. Even saw an atrocious print of The Exorcist at AMPAS when Friedkin rightly criticized the Academy AND Warners for their failure to supply a better one. The whole theatergoing experience is ruined with sub-par prints. And for people who have never seen the film before, it can totally affect their view of the film. Unless they specifiy NEW 35mm (or 70mm) print, or the film is ultra-rare, I won't waste hard-earned my money anymore for some overly romantic notion that the "experience" is somehow better in a theater with a beat-up old faded or miscolored print than with a glorious blu-ray. It simply isn't. (Of course, a new print is entirely different story!)

 

[Professor Echo]

I agree with you, John.


As someone who grew up going to theaters at least once a week and who was supporting revival cinemas when I was just a kid in the early 70's, not to mention all the screening rooms I designed for film projection and subsequently programmed, I never thought I would seriously abandon the theatrical experience in favor of a home theater. But I have to admit that in the past few years going to a theater has become less and less attractive for a number of reasons. When Blu Ray came about, I suddenly realized that you could immerse yourself in a film at home like never before. Is it the same? No. But that being an issue seems to diminish with each new technological innovation; in other words it has become a viable alternative that is fast becoming all on its own a new and fresh experience in cinephiling.


But I'm curious about your problems at the New Bev, since I haven't seen a 16mm print there in many a moon. However, I also haven't patronized them much in recent years beyond the Grindhouse screenings, which have all been 35mm on the nights I went. I've seen plenty of bad prints there, LOL, but somehow, given the venue and its history, that can sometimes be part of the charm. I think they do a good job overall and it has improved since Tarentino bought the building and renovated the space. I like to support them as they are a throwback to the repertory and revival houses that once flourished in big cities all across the country.

 

[MatthewA]

Originally Posted by JohnMor

That's why I stopped supporting and attending the Cinemateque. I no longer attend the New Beverly either as too many times I've shown up and been subjected to a 16mm print when NOTHING said so on the calendar or in the paper. The quality of retrospective screenings in L.A. has reached really sad lows. Even saw an atrocious print of The Exorcist at AMPAS when Friedkin rightly criticized the Academy AND Warners for their failure to supply a better one. The whole theatergoing experience is ruined with sub-par prints. And for people who have never seen the film before, it can totally affect their view of the film. Unless they specifiy NEW 35mm (or 70mm) print, or the film is ultra-rare, I won't waste hard-earned my money anymore for some overly romantic notion that the "experience" is somehow better in a theater with a beat-up old faded or miscolored print than with a glorious blu-ray. It simply isn't. (Of course, a new print is entirely different story!)

I used to try and make it out there as much as I could when my grandparents lived in the San Fernando Valley. I got to see a nitrate Technicolor print of The Red Shoes. After the screening, I even (all too briefly) met Leonard Maltin! The only times I've been to the Egyptian I've been very happy, but that was years ago. It seems things have changed.


But at least in LA you get something regularly. This summer I'll be moving to the Central Coast because of my boyfriend's job. As far as I know, the closest I'll be to a regular repertory series is in San Francisco, which has the Castro Theatre. I have relatives in the Bay Area, so if we have the time and money and there's something I want to see then maybe we'll hop on the BART and go to the movies! I went to the Castro this summer while visiting my grandparents in Oakland. I went there to see Mildred Pierce (I sat next to the son of the one-time president of the LA chapter of the Joan Crawford Fan Club) and Leave Her to Heaven, and I thought the prints were good. I was surprised Heaven had a decent print because I've heard horror stories about Criterion Pictures, who does Fox's rep work, and of course the sad fate of Fox's nitrate 3-strip Technicolor negatives.


Here we have two theaters that do semi-regular repertory: The Carolina and The Varsity. The Carolina is the better of the two in terms of its architecture, its size, and the depth of its selection. They also have the capacity to show full-frame prints of Academy Ratio films properly; the Varsity does not (not even for Citizen Kane or Gone with the Wind; I walked out of Kane with visions of Gregg Toland breaking new speed records in his grave, for Wind I only stayed because my boyfriend had never seen it; he missed 25% of the film yet he still loved it). The Varsity is a second-run theater with much cheaper admission prices and more mainstream films. Both seek out prints, but I have been to screenings at the Varsity where they had to resort to a DVD. Last year I must have seen two dozen movies there between the two of them, making up about 90% of my theater attendance in 2010. I saw everything from The Graduate to The Third Man to The Muppet Movie. The owner of the Varsity told me he had to raise prices from $3 to $4 because of shipping costs, and I imagine this will only get worse as the price of oil goes up.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I was only at the New Bev once, during the summer of 2000 when I briefly lived out there for a course I was enrolled at -- it was a double feature with Dr. Strangelove and Lolita, and while the prints weren't brand new, they were still pretty darn good looking. I was even impressed that they had the score from Lolita playing over the speakers during the break between the two films. That little bit of extra work can go a long way with me. Put someone in the mood to see the movie before it shows, make them feel like the people running the place are just as excited about the movie being shown as the audience, and people will walk away with good memories.


Repertory/revival houses are kind of in a no-win situation here, which is really unfortunate but not entirely their fault. It's rare that a place has the kind of clout that a Film Forum-type venue does, and studios don't make significant money from a one-off showing of a classic - the cost of making a new print is more than what a single midnight showing or special holiday showing can bring in, and even for the most popular movies of all time, by and large the size of the audience willing to pay to see something like that on the big screen seems to be getting smaller all the time. And then when you have great quality Blu-rays at home, it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy - the audience feels they're going to be paying a premium for something not as good as what they can get at home, so why bother coming out - and then that doesn't give any motivation to studios or theaters to do better.


I don't expect a brand new print at most repertory screenings - I may be in the minority, but I can deal with some minor scratches and imperfections. That's the nature of film as opposed to digital, that each time you play a print, it's going to be a slightly different experience. If you can guarantee me a good crowd that cares about the film, where there's going to be that energy in the room, and can promise me a screen larger than a shoebox, I'll gladly put up with some scratches or dirt on the print. For me, it's analogous to seeing a band live vs. listening to the album at home - the album is going to be the same every time, and as the "version of record" if you will (pun not intended), I want that to be as good as it can be since that's what I'm going to be exposed to the most. But when you see a band live, if they miss a note or make a mistake, it's all part of the show and it's OK because you're not seeing a recording, you're seeing something happening live right in front of your eyes and sharing that with a whole bunch of people. So, in similar fashion, I'll accept some print flaws (as long as it's not a disaster, of course) because the experience of seeing an actual print has a certain magic to me. But, for a classic film, seeing a digitally projected version or watching a Blu-ray thrown up on the big screen seems almost as pointless as going to a concert arena to watch an artist lip sync.

 

[JohnMor]

Josh, I totally agree. And I'm not talking about a few scratches. I'm talking about horrible prints. I think we all agree the preferred way to see a film is projected in a theatre. It's just that my days of accepting anything less than very good prints are long gone. I just watched Criterion's gorgeous blu ray of Sweet Smell of Success over the weekend, and I wouldn't trade that for a theatrical screening except for a newly struck 35mm print or one in excellent condition. Why settle for a sub-par visual/aural experience if you don't have to?

I don't mean to disparage the New Beverly; I'm just not into 16mm prints at all. And it's been more my luck that what I went to see there was 16mm. I do see items on their calendar listed as "new 35mm print," etc. I have no doubt they love cinema. Anyway, as you said, it's a tough business; especially these days and my heart goes out to the theater owners. But, sadly, I won't be spending too much of my money at revival houses anymore unless I'm certain of the print, or the film's extremely rare.


Matthew, I love the central coast, so I envy you, even if there are no revival houses in the immediate vicinity.