Astor Plaza ruined the APOC NOW REDUX print! (1 Viewer)

[Matt_Stevens]

I can't believe it even now. I saw APOC NOW at the Astor Plaza on Saturday (2:20 showing) and the experience was ruined because the entire print had 3 scratches from start to finish. At first, I thought that just the initial reel was bad, but then when reel 2 started, my heart sank.
The scratches were all in the exact same spot. One on the right and two of centered to he left. They were so utterly distracting that neither I, my girlfriend or our friends could enjoy the film. It was a complete waste of out time and money.
After the show I politely asked for a manager and wondered why this happened. He said the print was shipped that way. That is an absolute lie. #1. NY critics would have mentioned this, as they saw the film there. #2. Reviews from people online that saw the film would have mentioned this. #3. If the print was shipped that way, they would have immediately contacted Miramax about it.
What a disgrace. For months I have droolingly looked forward to this experience, only to have it ruined. I do wonder how the hell they could scratch all the reels in the same spot. A former projectionist, who I talked with after the show, said most likely the Astor Plaza has not been cleaning their projector and that the entire run was scratched during a showing.
How the heck do we let Coppola know about this?
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www.deceptions.net/superman

 

[Peter Kline]

Matt,
Francis Coppola has a website:
www.zoetrope.com
The only eMail address I could find there was:
[email protected].
Perhaps that will get you a response.
Good luck,
Peter
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[Edited last by Peter Kline on August 13, 2001 at 10:56 AM]

 

[Patrick_S]

That is a shame that your movie experienced was ruined by a bad print.
I wonder, were they the first theater to receive the print from the distributor? I would guess that they were since the movie just opened.
If they were you have to laugh at the manager's response. It's obvious that the manager was worried that you were going to ask for a refund.
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[Matt_Stevens]

I went with my girlfriend (who saw it back when it was reelased as a child of 8 or 9 and was so looking forward to this) and many friends and family and we were all very upset at having to go through the trouble and expense of getting to NYC, only to be shown a damaged print. This was probably one of the biggest theatrical disappointments I have ever had to endure.
By the way, the Plantation sequence really stops the film dead. We all hated it. It was like a scene from another movie.
The sound is the Astor Plaza was top noth, of course. If the picture wasn't screwed up, the sound would have sucked. It's so hard to get them both right.
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www.deceptions.net/superman

 

[John Stockton]

I caught this last week in Los Angeles at the Century Plaza. There were no scratches but there was a constant flicker on the top edge of the picture which was very distracting during the night scenes. The sound however was top notch thanks to the awesome HPS-4000 sound system.
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[Greg_M]

I went to see the film at Century Plaza also, but I found the lights on the sides of the theater walls to be distracting - they reminded me of Christmas in Rockefeller Center. i found I was concentrating more on the lights than the film image which looked - ok. The theater manager explained the lights needed to be that bright for saftey reasons, too bad. But he was very nice and refunded my money, even the parking rate was reduced - thank you! - the correct way to handle a distracting situation.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

This was definitely caused by someone mis-threading the projector- they probably missed a roller on the platter so the film was dragged across a surface it shouldn't have been. A dirty projector won't scratch film unless it's extremely filthy, but films can get dirty if the projector isn't cleaned between every show which there's usually time to do.
It's incompetence like this which is going to make the new digital projection systems seem better than film at a lot of theaters, even if they really aren't as good as film done right.

 

[Chris Dugger]

And to also add insult to injury....
Astor Plaza is a UNION house.
Dugger

 

[Rich Malloy]

quote: There were no scratches but there was a constant flicker on the top edge of the picture which was very distracting during the night scenes.[/quote]
Running from top center to the right border, getting worse towards the edge? That was on the print I saw, too.
I made my comments in the other thread, but IMO the new cut is no improvement.
[Edited last by Al Brown on August 14, 2001 at 10:04 AM]

 

[John A. Gordon]

Just wondering, did you ever think of leaving the theater, complain, and ask for you money back? Of the last 400 movies I've seen in the theater in the last 5 years, I've only walked out once because of a scratched print (emulision side if you must know). The theater had no problem refunding me the money.
FYI. I saw ANR at the Century Plaza in LA as well, but it is playing in auditorium #1, which is THX not the HPS-4000. The dye-trasfer print looked good. As for the "constant flicker" at the top edge of the film, much of that was to edit frame lines visble on the tight framing.
Other than that and the over emphasised mid bass, the presentation was pretty good.

 

[Phil L]

I saw ANR at the Astor Plaza on opening day. There were no scratches on the print.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Just wondering, did you ever think of leaving the theater, complain, and ask for you money back?

After the second reel started, that is exactly what both I and my girl wanted to do, but we were outvoted by our friends, who just couldn't fathom that the entire print was damaged. By the time they agreed it was, it was too late and they sad they'd rather just finish the film.
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www.deceptions.net/superman

 

[John Stockton]

FYI. I saw ANR at the Century Plaza in LA as well, but it is playing in auditorium #1, which is THX not the HPS-4000.

ANR opened in theatre #2 (HPS-4000) on Aug 3rd and was moved over to theatre #1 (THX) on Aug 10th.
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