Monday, November 4, 2013

Ender's Game: An IMAX Experience

Well, this is a surprise.  I saw Ender's Game on Friday, here it is Monday, and various parties are saying that, with a $25 million opening, it is a bomb already!

The movie gods giveth, and the movie gods taketh away.

I was quite dubious about Ender's Game going in: a mini-major trying to launch a new franchise, who spent over $100 million to make it, from a "cult" science fiction novel by Mr. Notoriously Picky Writer who is on as a producer (I guess being a producer makes him too busy to write his own novels anymore), a director I had never heard of, and a marketing campaign which didn't really tell you squat about what the film was about.

With all of this going for it, how could it miss?

But, after possibly the lamest narrated opening exposition ever, explaining the attack on Earth by an alien species (is there any other kind?), the film picked up considerably, and worked for me. Worked not without missteps, but it exhibited a strange combination of elements until it became its very own movie by the end.

"Dish here Batt'l School ain't big enuff for us bot - see?"
Certainly, Orson Scott Card's notion of training young video-gaming-addicted kids to fight our future battles for us against alien invaders, followed classic sci-fi practice: Find a trend in human behavior that you are not crazy about, and follow it to its furthest extent. From the perspective of 1985, this was eerily prescient. But from the perspective of 2013, it seems like a pandering attempt to capture back the Hogwart's crowd.

There are many interesting and new things going on in Gavin Hood's film, but some of them are undermined in strange ways: while I liked the family dynamic at the beginning, their video wall was straight out of the original Total Recall (1990). It was interesting to see all of the dynamics of the nameless zero-gravity laser-shooting game, but it had an annoying resemblance to the Quiddich game in the Harry Potter novels and films - and just as impossible for non-coms to understand. There was a strange pleasure in watching as a central character someone as young as Ender Wiggin, but the tired old method of having all the grown-up supervisors muttering "he's the one" had me shaking my head - we have seen much of this before.

So I think the filmmaker's had a tough proposition: tell the story contained in the first of the Ender novels, while trying to avoid many of what have by now become clichés in this genre. But the film impressed me by being able to take me there anyway, despite some of these objections which popped out from time to time.

Futurist films have better luck with me when they ground themselves in Earth's reality and history. At least Gravity (2013) takes place within the space program that we currently have, which makes it more compelling for me. Here, the attack on Earth by the Formics was made grim by having our forces battle the advanced aliens with fighter planes which closely resemble those we have today.  But after that, we have to project ourselves into an assembly of sometimes hard to swallow concepts, such as an international effort to protect Earth from future alien attacks and the ridiculously expensive Battle School to train the young'ns to do what the Old Farts can't.

But to place this defense in the hands of a rigorously trained super child - well THAT'S new.  But in order for a film such as this to work properly, there is a certain amount of fantasy-fulfillment that has to go on.  I don't know anyone who wants to be a hyper-computerized battle commander - do you? Throughout this film, there is really no one to cling to, although Viola Davis' character of Gwen Anderson might have supplied it if she had not been pushed out of the way.

Although I didn't really understand the object of the zero-gravity game, once Ender enters into the proceedings, his super-defensive impulses are depicted in the most gloriously liberating scene of gunplay since Kate Beckinsale shot herself a circular escape hatch in Underworld (2003). Ender has so much fun shooting and blasting people in this mock-battle that he is twirled about for us with both arms extended, firing away, and laughing in delight.  The filmmakers must have considered this an epiphany for Ender, and the high point of the film, because the musical score reaches its absolute zenith here. As David Byrne once observed, "People look silly when they are in ecstasy." If Ender is half-warrior and half empath, it is easy to see which half the filmmaker's choose to glorify so strongly.  The sound system at the Chinese has no ability to reproduce this overloud orchestra with sound effects with anything like fidelity.  I am sure it sounded great at Todd-AO, but here, at these levels, it's pretty shredded.

I enjoyed most of the performances, despite the underwriting of most of them.  The whole thing is very stylized and controlled.  There are no mistakes.  They show you only the things they want you to see.  No one forgets their car keys.  Asa Butterfield as Ender, is quite a performer, pulling out all the stops when he discovers that the Top Brass has treated him pretty much the same way as all the bullies in Battle School did. Harrison Ford rumbled his way through, but I was glad that his part was not just a walk on.  In order to subject Our Hero to the most humiliating hazing, we are introduced to the most extreme caricature of personal militarism in Bonzo Madrid, played here by Moisés Arias, who must be channeling Eddie Cantor's evil twin.  The film's precis of "The more you hate your enemy, the more you love them" seems sort of crazy, but gets its first demonstration after Bonzo decides to attack Ender at his most vulnerable: while taking a shower. Ender lashes out, and Bonzo falls, cracking his head open.

Ender's personality causes him to be extremely remorseful over this, which is kind of puzzling.  We hated Bonzo enough when he was attacking us, but now that he has suffered a cracked dome because of a flaw in his balance, we are suddenly all choked up?  Ender is the kind of person you would want as a benevolent dictator, but as we all know, being a dictator robs you of your humanity and your intellect.  Being a super-militarist robs of you of some of your humanity also. Ender's sympathy for the Formics is indeed uncharacteristic of someone with a military mindset, and this duality is where the film either captures you, or it looses you. I am not sure where it left me. When this film ends, it ENDS.

What I find interesting when I see films like this and others, like Prometheus (2012), is that these films reflect an interest we have in interplanetary exploration along with knowledge of the sciences, while at the same time, these very things are hideously low on our national or international agendas. The oft-encountered futurist vision of all the nations pulling together to Save Earth from Whatever, always strikes me as hopelessly idealistic, given our reactions to Earth's current problems.  But at least here, fighting an alien invasion, Earth's loss of 40 million people is supposedly enough of a hit to bind all the nations together to form a common defense.

So who knows?  I liked the strategy of leaving the depiction of the Formics to the end, which, without giving away the store, Our Hero Ender decides to empathize with, allowing the film to throw itself into a whole new direction.  I hope that they get to make some more of these films.

Just for the record, the Chinese was showing this film with the sidewall curtains closed, and no masking top and bottom.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Gravity: An IMAX 3D Experience

I will join the chorus of approval for Gravity, a film which has a real buzz going for it. "Immersion" is a word you hear a lot around these IMAX / 3D films, and while that may be the new aesthetique du jour—take people someplace, anyplace—Gravity somehow has managed to be something that can only be communicated in the film form. How it got ground through two studios, various casts, and still found its singular greatness has to be attributable to the iron-clad will of director and co-scenarist Alphonso Cuarón.

The story of this film is so slight, that to speak about it at all almost requires giving the whole thing away, but Cuarón has fashioned a film so different from what we normally encounter at the movies today, a film which is both moderate in tempo and incredibly involving, allowing the viewer plenty of time and, uhh, space, to philosophically react to the events depicted.

And how this is done is especially interesting. I am sure that the first shot of Gravity will go down in history as one of film's most stunning achievements (if you exclude the opening of Robert Zemeckis' Contact [1997]). In what must be at least a 15 minute shot from on high looking down on Earth, all the players and the instruments and vehicles they are working on whirl into view. It is such an amazing ballet of images, performance, exposition, and staging, that it could only be accomplished by a director who has a genius for scene-setting.

I found it a very effective method to get all the techno-wonks (of whom a picture with a space theme would surely attract), to forget about "how did they do that?"; the shot goes on for so long that eventually, you find yourself forgetting all about how it must have been filmed, and when you are able to forget about how they did it, then you are able to actually be out there in space with the characters.

This is only the beginning.
During this long spacewalk outside the space shuttle Explorer, we are introduced to Sandra Bullock's character, Stone, who is trying to diagnose a troublesome faulty circuit board on the Hubble Space Telescope, while Clooney's character, Mission Commander Kowalski, is sort of skylarking around, assisted by a jetpack. They are both talking to Mission Control in that easy manner employed by people who must be very clear about what they say.

This tranquil atmosphere is broken when Mission Control informs them that debris from a detonated satellite is heading their way. And this is where I find that Cuarón's command of this film hits the ceiling - without really altering his staging technique of the first shot, the two astronauts find themselves having to pack it in, the telescope and the Explorer are destroyed, and our pair (focusing on Stone, who has no jetpack) are cast adrift in the immensity of space. The way that this sequence of events is depicted, with all of these huge objects whirling about the screen and exploding in silence is just stunningly viceral. Totally unique. And this is only the beginning.  There's more - lots more.

The space suits worn by both Bullock and Clooney somehow allow us to see them as people without our usual associations with them as movie stars. After Clooney does one of the most touching scenes I have ever seen him do, Bullock manages to get into the International Space Station, and it is here, after Stone has become a real person to us, we can really feel her release when she pulls off her space suit inside the station. We are with her as she curls into a fetal ball.

To say the this picture is a triumph for Sandra Bullock is something of an understatement. I am not sure she holds the picture together the same way Garland does in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but she comes close.  Unlike the actors in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Cuarón wisely never allows the technical stuff to overtake Bullock, who is allowed to carry the picture. She even manages to hurdle over that bugaboo of all performers who are in a film where they are lost and on their own: talking to themselves. All filmmakers resort to this, but only really gifted actors can pull it off.

I am somewhat at a loss as to how to explain how the rest of the picture effected me. I will try. I found the whole thing done in a style that was for me the most elegant way of telling the story, revealing the characters, and showing the settings. While at the same time, I found my mind free to wander; not over  "How did they do THAT?" but over "how do I react when things go wrong?" or "Do I believe in an afterlife at all?" The room the picture has in it for the viewer to reflect, is what makes Gravity so much more than a mere sci-fi potboiler.

When you read a novel, your mind fills in the pictures, and this has always been literature's strength. In Gravity, there are actors, pictures, and sounds, but there is also you, your own mind. You are allowed to speculate, if you will, on your own life. I tell you, I had a very strange feeling upon re-entering my car down in the dim parking garage after the film. . .

Gravity reminds me of the great films where everything is working together on the same high level. Script, performance -  the scale of the piece, which contrasts the two characters with the huge environment they are in - the music, all of it is contributing to this theatrical effect that you can't get on a stage or in a book, or on television or a video game. It gracefully pulls you in, and you stay there.  It's incredible.

In more mundane matters, the Chinese is running this film on their 87 foot wide IMAX screen with no masking top and bottom.  Having studied the situation carefully, I am pleased to report that the screen is much more deeply curved than what was originally proposed in the plans presented to the public prior to the remodel. Screen curvature is measured by the "rise", which is the distance between the "chord" (a line drawn between the outer edges of the screen), and the center of the screen. At the Chinese, the "rise" is 9 feet, and thus, the aspect ratio of this space is 1:9.66, which is just slightly shallower than the original short-throw CinemaScope specs (usually somewhere around 1:9, 1:8). so the new IMAX screen is in approximately the same place with the same curvature as the older screen we all loved so much.

Gravity is the first modern film with a more-or-less conventional score to play the IMAX'ed Chinese, and I have to say that the Achilles heel of most theatre sound systems is present here: really thin sounding high strings.  High strings don't sound like that, fellahs.  The rest of the sound range thunders along most agreeably, with the sub-woofers doing a very creditable job of vibrating everyone without that false rattle that sounds so much like the old Sensurround speakers from Earthquake (1974). . . But massed strings, choirs, and pianos - tough things to reproduce, all. The Chinese is running Gravity with the sidewall curtains open throughout.

I attended the first show, hastily added on at 9:30 AM.  I was hungry, so I ordered a hot dog. The attendant said that the dogs were not ready, but that she would bring one to me when they were done.  She offered to walk me to my seat to find out where I was sitting, but I just gave her my seat number, and she brought it right in on a tray with condiment packets - very nice.

Anyway, Gravity is a great picture, and I hope it makes a lot of money, which hinges on whether people return to see it again.  I would.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Metallica: Through the Never: An IMAX 3D Experience

With Metallica: Through the Never: An IMAX 3D Experience, we have the very latest in vertical filmmaking: is it a film for the fans of the band or is it a film for everybody?

It is a difficult question to answer, and reviews of the film I have seen so far seem to take the tack of "If you like Metallica, you will love it, and if not. . . "  So I think that it is only fair to warn my readers that, before today, I doubt that I had ever heard a Metallica track.  I was sort of hoping that, somewhere along the way, a Metallica song had entered into the world-wide public's consciousness, and that I might say at some point in the film, "Ohh - I know THIS song," But that never happened.

During my long career as a film buff, I have sat through my share of rock concert films. But even as early as 1973's Yessongs, which clocked in at 76 minutes, had die-hard fans complaining that it was too long. The same must be said of 1976's Led Zeppelin's 137 minute The Song Remains the Same, which features a number of cut-aways from the arena action to give the proceedings some visual diversity.  Too long, everyone said. I have even seen 2008's Hanna Montana & Miley Ray Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert (I got a note from my psychiatrist).

Metallica, from what I have been able to glean, is a heavy metal band which enjoys doing things somewhat differently, and their approach (aside from making a person wonder "why now?"), is, in some respects laudable. The concert sequences, shot in two Canadian cities in August of 2012, certainly make me nostalgic. "Oh, for the good old days of arena rock concerts!"  The footage is very impressive.  There is a huge stage, covered with LEDs, allowing video images to be displayed on the entire surface of the stage, which is surrounded on all sides by screaming fans.  But this is only the beginning. In the classic manner of stagecraft, more and more is added to this seemingly simple stage. Coffin-shaped video display units descend from the ceiling (which must contain the band's amps and speakers; there are none on the stage, while the musicians are on radio feeds, allowing them to wander at will across the playing area, while the drummer Lars Ulrich, more-or-less is contained on a revolving drum platform in the center); these coffins display images of dead people, who are being subjected to an unspecified physical torture.

After that, scrims are dropped all around the stage to present video images of World War One era soldiers marching off to their doom, followed by a very effective laser light and sound collage, recreating an aerial bombardment.  It is admittedly something which must be seen and heard to be believed. The bombardment is followed by a heavy construction crew assembling a huge stone statue of the blind Goddess of Justice, who looks rather like something Frank Frazetta by way of R. Crumb might have designed: thick, curvy, blonde, with boobs out to HERE.  As the band sings about whatnot, it proves that the blind Goddess is not constructed too well, and comes crashing down, with large sections narrowly missing the drummer's platform with stagehands running about trying to control the damage.  It also is very effective and spectacular.

And here is the heart of the matter.  At the arena concert shows, bands used to have the money to be able to commission wild, imaginative flights of fancy like these.  It is an elemental part of show business to blow a lot of money trying to make the fans enjoy what is presented.  People love seeing our most precious commodity - money - being spent to thrill a bunch of head-bangers.  As an objective observer, I think this filmed concert captures the theatricality just fine.  But what it also captures is the Metallica tribe itself.  The people for whom images and symbols of death and harshness signify a certain attitude, an attitude large groups of people have about their time here on earth.

It is a tribe of somewhat older, somewhat whiter, somewhat more male composition.  Not too many minorities up there at the Metallica concerts in Canada.  If Metallica satisfies their aesthetics, who am I to argue with it?

The IMAX 'Scope screen is 87 feet wide - I measured it!
Eventually, the dramatic arc swings toward a finale or sorts, as the band's set is plagued by a total breakdown of the stage equipment, with large lighting units tilting precariously, spraying sparks all over, flames shooting up from the stage, and all the scenery and props going haywire.  It is giddy fun, and the director has included shots of the young and the recently nubile enjoying this funhouse-mirror breakdown.  A man runs across the stage on fire, and paramedics are seen.  Long faces in conference are shown.  The music stops, the stage goes dark, and the band sets up some work lights The lead singer, James Hetfield, tells the audience that this now resembles the garage they used to practice in.  But then, a curious thing happens. I was wondering how they were going to get out of this atmosphere of disaster, with stagehands seemingly fried or crushed or whatever. Hetfield tells the crowd that "a couple guys" have been injured, but that they are going to be OK, so after a pow-wow, the band decides to keep on playing.

I did not get it.  Obviously, the show breakdown was intentional.  Fun, like I said.  This tribe seems to enjoy the idea of a total breakdown in our institutions.  The "injury" of the stagehands was something that might have been intentional, and if so, it is a theatrical device to just overlook it.  But if the injuries were not intentional, why leave it in the film?  People have suggested that I not over think this film, and this is surely a wise course to follow, but even still, this sort of stuck out. I guess I would have appreciated knowing what happened and why. Which leads us to the second point.

Through the Never departs from normal concert film form through the use of a story, enacted by a young man named Dane DeHaan, who plays a minor roadie for the band. His name, according to the PR handout, is Trip.  Trip is sent on an errand to get some gas to a truck associated with the band, broken down on a freeway somewhere. In the typical "quest" sort of storyline, Trip gets hit by a car, is stared at by an injured black man (was he in the accident also?) who runs off like a loon, is confronted by a gang of rioters, culminating in a confrontation with the Super Bad-Ass Riding a Horse.  All of this material is woven through the concert footage, at first only between songs, but as we get further along, a more integrated style is used.  The action in the Trip story probably is mirrored by the material the band is performing, but I am not familiar enough with the Metallica songbook to be able to report reliably on this.

This storyline was an interesting gambit, and although it ends on a distressingly ambiguous note, Trip's story seemed as though it was an attempt to make the film a bit more "with it" for the younger crowd. Trip is the youngest person in the picture. But what really happened to the stagehands?? Perhaps I have been watching too much reality television.

Which brings us to the sound work.  I was told going in that this film was LOUD.  I was also told that since this is the first real new digital everything IMAX film to play the Chinese, that IMAX techs have set the volume levels to their satisfaction. They were even okay with leaving the curtains between the side wall pillars open throughout the film.  But I have to say that the film is nowhere near the decibel levels one is subjected to at the real thing. A band like Metallica can easily afford a way more massive sound system on tour than any movie theatre can spring for. I remember 1992's IMAX documentary Fires of Kuwait, which depicted firefighters dealing with oil well fires as Iraqi was withdrawing from Kuwait in 1991. At the premiere in LA, there were a few firefighters who fought in these infernos.  I asked one of them if the sound of the flames from the oil heads was loud enough, and he said "This isn't even one tenth of how loud those were."

So I guess there is room for improvement in movie sound after all!

Monday, September 16, 2013

The Wizard of OZ: An IMAX 3D Experience

At yesterday's World Premiere at the Chinese of The Wizard of OZ: An IMAX 3D Experience, Oz Historian John Fricke, during his opening remarks, asked for the audience to indicate how many people had never seen the film.  Only a slight number of hands clapped. Then he asked, "How many of you have never seen Oz in a theatre?"  A much greater round of applause this time. And this is a shame. The trip to Oz is so much more interesting in a theatre for so many reasons.

And this lies at the heart of this new version of
Oz, which has been prepared for us to enjoy.

Most of us encounter the film, one way or another, on television, replete with commercials, interruptions, and everything else. I know I did.  The Yuletide tradition.

But then, there is encountering the film the way it was originally designed to be seen: in a theatrical setting, probably on a screen about 18 feet (or less) tall. And now, at the Chinese anyway, you have the film playing on a screen 46 feet tall and 61 feet wide, watching it from what you might consider to be a theatre balcony with no orchestra floor and shoved closer and lower to the screen: you are right there in the middle of it.

This is what the IMAX format was designed to do. Every IMAX theatre duplicates this approach. The large screen, the cliff of seats, the surround sound — it admittedly is very good at providing the viewer with an immersive experience. In fact, Oz was preceded with one of those short clips telling you about how great IMAX is — computerized space-graphics of chromed letters zooming and bobbing around, accompanied by sound effects meant to suggest speed and impact. All very calculated, all very dimensional.

And then, a strange thing happens. A slightly sculpted Leo the Lion shows up, then the credits roll for
Oz, and then into the opening of the film in sepia Kansas, and you know, the whole things looks very natural. The Wizard of Oz in 3D doesn't look in the slightest bit weird or strange at all.  I suspect that, since stereo photography had been around for a while even in 1939, whoever guided this 3D conversion had the taste and good sense to say to themselves, "If they had shot Oz in 3D back then, what would it have looked like?"

And this is what they have done. Provided you do not have the usual objections to 3D films, and that you do not suffer from the eye fatigue which so many people complain of, the experience of looking into the world created in the film becomes a really rather normal thing - you accept it right off. For a fellow such as myself, who has seen the film countless times theatrically, this is good news!

So that is out of the way.  The 3D is subtle and not overdone at all. Not even when they have a perfectly good opportunity, such as the shot looking up into the sky at the conclusion of the twister sequence, where the bottom of the house hurtles toward the camera — nope, they refrain from making that a "lookit everybody - duck!" moment.  That was not the point of the shot originally, so they hew to the through line they have set for themselves: don't be obvious.

The bigger issue (if you will pardon the pun) is that of the IMAX presentation. Since seeing the '59 Ben-Hur and Giant at the Chinese during the TCM Festival earlier this year, I have been musing on the subject of our spacial relationships to a screen.  Watching Ben-Hur on such a large screen provides you with a completely different relationship with the events presented, which had been staged counting on the fact you would be seeing it on a large screen in a theatre.


The aim of Hollywood during the 1930s was to make the sharpest, brightest color picture it was possible to make in 35mm (they tried 70mm, but it did not impress audiences at the time). Part of the visual design of
Oz is that, when the Tin Man is dancing, they simply provide him with a background that contrasts with his figure, set the camera at a good angle, and let him do his thing.  Stagey a bit, but appropriate for the moment. It was possible to get away with simple camera coverage like this for two reasons: first, the players on camera were, for the most part, seasoned vaudevillians, trained to perform. One did not have to cut to a new angle every second in order to hide the performer's lack of technique. And secondly, the image was so gorgeous to look at: sharp, colorful, a joy to behold.

When
Oz is enlarged to 46 feet tall, and one views it from the previously unimagined perspective of the IMAX bank of seats, a curious thing occurs, and it has nothing to do with sharpness. It has to do with the intimacy that has been gained. It seems strange to admit that a bigger screen would make for more intimacy, but it is true. All the old Hollywood directors liked the 1:1.33 frame, because it was so easy to compose close, intimate group scenes in the ratio. It is not surprising that the original 70mm IMAX was in this shape. The eye may reflexively sweep horizontally (hence widescreen), but that 1:1.33 image just fills your eyeline completely.

So much easier to compose groups in 1.33.
And so, the effect of stepping into the picture is greater.  I have noticed that with stadium seating, one tends to be less aware of the audience. Oz, I think, benefits from this to a degree, because it is a fantastical story happening to a young girl; when we do make the leap into the film's world, it is on a very personal level. Perhaps it is because we have all been introduced to Oz as children that does it.  We do not need an audience to enjoy it.

There are two scenes in
Oz that never fail to grip me by the throat, and they both have been intensified by the IMAX 3D treatment.  The first is the sequence where Dorothy returns to the farm with the twister and her being knocked out.  Let's just say that the threatening image of the cyclone in the background, ripping up the land, as the camera stealthily tracks along as Dorothy tries to get the storm cellar open - it's terrifying.  The new sound work here is simply shattering.  Like the 3D effects, it is not over the top, but it is loud, scary and rumbly.

The second is where, on the balloon podium, in a very close shot, Dorothy must say goodbye to her three friends, culminating in the best example of underwriting there has ever been: "I'm going to miss you most of all."  Just reading these words almost makes me weep. It is a very close composition, very tender and sincerely played by all the actors.

These moments are made all the more real because of their newfound depth and closeness.

The IMAX 3D version of
Oz gives us another way to see this most-cherished film, and I think that the way that they have done it is classy, respectful, and true to the spirit of the thing.  Let's hope they roll it out to IMAX theatres at Christmastime from here on.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Waiting for "The Wizard"

In compiling a history of Grauman's Chinese and posting this material on the web at 

www.graumanschinese.org

I have done an old-fashioned thing: I have tried to keep my opinion out of the proceedings, confining myself to the facts as I have been able to discover them. However lately, especially since the installation of IMAX at the theatre, people have been asking, "What do you think of the IMAX conversion?" or "Do you think they will be able to get better pictures now?" down to "Do you think they will show THE WIZARD OF OZ in its original aspect ratio?"

Questions such as these have suggested that perhaps a place for my opinion on some of these issues might be in order, and so, I have started this blog, which I envision as a place for me to review the films which play the Chinese in the coming months and years.

My standards for films are simple. Tell me a story.  Tell me something about how you see life.  Keep it moving.  Don't pander.  I started going to the movies at the Chinese way back in late 1971, when Warner Bros. dug up and dusted off HOUSE OF WAX, presenting it in a 70mm stereophonic process known as StereoVision. I believe (and here is the opinion part), that the right and left images were placed side by side in the 70mm frame, allowing for the two images to remain in synch, while 70mm's magnetic sound reproduced what might have been the film's original stereo mix with great clarity.  I think the images passed through Polaroid filters, which were then viewed through Polaroid filter cardboard glasses.

http://www.graumanschinese.org/1971.html#house

HOUSE OF WAX might not be the perfect example of a film following my above stated dictates, but still, it told an unusual/macabre story, utilizing a new film technology (3 dimension photography), which gave the proceedings a decidedly unique atmosphere.  Whatever else you might say about it, it is a singular film, serving up memorable images, even if not having a storyline that one can recall years later.

So the Chinese Theatre and I go way back. I am looking forward to seeing this new incarnation of THE WIZARD OF OZ, a film which seems capable of remaining relevant to generation after generation of viewers. Its message and the strength of its storytelling and the performances seem pretty indestructible. Go ahead you guys, 3-D it, IMAX it, stereophrantic it - I will always be able to curl up with my wonderful Blu-Ray mono, 1:1.33 copy if I take exception to this new version, but I rather hope that I don't.

 

As for the Chinese Theatre itself, let's take a wait and see attitude. With as long a history as I have with the theatre, I was not overly thrilled with the idea of the stadium seats - I was of the opinion that the Chinese was the PERFECT place to see a film - even better than the vaunted Goldywn Theatre at AMPAS Headquarters in Beverly Hills.
When I took the Hard Hat Tour a few weeks ago, the main chandelier was lowered to the floor, making a good shot difficult. Oh well.
But one thing that I have come to realize as I compiled the lists of "day and date" theatres which play films concurrently with the Chinese since the early 80s, and it is this: theatres have to move with the times. It is a fascinating journey to follow the fortunes of theatres from the single screens to the multiplex, megaplex, then to the stadium megaplex with an IMAX screen. This is a competitive business. There is an IMAX screen only a couple miles away at Universal Citywalk.  There is the Arclight complex.  It is daunting.  Nothing makes me sadder than to see a film at the Chinese with only 12 people in the audience. Hopefully, IMAX will help change that.

But what will the Chinese Theatre be like as a THEATRE?  Will it remain the best place to see a film?  We shall have to wait until September 20, and see. We will doubtless have our own opinions.