Just noticed my main theater is starting to show older movies, chain of theaters is called celebration cinema and they are just starting a thing called celebrating the classics.
they are showing on there DLP digital screen...
Casablanca (1942)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
now and soon they are gonna be showing
Goldfinger (1964)
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
High Noon (1952)
The Thin Man (1934)
in the next month and a more coming including frankenstien and North by Northwest etc
I hope more theaters start doing this and movies from different eras
JPRaup
12-30-08, 06:22 PM
any website about this? thats fucking awesome.
Mondo Kane
12-30-08, 06:44 PM
Not to steer off topic a bit, but I wish this could continue the way it did back in '97-'02. We had the Star Wars trilogy, Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind, and Grease getting wide re-releases, but it all seemed to end when the re-release of E.T. didn't make as much money as the others did. I'd love to see another attempt with different movies.
mcfly
12-30-08, 07:08 PM
I enjoy seeing older films on the big screen (to me, I guess older is 70s and 80s :) ). The theaters here stopped showing their retro series which really sucked. I got to see Ghostbusters, Mallrats, and South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut for a couple of bucks a pop.
chris_sc77
12-30-08, 07:39 PM
Well the thing is that many times nowadays theaters are using dvd's and showing them and not the actual film prints.
Michael Sheridan
12-30-08, 07:43 PM
The Ziegfield in NYC used to do this all the time...
I saw the Indiana Jones trilogy there, as well as the first 2 Godfather films.
Havent seen them do it recently, though.
DthRdrX
12-30-08, 08:01 PM
I would be there all the time if it was actual film prints.
MBoyd
12-30-08, 08:34 PM
The Paramount in Austin uses actual film prints and shows older films in the summer. They usually have a pretty awesome line-up. In 2007 I posted a list and there wasn't any interest here.
I saw Psycho in October because my theater ran a different horror movie every Tuesday that month. One of my favorite theater experiences, even though I was the only one in there.
Dusty Bottoms
12-30-08, 08:55 PM
The Belcourt Theatre in Nashville usually has classic films running along with current foreign and independent releases. They are getting ready to start a "Restrikes & Restorals" series. I don't have the full list in front of me, but they are showing new 35mm film prints of Contempt, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Some Like It Hot, Planet Of The Apes, and a few others.
kantonburg
12-30-08, 09:35 PM
I saw Psycho in October because my theater ran a different horror movie every Tuesday that month. One of my favorite theater experiences, even though I was the only one in there.
That's most likely why. I'd love to go see a movie and be the only one there.
I'd love it if more theaters did this.
mhg83
12-30-08, 10:00 PM
The theater in orland park always has a summer movie program. They show a classic film on sunday nights all through summer :)
Boba Fett
12-30-08, 10:40 PM
Theaters around Portland do it all the time. One chain shows HD prints of classics; I suspect they're using Blu-Rays or HD-DVDs though.
You have to be wary though even when they show actual prints; I went to see Clockwork Orange and it was an old print from the UK and in pretty bad shape.
Other times though, I've seen remastered prints of Lawrence of Arabia and the first two Indiana Jones films.
Matthew Chmiel
12-31-08, 01:19 AM
Theaters have tried this in Vegas and have just failed due to lack of promotion or word of mouth.
My buddy and I went to a midnight screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark (a 35mm print I might add) a year or so ago and we were one of the twelve in the theater.
MBoyd
12-31-08, 01:32 AM
They have midnight shows in Dallas at the Inwood theater on Fridays. I haven't been for years, but saw Brazil there. It's just too late now for us old Gen Xers. :) Hell, for all I know they went to a DVD screening system now. It would be a shame.
The Anjelika in Plano did this for their Hitchcock Month last October. I made the mistake of going to see The Birds. It was packed, people were talking through it, and it looked like shit. My friends thought it looked fine. :(
Gerry P.
12-31-08, 05:12 AM
Imagine going to a theater to see 2001 expecting 70mm but instead having a Blu-ray projected.
Boba Fett
12-31-08, 05:16 AM
Imagine going to a theater to see 2001 expecting 70mm but instead having a Blu-ray projected.
If a theater claimed 70mm or even that it was film and it ended up being DVD or Blu-Ray, I'd have half the mind to contact Warner. I can't imagine them being ok with theaters buying a $25 Blu-Ray and making 100x that a night.
The only time I've seen DVD projected is at a Grindhouse festival. They had remastered prints of Shaw Bros. films but at the last minute the prints of Lady Snowblood and King Boxer didn't arrive, so they put up a notice that they were gonna show DVDs. Anyone who had bought a ticket was offered a refund though.
Giles
12-31-08, 01:09 PM
AFI Silver recently showed a dvd of Ryan's Daughter - bad move, didn't attend as a result.
as a kid during the 70's, I remember Disney reissuing alot of their films (live action and animated ones) on the big screen - miss that alot. Home video pretty much nixed that rollout of classics from Disney.
mcfly
12-31-08, 05:22 PM
An old theater where I used to live had yearly Three Stooges festivals. In all the years I went, they played them with original 35mm prints.
Then, as soon as the DVDs started coming out, they just used those. It wasn't the same and I could tell.
I stopped going.
doubledown44
12-31-08, 05:28 PM
I would love to see Some Like It Hot on the big screen.
MinLShaw
12-31-08, 06:47 PM
You wouldn't guess it, but Louisville, KY has an incredible theater (Baxter Avenue Theater) that shows classic, cult-favorites every other Saturday night at midnight. You're not going to get Turner Classic Movies-type fare, but you're going to get stuff that's fun and draws a lively, though well-behaved, crowd. They only screen original prints; no DVD projections. This year alone we made it out to see Dick Tracy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, both of which were great.
They celebrated their 100th night of the run with the Back to the Future trilogy. $10 got you in for all three films, and before the second one started, they fed you delivered pizza and Red Bull. Their sister theater (Village 8 Theater) did a run of classic MGM films this summer; we made it out to catch The Spy Who Loved Me, but passed on Goldfinger because nothing will ever compare to seeing it at Fort Knox last year, outside and literally across the street from the gold depository building.
MBoyd
12-31-08, 07:26 PM
I would love to see Some Like It Hot on the big screen.
I was lucky enough to see that in Ft Worth at the Modern Art Museum. Film print, big screen. Great experience.
In Barcelona, I saw The Third Man and the original To Be Or Not To Be - which is a highly revered film there because the Franco regime had banned it for so long. Unfortunately, it was slightly matted or something and some tops of heads were chopped off. Maybe matted at 1.66.
Off the top of my head I have also been fortunate to watch after release at special screenings the following.
Brazil
Blade Runner (3x, once being the work print)
Alien,
Aliens
Young Frankenstein
2001 (70mm)
Vertigo (70mm)
Rear Window
Mean Streets
Reservoir Dogs
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Two For The Road
The Women
Citizen Kane
Touch of Evil
Raiders of The Lost Ark (3x)
Taxi Driver
The Godfather
It's early, I'm sure there's a few I forgot.
mcfly
12-31-08, 09:02 PM
You wouldn't guess it, but Louisville, KY has an incredible theater (Baxter Avenue Theater) that shows classic, cult-favorites every other Saturday night at midnight. You're not going to get Turner Classic Movies-type fare, but you're going to get stuff that's fun and draws a lively, though well-behaved, crowd. They only screen original prints; no DVD projections. This year alone we made it out to see Dick Tracy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, both of which were great.
They celebrated their 100th night of the run with the Back to the Future trilogy. $10 got you in for all three films, and before the second one started, they fed you delivered pizza and Red Bull. Their sister theater (Village 8 Theater) did a run of classic MGM films this summer; we made it out to catch The Spy Who Loved Me, but passed on Goldfinger because nothing will ever compare to seeing it at Fort Knox last year, outside and literally across the street from the gold depository building.That's fucking awesome. I'm coming to Kentucky.
Abob Teff
01-01-09, 01:38 AM
I had predicted, and I still fully expect, that as digital projection begins to spread we will see more "revivals." Why? Digital = cheap projection. You're not talking about tons of money spent on producing a massive physical product (celluloid film) and having to ship it from location to location.
Example -- one of the theaters that I worked at was hit by a tornado (we lost the roof over 3 of our 5 auditoriums). When we re-opened those auditoriums, we wanted to show Twister. Warner Bros. wanted $3,500 to pull the print off the shelf, and we would have to pay for the shipping both ways. Plus they wanted a cut of the ticket sales (they wouldn't allow us to show it for free). We passed. With digital, we could have dialed up their system and downloaded the movie with little to no effort on either party's end.
My question is: how can places simply show DVDs? They are not licensed for public exhibition. If I were a theater (and I spent many years in that business) I wouldn't even dream of doing this ... that's a surefire way to ruin your relationship with a studio.
MBoyd
01-01-09, 02:02 AM
I see what you are saying showing older films in Digital. But don't you think the majority of people attending would be more interested in a seeing a film print?
tellybox
01-01-09, 02:51 AM
My local movie house just started a new classics series, with the promise of showing one classic film per month. Actual prints too. Caught Psycho a few weeks back; the print was in pretty bad shape with pops and grain everywhere. But there was just something about sitting in the theatre, on the balcony, watching it. Completely felt like I was in 1960 seeing it for the first time, lol.
Boba Fett
01-01-09, 04:11 AM
I was lucky enough to see that in Ft Worth at the Modern Art Museum. Film print, big screen. Great experience.
In Barcelona, I saw The Third Man and the original To Be Or Not To Be - which is a highly revered film there because the Franco regime had banned it for so long. Unfortunately, it was slightly matted or something and some tops of heads were chopped off. Maybe matted at 1.66.
Off the top of my head I have also been fortunate to watch after release at special screenings the following.
Brazil
Blade Runner (3x, once being the work print)
Alien,
Aliens
Young Frankenstein
2001 (70mm)
Vertigo (70mm)
Rear Window
Mean Streets
Reservoir Dogs
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Two For The Road
The Women
Citizen Kane
Touch of Evil
Raiders of The Lost Ark (3x)
Taxi Driver
The Godfather
It's early, I'm sure there's a few I forgot.
If I remember I've seen, years after release, the following:
Blade Runner
Alien
A Clockwork Orange
Yojimbo
Lawrence of Arabia
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (2x)
Scarface
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
Dead Man
On the Waterfront
The Big Lebowski
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (2x)
Shogun Assassin (2x)
The Master of the Flying Guillotine
Rock and Roll High School
I missed the restored prints of Godfather I and II this month due to the storm in Portland, but get to see The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, as well as Once Upon a Time in the West later this month
RayChuang
01-01-09, 06:59 AM
Example -- one of the theaters that I worked at was hit by a tornado (we lost the roof over 3 of our 5 auditoriums). When we re-opened those auditoriums, we wanted to show Twister. Warner Bros. wanted $3,500 to pull the print off the shelf, and we would have to pay for the shipping both ways.
Once the price of digital projectors come down, I can see them ship movies in 2K theatrical digital format on dual-layer BD-R discs with about 1 hour of movie per disc. Since Blu-ray discs now include theatrical-quality soundtracks with Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio encoding, it's not such a far-fetched idea. You could put in a four-hour movie in a shipping package that weighs around 0.5 kilograms, a lot less than the circa 14 kilogram per 20 minute reel of film!
droidguy1119
01-01-09, 07:47 AM
Out of curiosity, is there some "trick" to spotting that they're showing a DVD and not a print?
Darth Maher
01-01-09, 02:29 PM
Out of curiosity, is there some "trick" to spotting that they're showing a DVD and not a print?
Not really a trick, but it usually looks just... kinda flat.
There are have been a handful of theater in the Chicago and suburbs that play older movies. It is usually digital, but occasionally they use 35mm. The AMC near me (Schaumburg, IL) played some horror movies in October and apparently they were using 35mm prints. I wasn't able to make it to any this year, but I hope I can next year. There is also a theater near my mom's (The Portage Theater) (http://www.portagetheater.org/)that always has marathons. I don't know if they use DVD or prints.
Giles
01-01-09, 03:06 PM
Once the price of digital projectors come down, I can see them ship movies in 2K theatrical digital format on dual-layer BD-R discs with about 1 hour of movie per disc. Since Blu-ray discs now include theatrical-quality soundtracks with Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio encoding, it's not such a far-fetched idea. You could put in a four-hour movie in a shipping package that weighs around 0.5 kilograms, a lot less than the circa 14 kilogram per 20 minute reel of film!
but even current indie films aren't even being released 'digitally'
just to name a few:
Defiance
Happy-Go-Lucky
I've Loved You So Long
Rachel Getting Married
Revolutionary Road
Synecdoche, New York
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The Class
The Wrestler
Timecrimes
Waltz With Bashir
Wendy and Lucy
with the movie going wide, Fox Searchlight just recently made harddisc drives of Slumdog Millionaires for theatres that don't have 35mm projectors. The industry wants to think the trend towards digital projection is prevailent, but it's the indie studios that have not provided their films to go out as such.
Matthew Chmiel
01-01-09, 03:31 PM
Only because most theaters that play independent theaters don't have digital equipment. In most cases, the theater would probably not be able to afford it.
This argument could take many different shapes and forms; make the DLP equipment cheaper, give incentives to the theater, make the American public grow a sense of taste to go out and support independent films, etc.
Giles
01-01-09, 03:40 PM
Only because most theaters that play independent theaters don't have digital equipment. In most cases, the theater would probably not be able to afford it.
This argument could take many different shapes and forms; make the DLP equipment cheaper, give incentives to the theater, make the American public grow a sense of taste to go out and support independent films, etc.
that'd be the first step, and even at one point Regal and AMC were to be more aggressive in installing more of their theatres with DLP systems, but the rollout seems stalled at the moment. AMC now has it's eyes set higher, more IMAX Digital systems.... oh where are their priorities??
Matthew Chmiel
01-01-09, 04:40 PM
that'd be the first step, and even at one point Regal and AMC were to be more aggressive in installing more of their theatres with DLP systems, but the rollout seems stalled at the moment. AMC now has it's eyes set higher, more IMAX Digital systems.... oh where are their priorities??
To be honest, how cheap can it get for a theater to go all in?
In Vegas, for example:
- Only four theaters are all DLP equipped (totaling 66 screens, note: all four of the these theaters opened with being all DLP).
- Only six additional theaters have DLP equipment (adding 8 more screens, note: 3 of these screens are located in one theater, the rest were added to older theaters).
Out of those 74 DLP screens in Vegas, only two "limited release" movies are being shown on them (Doubt on 3, Slumdog Millionaire on 1).
The two theaters that specialize in independent movies aren't the best theaters in Vegas PLUS don't make that much money. I caught a screening of Let the Right One In the other week at 7pm and there were only about six other people in the theater besides my friends and I. I don't think adding DLP to the theater would get more people to go. It might be more of a loss than anything else.
MinLShaw
01-14-09, 09:58 PM
For anyone who lives near Louisville at all, you really ought to check out the Midnights at the Baxter series of biweekly midnight screenings of cult favorites. The theater's website is baxter8.com, but you'll get the most information about this lineup from their MySpace profile (they're not on Facebook). I'm stoked because I just found out that on 14 March they're showing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! I know Michael Corvin lives in town, and I'd like to think some others might as well. It'd be fun to meet some of you guys at the screening.
Buy: