big whoppa

July 24 only! With never-before-seen interviews and a preview of the sequel. This may be of interest to us old-timers:


http://www.fathomevents.com/details....paign=WarGames

postpunk

Already have my tickets. Looking forward to Thursday night!

Seantn

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....ghlight=fathom

big whoppa

^Did a search but it didn't come up. I seperated the words. Mods can delete.

ScissorPuppy

If this is a fathom event, then enjoy paying to watch the DVD on the big screen.
And possibly ( as in the case for poltergeist ) the FULLSCREEN DVD!

Steve Phillips

Yup, I got burned at their HALLOWEEN event. A DVD projected by the blurry pre-show equipment. It looked horrible. Never again.

Troy Stiffler

Ha. I was thinking about seeing this. And I asked myself, "how/why are they spending so much money on a one-time showing of War Games". But if it's on a DVD or something, I guess it doesn't cost much.

Trevor

Went last night, my first Fathom event. Overall, I think it was ok.

The picture quality seemed decent, although I'm can't be positive the aspect ratio was right.

The interviews before the film were fun, although they did spoil the story and all the best lines. I hadn't seen the film in 20 years, so would have been surprised by almost all of it if it wasn't for that bonus.

The trailer for the direct-to-video sequel was lame of course.

The picture did stop three quarters of the way thru the movie, crashed to the windows desktop. It gave the 100 or so of us in the theater the chance to make a bunch of microsoft and government jokes. They got it running again in about ten minutes.

To compensate us, they handed us all free movie passes as we departed the theater.

So not perfect by any means, but worth the money (free I guess), and it was nice to see an old favorite on the big screen again.

chanster

Why anyone goes to these Fathom events is beyond me.

Trevor

Don't know about other's reasons, but here are mine.

1 - Movie theaters are pretty much free for me. With all the exclusive hunting I do, I end up with several free movie tickets per week. I have about 20 free tickets for The Mummy or The Dark Knight right now. Theaters almost always let me exchange one of them for any other film. Thus, I see almost every movie that is released, pretty much for free (I just have to buy the requisite candy, cereal, cheap DVDs, whatever.).

2 - If the movie experience is a bad one, something like wrong aspect ratio or system crashes, you get a free pass or refund. You may have to ask, but you are due one.

3 - Nostalgia. Even if the quality isn't totally up to snuff, it is still nice to see these older films on the big screen.

4 - Bonuses. Wargames had the featurette/interviews, other Fathom events have had similar extras iirc.

islandclaws

^ If you're getting in for free it's almost worth it. I went to the First Blood Fathom event and it was terrible. The picture looked like total dogshit and the sound was pathetic. The interview beforehand was ok, but it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I should have complained and gotten a re-admit ticket. I can honestly say tha,t even if it were free, I'd never do another one again.

Trevor

Maybe they've been working on the picture quality issues. Wargames seemed fine to me, except for possibly being the wrong aspect ratio.

Speaking of unique theater events, one of my local theaters is starting a B-movie sci-fi double feature on Thursday nights. $5 gets you two films like The Killer Shews. Looks like it might be a nationwide thing. I'll google it and see if we have a thread on it. Starts August 7th if I recall.

asianxcore

Completely forgot about this event.

Saw a promo poster when my girlfriend and I saw Dark Knight. Should have written it down somewhere

Trevor

I've been using my cell phone's calendar function for things just like this.

Useful for anything really. Example: Think to myself something like, "I should stop at the grocery store on the way home, milk is on sale", and I'll immediately set an alarm in my cell phone with the word "milk" for the time that I'd be leaving work.

Took awhile to build up that habit, but now I rarely have those moments of forgetting something.

I've already set my phone to remind me of those Thursday B-movie double features each week.

Seantn

If it's a Fathom event, you should set up a reminder to not go.

Trevor

I could be wrong, but I'm getting a feeling that the majority of the forum doesn't like Fathom.

Actually, this was the first of their events that I was interested in, and nothing on their upcoming schedule looks good to me either.

jeffkjoe

The only winning move is not to play.

chanster

Well thats great for you, but most people don't have the time or energy to sit around and get free movie tickets by buying crap they don't need. So yea if you have a bunch of "free" (and I use that term loosely because they are not really free) go ahead and blow one on crapped out versions of 80s movies.

Furthermore, I don't believe Fathom gave refunds to anyone complained about Poltergeist or Halloween. In terms of an entire computer crashing, OK that entitles you to a free ticket. Great. Wrong aspect ratio or poor quality = SORRY NO DICE.

Trevor

I never said that I bought anything I didn't need. And it doesn't take much time or energy to accumulate them, I just know the routines now. I admitted that they aren't really free, but close enough.
Crapped out versions? Perhaps. Personally, while I would prefer large screen HD, most movies are just as good on a 7" black and white. The story is the thing. And in this Fathom event, it was the story and sharing the nostalgic experience with a bunch of people. A few minute delay didn't bother us at all.

If I was there for one of those experiences, I would have received a refund. I'm persistent that way if needed.

chanster

Maybe, maybe not. You can insist that you would have gotten a refund, but that is how the movie was delivered to the theaters. So maybe you can be a real jerk (or as you call "persistent") to a movie manager, screaming about wrong aspect ratios, and they would have just told you thats how movie was delivered to them.
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....ht=poltergeist


Maybe they would have given you a free ticket, maybe not. Personally I feel I should speak out against these "big screen" showings delivered by Fathom because I feel they butcher the original movie and are a waste of people's cash. If you are sitting on a pile of free movie tickets, go ahead and blow on them on garbage presentatations and garbage movies, thats your right. But most people aren't sitting on moviecash tickets (and indeed in larger cities, the moviecash no longer pays for the entire ticket).

The irony is that these "showings" probably only appeal to HARDCORE fans or genre fans and to have them purposefully delivered in a sub-par manner is inexcusable in my book.

Maybe I'm spoiled because Chicago has a great theater that will play some of these genre movies right - Music Box theater - uncomfortable seats, hard parking, expensive tickets - but they take care into showing these films and even have a organist play an overture before the movies. Watching Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen was a great time. Purveryors of crap like Fathom don't deserve anyone's money.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-music-box-theatre-chicago

Hulkabrgr

I was at the Poltergeist debacle, and both the theater and Fathom refused to give me a refund. I think in the Poltergeist thread, I posted a copy of the email that Fathom sent back to me.

das Monkey

<--- Dumbass

chanster

Hey das, no conspiracy..there seems to be two different threads going on here, you posted in the other. Probably these 2 threads deserve a merge:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....ghlight=fathom