Thanks to redundancy and my membership of the UK’s National Film Theatre, I have seen my first ever film in true 3-D, closely followed by the second. They were so amazing I wondered why so few films are made in that format.
The first one I saw was “The House of Wax”, famously directed by a bloke with only one eye. The 3-dimentional effect was obvious right from the opening credits and the intentional 3-D business - the geezer with the paddle-bats, the can-can dancers etc - worked so well a woman in front of me kept ducking.
Last night I was privileged to see “Flesh for Frankenstein”, which I’d seen “flat” at University in 1978. Apart from being completely bonkers, the 3-D stuff was tremendous, particularly at the end where Udo Kier gets skewered and the audience is treated to a bit of his liver waving merrily in their faces.
I have read that audiences didn’t like wearing the glasses. What morons! I’d put up with anything to be able to enjoy such lifelike effects! Gawd knows what a 3-D film in IMAX would look like…
I don’t claim deity, but they are pretty cool actually. I saw one on undersea life in the Monterrey Bay. I don’t have an IMAX theater in my neighborhood now, but I assume they’ve made other 3-D IMAX movies. Sounds like seosamh has a treat in store!
Yeah, I saw a polaroid 3D movie about space living at the iMax theatre in Huntsville, Alabama. Unfortunately the movie was utter pants, but the effects were astounding.
There is (or was a few months ago) a 3D ‘flight inside a mummy’ show at the British Museum. Not great, but a nice inexpensive diversion.
Oooh, you beat me to it. I remember seeing it was little and thinking that everything popping out of the screen was headed right toward me (and no one else).
Besides, bubbles com out of the ceiling. Can’t beat that.
The first 3D film I ever saw was the misnamed Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. (Flesh for Frankenstein is a better title.)
Anyway, I was twelve, and apart from warping my mind, it immediately led to a lifelong fascination with all things stereographic. Picked up some anaglyphic glasses and drew 3D geometric figures with pink & cyan felt pens, worked out how to use colour-filters and double-exposures to take 3D snaps (before photoshop came along and made it a whole lot easier and better,) made a little contraption with polarizing filters that makes it look like your shadow is solid and reaching from behind the surface of the wall to mirror you. Very spooky!
I loves me the 3D – and I wish they’d make more quality 3D pictures.
All 3D-rendered features should be released in IMAX 3D format as a matter of course.
I haven’t seen The Polar Express in IMAX yet, but I’ve seen a few IMAX3D documentaries, (my favourite being The Last Buffalo - kick ass,) an something fantastic in that format would rock my world. The Incredibles! Please! Hell, I would probably even have watched that Final Fantasy movie if it was in IMAX3D.
I’d wager that the 12 year-old Larry Mudd must have been rendered completely dumbstruck by the 3-D “Frankenstein”, especially if he saw it in its uncut version, as I did last week! [apparently there is only 1 full version in existence, owned by the German Film Institute]
I haven’t seen a 3-D IMAX job myself yet, although the glasses provided by the NFT for both “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “House of Wax” came from the British Film Institute’s IMAX cinema just across the way in Waterloo. But I reckon my eyeballs would explode with delight - despite my asymmetric optic nerve.
As I mused in the OP, why the hell aren’t there more 3-D films? (never mind IMAX, which is a completely different kettle of fish altogether). The effects are so absolutely fantastic I’d have thought people would have been clamouring for it in their droves.
And why are the extant 3-D films mostly of the horror genre? Surely there are lots of situations where things can be thrust at the audience?
I was troubled and confused by incest-free versions of Frankenstein after that. I don’t know if it was uncut but it was pretty f*d up.
I think the second 3D pic I ever saw was Parasite, that same summer. I must say it provided a lot more nightmare fodder than Frankenstein ever came close to. House of Wax was just fun.
Personally, I’d like to see more subtle 3D movies, too. It can still be impressive without going all Dr. Tongue on the third dimension. Just about any movie could be improved by adding a binocular element to it, without adding in the obligatory “throw stuff at the audience” scenes. Well, maybe not My Dinner with Andre, but most movies.
Oh, I saw that one in 3D! I remember Grace Kelly reaching back for a scissors or something to fight off her attacker, and everybody ducked to avoid her hand. That may be the first movie I saw in 3D I saw it probably 20 - 25 years ago at the Nuart in Los Angeles. I wonder if that place is still there.
Haha. I saw the same film at the exact same place when I was 6 or 7. I jumped at one point because the effects looked so real and I thought we were really crashing into something.
Erm…guess you had to be there.