…and follow it up with a rewatching of the Coen brother’s, O’ Brother Where Art Thou?
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_odyssey_2026
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/o_brother_where_art_thou
O’ Brother Where Art Thou? is on my top 10 favorites movie list.
We are going to try to find it in a theater.
I have a ticket to see it tomorrow, in a Cinemark theater on a digital IMAX screen.
If you are near any of the theaters on the list at this link, I urge you to try to see it in IMAX 70mm film, because it is the first feature film that has been shot 100% on IMAX film. (I’m going on Aug. 1 in Providence, RI.)
There are only 41 theaters worldwide, 25 in the US, nine in Canada, three in the UK, and one each in Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, and France.
If you can go, buy your tickets soon, because many shows are already sold out.
If you can’t get to IMAX 70mm film, look for theaters with standard, non-IMAX 70mm (5-perf 70mm). Here is a list of all 70mm bookings, IMAX at the top, scroll down to see the standard 70mm. There are a lot more.
Standard 70mm has a wide 2.20 aspect ratio, quite different from the IMAX 1.43 ratio, but I think it will be the second-best experience after IMAX film.
Planning to see it this weekend, on 70mm IMAX of course.
I have to say the website tagline “Defy the gods in Imax” is just stupid. One of the main points of the Odyssey is that you can’t defy the gods. One of the main reasons for Odysseus’ ordeal was pissing off Poseidon for blinding his son and boasting about it (I swear if I get reported for spoiling a 2700 year old story I’ll feed all of you to Scylla).
I have my ticket for tomorrow evening! Bought it a full year ago. Good thing too, cause every single 70mm IMAX showing here is completely sold out, even those at 3am.
Thank you for those links.
Don’t you just hate it when advertising isn’t 100% truthful!?
Is it really better on a smaller screen (for most people)? I’m very curious how well the 4k dual laser stuff works on those big 6 story screens.
(I sadly found out my nearest IMAX I loved so much switched to digital. The 4k seems way too low. 8k would get into no visible pixels, even if film has even more detail.)
The way you put it sounds like defying a god…
I guess I stated it poorly - you certainly can defy the gods, but it’s not going to go well. Had Odysseus not taunted poor Poly on his way out, he would have gotten home a decade earlier with nearly all of his crew. So an advertisement encouraging you to defy the gods isn’t a good idea.
It wasn’t the gods who cursed Odysseus with a crew of idiots. The film should have a drinking game for every time his men do something right after Odysseus says, “don’t do that!”
I agree, and I was surprised to find that this was indeed the first film to be shot 100% on IMAX film. I thought Dunkirk was, but not all of it, and Interstellar has a lot of non-IMAX scenes. There are a few feature films that were entirely shot in IMAX, but they used IMAX-certified digital cameras, not film.
Of course there are dozens and dozens of beautiful documentaries that are 100% IMAX film, but these aren’t feature films.
I recall seeing someone discussing why no one makes IMAX movies. Apparently the cameras are really loud so capturing audio is difficult at best.
Well, Christopher Nolan does, and is totally enamoured of the medium. What I’ve heard is that the biggest problem with IMAX film cameras is that they’re so large and unwieldy.
IMAX film projectors are something to behold, too. IIRC, the IMAX film reel for Oppenheimer was one gigantic reel that needed a forklift to mount it on the IMAX projector in the usual horizontal position. Some theaters had to make special building modifications to accommodate the gigantic reel. Digital is so much simpler! But film is so much better!
Christopher Nolan was interviewed by Jon Stewart Monday night. He talked about working with IMAX to build a structure around the camera to contain the noise so he could use it to shoot the entire movie. And he could only shoot 3 minutes at a time before reloading the film!
Saw it tonight. It’s excellent. Sold-out IMAX crowd was locked in for the entire three hours.
Um…not really a spoiler but this movie fails the “does the dog die?” test several times. Yikes!
If by smaller you mean standard 70mm, yes, the screen will be shorter because of the aspect ratio, and probably narrower, unless your local 70mm theater is a former palace with a 60-foot or wider screen. But despite that, 70mm film has higher resolution than any digital IMAX system. And IMO, the film experience is better. Nolan shot the film with all formats in mind, especially standard 70mm, so it won’t be framed “wrong” in the 2.20 ratio, just different.
The third-best experience the dual-laser IMAX “GT” system you mentioned. The problem is that IMAX Corp. and the theater chains don’t make it easy to figure out which of the several IMAX digital systems your local theater has.
Here is a video that accurately outlines the different IMAX systems. It’s cued up to the section about the various systems. You might also find the earlier sections interesting.
AFAIK, there are no theatrical 8K projectors. They are in development and may be introduced next year, but they probably won’t become widespread because exhibitors are losing business and probably aren’t inclined to make major investments in new equipment. It would also be much more expensive to produce films in 8K or higher.
I worked for 37 years in the IMAX business, and although I’m no longer in touch with the company, I’d be surprised if IMAX is planning to offer an 8K system.
Nitpick: they are “shot for IMAX”, but practically speaking, that’s just marketing BS. Those “IMAX-certified” cameras are just high-end digital cameras that are also used to shoot non-IMAX movies. There are no special digital IMAX cameras.
Since part of this thread is about IMAX in general, this is a YouTube video in which Adam Savage (the former host of Mythbusters) visits IMAX headquarters and sees how the film is projected, which is quite complicated.
So it looks like “Defy the gods” is the movie tagline, not invented by Imax. So apologies to Imax and I hope whatever marketing genius thought that up gets an example of the consequences of hubris.
Argus is literally the first dog in literature, and his death is pretty important. If he didn’t die that would just brand Nolan as a money grubbing hack willing to ruin the source material. The real question is Do the “disloyal” maids die?