I disagree. IMAX digital theaters use two projectors and are therefore brighter than conventional digital theaters, but standard 70mm has better resolution than digital. Also, the screens in many IMAX digital theaters are not that big.
Assuming the 70mm house has a well-maintained projector and an expert projectionist, I would consider 70mm to be better than IMAX digital.
The problem with film projection in all formats is that the equipment and operators are all aging and dying.
ISTM theaters as an industry are dying.
Digital is just a cost-saving measure.
What the industry needs, and utterly lacks, is an audience-saving measure. They’re staying away in droves.
You’re right that there are a lot of variables, and ultimately it all depends.
My comment was based on the observation that the IMAX digital movies I’ve seen were on amazingly large screens, much larger than in any normal theater, and with the typical steep IMAX stadium-like seating. It was quite enjoyable. Of course my son the perfectionist had already seen Interstellar in a real IMAX film theater but indulged me by going with me to a nearby one because I refused to drive that far. I would not have known the difference, but he informed me that the film IMAX screen was quite a big bigger.
Yes, digital IMAX uses two synchronized digital projectors, but that’s not just to make it brighter, but to double the resolution. They’re really pushing digital technology to the limits, and the results are damn good.
Oh, yeah. That goes without saying. As I said elsewhere,
The last movie we saw was the F1: The Movie, in IMAX. It was LOUD. REALLY LOUD! So were the trailers before it, and they were all for horrible movies we had absolutely no interest in seeing. Despite my age, I’m not hard of hearing yet, and the experience in that theater was just not fun. To say nothing of not being able to stop the film when we had to go to the bathroom.
I haven’t completely sworn off going out to the movies, and there’s a nice art house theater a little closer than that multiplex that we like better, and will probably patronize now and then. But for almost all ordinary movies we might be interested in, the home experience is vastly preferable.
Uh, no. They’d like to to think that, but it’s not the case. I can try to dig up the citation tomorrow, but I don’t have time tonight.
Moderating:
This thread is about movies. Not about how many people go to the theater, or what technology is being used. Let’s get back on track, please.
This thread is also about the upcoming blockbuster The Odyssey, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who was adamant at a talk a few years ago at the Toronto International Film Festival that his films should only be seen in traditional film IMAX theaters. So ISTM that in the context of this particular movie, a discussion of whether attending an IMAX film presentation is worth the effort vs IMAX digital or a regular theater is very much on point. The presentation is part of the experience.
So Mr Nolan wants his films to fail? Because they’re going to lose enormous amounts if they can only be seen in one of the (Googling) thirty or so film IMAX theaters worldwide.
Moderating:
Arguing Moderation in thread is not allowed.
I’m not issuing a warning, but I will hide your post.
If you want to talk IMAX, start a new or spin-off thread.
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
@Dewey_Finn, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you missed the modnote from @puzzlegal and just hide your post also.
Ok. Maybe if the reviews are good, I see two movies this year. TBD.
I’m not going to go by reviews, I already know I like the miniseries it’s based on, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.
Evil Dead Burn is the next release I expect to see in the theater.
Odessey, just to piss off Musk and all the Right Supremisists.
Facebook tried to show me the trailer for The Dog Stars yesterday, and I backed out of it when I heard Cima ask Hig what he did before the world ended because I had not yet finished the book and didn’t want any spoilers.
I read the rest of it last night and watched the trailer three times today. I totally get Josh Brolan as Bangsley. People are cheering on Jacob Elordi’s being the hero of a big Ridley Scott movie, and, although I pictured Hig being a bit bigger, I am excited for this!
The Odyssey
Toy Story 5
Disclosure Day
Leviticus
The Invite
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Evil Dead Burn
The Dog Stars
Jackass
Minions & Monsters
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
The End of Oak Street
Resident Evil
Those were only 4 screenings that actually went on sale July 2025! (I bought my ticket way back then!) All other showtimes just went on sale this past Thursday, and immediately crashed AMCs servers. Currently the Lincoln Square IMAX is sold out (except for first two rows) through August 4, but they will for sure add another week if you’re still looking.
I’m sure it’s great, but have we now made a film about every single battle, event and person who participated in WW2? The weatherman for D-Day? The Six Triple Eight about an all black female male processing battalion? Maybe Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks can produce a series about the company that built all those barrage balloons around London? How about Browning v. Lugar: The Battle for History’s Sidearm?
Guess I’ll have to get by with another film about the Battle of the Bulge and Nuremburg.
Thanks. I just found that out, and that the IMAX in Providence isn’t closed, and is showing it in film, too. We have our tickets.
Definitely Supergirl, and probably Disclosure Day. Anything else I’ll wait until I can stream
It.
Not even about Nuremberg, but a psychiatrist (psychologist?) at Nuremberg. Kind of like D-Day’s weatherpeople. But I confess I also am sick of WWII.
ETA: I would be interested in seeing a WWII-adjacent film that follows the rise of fascism and draws parallels to America’s descent into the same. Nuremberg tried to do a little of this on the back end, and if that’d been the whole film, I might have actually liked it. But alas, it was not and I did not.
As with several others, I want to see The Odyssey. I’m a big fan of Greek mythology and 've read The Odyssey so many times (mostly in the Fitzgerald and Fagels translations) that I’ve lost count. I have a recording of the Fagels translation read by Ian McKellan, which is fantastic.
Nolan says he was inspired by the Harryhausen films taken from Greek myth, which also impresses me. Plus, I like to compare versions. The Hallman version, made for TV back in 1997, is my gold standard for the Odyssey. It starred Armand Assante, and had Irene Pappas, Bernadette Peters, Isabell Rossellini, Christopher Lee (!!), Jereon Krabbe, Michael J. Pollard (who I recognized from being in Star Trek TOS – can’t forget that voice), and Vanessa Williams as Calypso. (Why are they getting all worked up about Lupita Nyong’o as a black Helen of Troy when they’ve already had a black Calypso?). Henson Associates did a great job with the special effects. The film took some liberties, but, like most of the Hallmark productions, was surprisingly faithful to the original
There was a color version entitled Ulysses made back in 1954 and starring Kirk Doulas as Ulysses/Odysseus and Anthony Quinn as Antinous. It concentrated on the human parts of the story, special effects being a lot harder to make convincing then, but they did include the sequence with the Cyclops.
O Brother, where art thou? is sorta base on the Odyssey, but Coens admitted that they hadn’t actually read the Odyssey. And it’s only a rough correlation, in an case.
There are a couple of other versions I haven’t seen. There was a musical called Odyssey starring Yul Brynner that I now dearly wish I’d seen on its Boston tryout. By the time it arrived on Broadway the title had changed to Home Sweet Homer, which ought to tell you all you need to know about it. Despite the presence of Brynner and Joan Diener and music by Mitch Leigh (both from the original run of Man of la Mancha) and book and lyrics by Eric Segal (Love Story), the play closed on opening night, right after the curtain fell. there were evidently three other musicals based on the Odyssey that I never even heard about).
This one looks interesting because it’s the first version I’ve seen where the Wooden Horse isn’t up on wheels, ready to be pulled into Troy. Curious to see if their originality extends to other elements of the production.