Ugh, if it’s not obvious, that should be “it’s one of my earliest cinema memories…”
Damn brain going faster than my typing fingers.
We had a theater here that showed Dr Strangelove; Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb recently. I was sad when I learned I’d missed it.
Your point is correct, however, you’re confusing two different numbers here: 1080 is a vertical resolution, whereas 4000 or 7000 are horizontal ones. So a Full HD frame has 1920x1080 pixels while a modern 4k scan has about 4000x2000. Still four times the amount, but like Joel said, you won’t be able to tell the difference until you get to seriously big screen sizes.
Many big metropolitan areas have one revival theater (or perhaps one screen of a theater that does revival movies). Here in the Washington, D.C. area it’s the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland:
Although I regularly go to this theater, I don’t know its exact financial situation. I suspect that it basically breaks even. It only exists because the American Film Institute wanted to have a showcase theater.
Sometimes cities or other groups will sponsor a weekly series of older films, perhaps to be shown outside during the summer. They don’t make money off these series. I don’t know why it’s so hard to make money off older films, but I suspect that younger people don’t consider it worthwhile to see them.
Really? You may want to visit your optometrist; the difference between 1080p and DVD is pretty striking on my TV.
It’s a lot harder to tell 720p from 1080p though; both look pretty good.
I’ll second what RealityChuck said. I’m fortunate to live in NYC where old classics are constantly being shown somewhere, and I catch them regularly. I’ve never not been impressed by seeing a movie on a big screen that I thought I was familiar with from video. The experience is generally immensely better in a theater, no matter how “spectacular” the nature of the film. It’s not just down to visual specifications, it’s also the psychological effect of being totally immersed “in a world” (as the trailer announcer puts it). Everything about the film has greater impact and import.
There have been a few films I have seen in revival theatres that have totally blown me away even though I’d seen them on video.
Psycho- The intensity was magnified 10-fold . You could see how Hitchcock made it to be seen on a massive screen, in the dark, with a crowd. Awesome.
Signin’ in the Rain- And I hate old musicals. But this was just awesome. Kelly, O’Connor, and Reynolds dancing 10 feet tall on the screen with the big band music echoing through the cavernous theatre is something I could never replicate at home.
North By Northwest- As intense and exciting as any modern Bond film. Hitchcock was made for the theatre.
Care to recommend a few of those somewheres? I’m familiar with IFC (which, sadly, tends to relegate classics to a tiny hall with a tiny screen) and Sunshine Landmark for ‘midnight movie’ fare (saw Forbidden Planet there a few weeks ago), but that’s about it. Always looking for more. There’s something about sitting in a big dark theatre with other human beings watching a show on the big screen that sitting at home just can’t match.
BAM in Brooklyn, which often has directors or critics appear for Q&A sessions after the film; The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens wiith its wild spaceship-type theater; The Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center; The MoMA.
The Film Forum has great bookings but as you probably know the screens are small and sightlines not great.
You and me, both. I’m old enough to remember seeing Empire & Jedi in the theatres as a kid, but I’d still love to see the entire trilogy, without the “improvements” on the big screen.
There’s a small theatre down the street from us and my wife told me that, when they first opened, they showed classic movies and also classic cartoons on Saturday mornings. They had stopped all that by the time I got here, though, and after spending a few years concentrating on the latest Disney or Pixar release, they went out of business. I always wondered if they ditched the classics because there was no interest or if it was a licensing issue. Shame because they also did an annual Halloween showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He didn’t say that, though. He said that the improvement in resolution isn’t worth the additional $30+ in tickets, concessions, etc. over just renting the DVD (or streaming it in HD on Netflix or Hulu).
How is your player at upscaling? Also some DVDs are just upscale a lot better than others. I’m not even the worst. I go to some peoples houses and find they have their DVD player hooked up with composite video.
And like I said. At my age I don’t need an optometrist. I need an eyeball transplant.
Some of that is the source too - more than a few bluray movies are not well mastered and are not as much better than a DVD as they could be.
During the summer in the DC area,several locations have an “outdoor” night. You bring a blanket or chair and watch some classic movie with fellow film buffs. In fact, one of the locations is the Washington Monument
I actually decided to do a test today, since I have the DVD and a Blu-ray for Avatar. I have a computer and blu-ray player hooked to the same display. I played the DVD with Windows Media Player and the Blu-ray at the same time and paused them at places to compared them.
The place where it is most obvious is where Jake is making entries in the video log. The text in lower left is a lot sharper on the blu-ray.
I still stand by what I said. When I sat at a normal viewing distance and watched the movie instead of freezing frames, it just wasn’t that big a difference. Almost nothing compared to the difference between DVD and a VCR.
BTW, if you have a LCD display with frame interpolation. Turn that off when you are watching a movie. People complain about it and I’ve seen the same problem on two different brands of TV.
It’s very hard work running a revival theatre. You have to build a core audience and constantly keep updating them about your upcoming programing. You program about 3 months in advance.
Yes, home video has put a huge bite in that market.
Another big problem is print availability. Good condition prints are not always available. OK condition prints are around but your audience needs to be charmed by film scratches and a few skips from old film breaks. Shipping prints is expensive too.
Plus film companies sell their old stuff to other companies all the time. (this decision always comes back to bite them on the ass) For instance, the films that Hitchcock made for Paramount (Rear Window Psycho) are available from Universal. So you have to be a bit of a detective sometimes to find the film you want.
Back in the early 90’s I owned and operated a subrun movie theatre. All seats a $1.50. We ran children’s movies in the summer on weekday afternoons. 1 dollar per kid, adults with kids got in FREE. (to keep parents from just dropping their brats off at the theatre) Now my idea of a kid film is a bit different. So I included the Ralph Bashki Lord of the Rings and Superman with Christopher Reeves along with films like The Black Stallion. Disney would not do anything. Not even with their live action films. Nope, no way. Most of the others were 100 bucks a week. Not bad. I could turn a profit with those. Superman was 150 plus shipping. About 75 dollars and I think I took a loss there. Not much but I would have done better with The Care Bears but then again, showing the Care Bears would have cost me my soul.
I did try to do some midnight movies. Close Encounters, Blade Runner, that sort of thing. Prices varied. Up 500 a week or 500 vs 35% which ever was more. At this time was when that 3 Men and a Baby rumor started. I begged to get that as a midnight movie. I know I would have sold out.
Try finding a print of Monty Python and the Holy Grail that isn’t all torn up. You’d have better luck finding the grail.
Zebra, I presume that managing a revival theater is seriously difficult work in ways that managing a theater showing current movies that’s part of a chain doesn’t even come close to. The manager of a theater in a chain doesn’t even decide what films are shown (or what snacks are offered or much of anything else). There’s a staff at the headquarters of the chain for that. They are looking at the movies that are just about to be released. They decide on the basis of the stars, the director, the writers, the plot summary, the buzz from critics or from film festivals, etc. what movies are most likely to be hits. They balance this against what the distributors are charging. They have a chart of the demographics of each of the theaters in their chain and do some adjustment according to that, I assume.
The manager (or the programmer, if that’s a different position) of a revival theater has to have a real knowledge of film history. They have to decide what films would be good to show. They have to know which of them are available in good prints. This is in addition to the management-type things that a manager of a theater in a chain also does. Or at least I presume that’s what happens. Is that correct, Zebra?
Yes, Regular releases are supported by massive advertising campaigns. Mr. Bogart is not going to appear on Letterman on Thursday and discuss The Maltese Falcon. You usually do themes.
So name 15 great noir films and then find the prints.
It can be done but it is a lot of work. But something can come up like say Hurricane Irene and NYC shuts down the mass transit system from Saturday at noon till Monday morning. There goes your weekend which is a prime money making time for a movie theatre. You still have to pay the rent on your building and the prints you had planned to show.
Now if you have a good relationship with the distributor, they may knock some money off the rental, but probably not.
It just depends on how small the theatre is. When I owned and operated I was the Manager/Programmer/Janitor/Handyman/Projectionist.
Prequel, not reboot.
Arguable, since certain bits of characters’ stories were changed, such as Xavier becoming paralyzed in 1962 (thus making it difficult for a walking Xavier to have met Wolverine at the end of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”).