TCL Chinese Theatre
6925 Hollywood Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90028
6925 Hollywood Boulevard,
Los Angeles,
CA
90028
160 people
favorited this theater
Showing 351 - 375 of 1,676 comments
Are they masking the screen for 2.35:1, leaving it unmasked (yuck) or is Gravity taking up the whole screen? I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. They really need to get rid of the Screenvision preshow. Totally ruins the atmosphere and it looks like garbage.
The IMAX renovation at the Chinese is GORGEOUS!! Definitely feels different, but was great to see the place so busy for Gravity. There was a line on Hollywood Blvd to buy tickets and for a moment, I was confuse as to why all those people were there (It’s been a while since she was this happening).
Reserved seating is in use by almost all of the major theaters in LA nowadays. I love it. A lot less hassle…no more standing in line for hours trying to get a good seat.
The ticket price here is $1 less than the ArcLight Cinerama Dome around the corner – which is not IMAX but is 3D capable. ArcLight members get $1 off their ticket which only equates to 50 cents less than Chinese.
Hello From NYC-
I read in one of the first comments posted after the theater re-opened that the people showing you to your seats were a bit overwhelmed by the crowd. what’s wrong with the good old fashioned first come first served policy? good old regular 2-D movies are rather expensive at least in Manhattan. 3-d films are are that much more expensive and IMAX 3-D films are additionally more expensive. so no matter how good the film might be are reserved seat IMAX 3-D films really worth what i’m guessing is a really expensive ticket?
The large ceiling light cover is new, as well as the lanterns against the sides of the auditorium. I never see a movie at Arclight when I can see “Gravity” at the Vista, $5.50 senior and $6.50 first show.
Chinese 6 now has showtimes for Gravity as well. I wonder if this will be the new booking pattern: Chinese complex plays IMAX titles, Arclight rejects and move-overs. Arclight plays anything they want. Will be interesting to see what happens with the next Disney IMAX title.
Ditto for Chinese’s competitors around the corner…
Both the Chinese and the Chinese 6 now have tickets on sale for Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Now that we know Chinese IMAX and Arclight Hollywood will be playing Gravity simultaneously the question are will the Chinese 6 be showing alternate showtimes as well (no listings yet on the website) and could the Chinese share future bookings with other theaters like the El Capitan (Episode VII playing across the street from each other!!).
The Seattle Cinerama books the same films as a Regal and AMC that are only blocks away.
Well, Good luck to those willing to suffer the world’s worst 3D in the Dome when there is a superior alternative down the street.
dctrig, As others have mentioned, the ceiling and other historical elements were not changed, just better lit. LEDs were used to replace some old incandescents, but there are still a lot of original lighting that is not being used. As RogerA mentioned, there were 3 different circuits of color in the ceiling, my understanding is that those are not in use at all. I hope to report later with more details on the lighting!
BigJoe, In my opinion the 3D IMAX version of Wizard of Oz was wonderful! I have seen the movie countless times, including on the big screen twice. The 3D was subtle, not over-the-top “in your face”, but just accentuated the already beautiful photography. Small parts worked best for me, the Wicked Witch’s fingers, flowers in Munchkin Land, etc. The IMAX large screen conversion was much more impressive, I noticed things I have never seen before, camera moves that were amazing, subtleties of the actors faces, details of the production design, etc. The tornado scene was absolutely terrifying! For me it was VERY worth seeing in 3D IMAX!
So (ahem)…just found out that GRAVITY is also playing in the Cinerama Dome. Yup. The same movie at Chinese and the Dome. Absolutely insane.
Oh well…IMAX trumps Dome all day every day in my book!
Shout out to CT member BRADE48 for first posting the info.
It was a wise decision to use LED lights. At one time there were three different lighting circuits in the ceiling with three different colored bulbs. Changing the intensity of each color would produce a different effect. All those incandescent bulbs took a lot of electricity.
dctrig: as far as the ceiling goes, it looks different because they switched over to LED lighting; bringing out a lot of the detail which was not as visible under the previous incandescent lighting.
Went to the 10PM “Metallica” show on Thursday night with about 700 other people. Because of the glass box office partition I could not see the seat numbers the clerk showed me on the tablet. I pointed to one but ended up once inside with a much farther back seat. I moved up one or two rows to an aisle seat on the right aisle. It turned out fine as far as a viewing experience. If I go again I will buy at the upstairs box office where I can confirm my selection with no glass barrier. I noticed the two Chinese prints in the mens room foyer have been replaced by black and white celebrity photos. The seats are better than before but the seat cushion is a bit hard. I hope someone posts side by side before and after photos of the main ceiling and other areas, showing the various changes. The restoration gets an A- from me.
Hello From NYC-
aside from the hoopla about the Chinese re-opening has there been much talk in the press about the 3-D IMAX The Wizard of Oz? the film opened last Fri.9/20 at 2 of the 3 IMAX screens in Manhattan with no publicity whatsoever.
One final post from me tonight, I am sure if they really wanted to put in a screen as tall as Metreon or Lincoln square they could have, but it would have come at a huge cost, the loss of the beautiful historic architecture.
I think what the chinese has now is the best of both worlds You have all the historic beauty intact and an incredibly large screen, and a return of great movies to the chinese and great crowds for shows playing in the middle of the week.
with 15/70 going bye bye there is no need for a taller screen than what they put in.
I am sure some will disagree, but thats my outlook on it.
its funny when you call up and ask Citywalk the management refuses to say how big the screen is, I have called several times to ask and I get the same we don’t know response or we are not permited to say.
Hdtv I think the numbers you found for the Metreon are off a bit,
The Lincoln Square IMAX is actually bigger than the Metreon not the other way around.
for the heck of it I asked about the screen today when I went to watch OZ. I was told the dimensions of the screen is 14.07m x 28.98m and that the full screen will not be completely used until the laser projection comes next year, thats why you have several feet of masking on both sides presently.
the dimensions I was told (and listed above) when you translate meters to feet indicate 46 ft tall and 95 feet wide
Yes Chris some segments of some films are shot in 15/70 making the segments that are not shot in 15/70 stand out all the more but most of the IMAX shows are from originals with a much lower resolution than 15/70! I watched an IMAX film at Universal and the grain was so big is was distracting.
Therein lies the issue with 15/70. As sprawling as it is to look at, it is CUMBERSOME to operate. I thought I read somewhere that the reels for any given 15/70 print weigh as much as 6,000 POUNDS for a 2 ½ movie. I saw some You Tube video when TDKR was released that showed the painstakingly long process it took to take all of its reels and prep them for play in an IMAX projector. IIRC, it was a 3 day process.
No studio movies were filmed completely in 15/70, but TITANICA (95 minutes) and AT THE MAX (89 minutes) were feature length. Biggest problem was having feed & take-up platters large enough to handle such large pictures.
AHA! HDTV has solved the mystery. Chinese is the 3rd WIDEST…but Lincoln Square, Meteron, Rave, Citywalk are all TALLER. Way, way TALLER! Trickery with numbers. :)
RogerA: As everyone knows, segements of some IMAX feature films were shot in 15/70 – most famously “The Dark Knight” & “The Dark Knight Rises.” “Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol” & most recently “Star Trek Into Darkness” are on the list. The upcoming “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” also has some IMAX camera shot sequences. So will Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” coming in 2014. But there has never been an entire film shot in 15/70 IMAX.