Looks like there will be a midnight show of Terminator Salvation in the Dome. It looks maybe 80-90% sold out. The Chinese has NEC 2k projectors? What about the Dome? Does anyone know?
“I have a feeling they might be getting Night At The Museum 2 since Arclight is getting Terminator which opens the same week.” — jeremy w.
Unfortunately Arclight Hollywood has advance tickets on sale for that movie now.
Well at least The Chinese got Wolverine and apparently HP6 this summer. The Pixar movie Up will be at the El Capitan. The Dome will probably get all the other highly anticipated hits besides HP. (Land of the Lost, Transformers 2, Ice Age 3, G.I. Joe)
Well the ‘97 re-releases of Empire and Jedi played at the Chinese.
And I think SW, Empire, and Jedi played at the Dome one Saturday back in ‘87 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of SW.
Since Paramount owned or co-owned the the Chinese since the ‘80’s (I believe Ted Mann sold the Mann chain to the parent company of Paramount (Gulf + Western?) back in the '80’s?), I had mistakenly assumed that all the Trek films played there)
Arclight Hollywood has advance tix on sale for Star Trek, Angels and Demons, Night At The Museum 2, and Terminator Salvation. They are getting all the major May releases except Wolverine. The Pixar movie UP will play at the El Capitan of course. This really sucks.
All the Trek movies played at Graumans. All the Star Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones movies played at Graumans, but Episode III, Dark Knight, and Crystal Skull wound up at the Dome. Harry Potter 6 will probably wind up at the Dome even though all the other Potter movies played at Graumans.
on the arclight website they are selling advance tix for Star Trek (May 8) at both Hollywood and Sherman Oaks, but they are selling advance tix for Wolverine (also May 8) only at Sherman Oaks. So it looks like Wolverine will play here.
I think the Village in Westwood has the best overall presentation quality of the few remaining first run movie palaces in southern CA. And at 1300+ seats I believe it also has the largest seating capacity of any first run movie auditorium in So Cal.
On the cinematreasures page for the Village they are saying that Mann will likely not renew the leases on the Village and Bruin when they expire in a couple of years.
From “Los Angeles Business Journal” August 6, 2007:
Final bids were submitted for the purchase of the property beneath Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The theater itself isn’t part of the package until 2023, after the theater’s 99-year ground lease expires. Then the historic landmark will pass to the owner of the land. In the meantime, the winner of the bid will be able to collect rent from the Mann Theatres chain, which now owns the theater … . .
From “los Angeles Times,” September 3, 2007
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, a Hollywood landmark that attracts millions of tourists each year to its outdoor courtyard where generations of movie stars left their hand and footprints, has been purchased by Hollywood’s largest commercial landlord … . .
… . . Mann Theatres has a long-term lease on the legendary venue for movie premieres and will continue to operate it as a film house. It was sold to CIM by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Center of New York and Barlow Respiratory Hospital of Los Angeles … .
so CIM owns the land and Mann still owns the building? (until 2023?)
does anyone have any pics of the Loews auditorium? I’ve seen a pic of the screen with the proscenium. I’d like to see a pic taken from in front of the first row of the main floor, looking back at the entire seating area including the balcony.
do you guys agree that the Cinerama screen should only be used for films that were shot for Cinerama, and that for first run movies a screen with the proper dimensions and curvature should be used instead?
Or maybe it should be flat actually, since the projection booth is up high above the balcony we get the smiley banana effect on a curved screen. I guess, as long as the booth is above the balcony, for best possible image quality a flat screen is necessary.
IMHO, a lobby would be a more appropriate use of the Dome. As long as it has that overly wide, overly curved screen, the Dome has no business being a firstrun movie house, IMO. It should be a Cinerama museum and it could simultaneously double as the ticket lobby. The cafe or the gift shop/bookstore could be in the balcony maybe. Maybe one or two weeks a year all that would be cleared out and seats put in for an annual Cinerama Festival. They could show that small handful of films that were ever made for a Cinerama screen.
Why can’t they do it like the Cinerama in Seattle? From what I’ve read, the Seattle theater has a proper screen for 1.85 and 2.39 films, and once a year they spend a whole day putting up a Cinerama screen for a yearly Cinerama festival. Then when the festival is over they take down the Cinerama screen and first run movies are shown on a properly sized and curved 1.85/2.39 screen.
I was reading the AMC Empire 25 page here at cinematreasures. Cheers to AMC for spending all that money and going to all that trouble to move the old palace 200 feet down the street and saving it from a wrecking ball. Jeers to AMC for then turning the old palace into a popcorn lobby. It should’ve been the largest auditorium.
I think that was the right idea for the wrong theater. A grand old palace like that deserved to be the biggest auditorium instead of a popcorn lobby.
The Dome on the other hand could’ve been turned into the lobby for the Arclight complex. I don’t know why Pacific/Arclight needed such a huge lobby, but the lobby they built for Arclight Hollywood is like an airport, LOL. They should’ve used the Dome for that. Then the space where that huge airport like lobby is now could’ve been a 1000 seat first class theater with a large properly curved (the technique is raytracing I believe?) screen that doesn’t wash itself out and distort the picture, stadium seating, and that awesome sound system in a THX designed auditorium that doesn’t have a stupid domed ceiling that bounces the sound image all over the place.
I don’t think anyone has accused you of of mis-remembering or even lying about the way the old movie palaces, which were originally built when films were shot and presented in a 1.33:1 ratio, had to lower the top masking in order to show the new widescreen formats that came along in the ‘50’s.
When you tell us that those old movie theaters lowered the top masking for the widescreen formats we believe you. We are not accusing you of lying or remembering wrong.
We are simply saying that the ideal way for a screen to switch from 1.85 to 2.35 is to keep the height the same and move the left and right masking outwards. All we are saying is that back in the ‘50’s those old movie palaces lowered the top masking not because it was the best way, but because their grand old stages and prosceniums were originally designed for a 1.33:1 ratio and they were forced to compromise.
haines said quote: “The height stays the same and the side masking opens to create 2:35 – only 2:35 does not have the same height as 1:85, so I don’t know what you’re actually seeing in those theater, but it seems bogus to me, like most of today’s moviegoing.”
haines said quote: “… I’m just saying, everyone here is saying that the height is the .1 of 2:35.1 and that that is a constant. And I’m saying, okay, by that logic that means that 1:85 should have the same height as 1:33. No? Isn’t that what everyone is saying, that the height remains constant? …”
haines said quote: “So, let me get this straight – via the photos posted above – the 1:85 screen masking opens up for 2:35 but the top and bottom masking remains the same??? Sorry, doesn’t compute. ”
It sounds like you don’t know how aspect ratio is computed. Aspect ratio is width divided by height.
For example, if the screen is 10 feet high then,
for a 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio the screen is 13.3 feet wide.
for a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio the screen is 18.5 feet wide.
for a 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio the screen is 23.5 feet wide.
etc.
Thus, if the screen is 10 feet high and 18.5 feet wide you can change it to a 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio by leaving the top and bottom masking right where they are and moving the left masking 2.5 feet to the left and the right masking 2.5 feet to the right.
I didn’t know Star Trek: The Motion Picture had an overture.
Anyway, I remember seeing the restored directors cut of Lawrence of Arabia in 70MM back in the ‘80’s at the 1000 seat Mann Cinema 21 (later torn down) in San Diego, CA. Except for Gone With The Wind, it was the only time I ever saw a film presented with an overture. There were no trailers. The house lights slowly faded, the curtains remained closed, and the overture played. As the overture was finishing up the Columbia studio logo appeared on the curtains and then they opened up. I’ll always remember that.
Haines, did you get to see some of those old movies back in the ‘50’s that had a 2.6 aspect ratio? Was it just for those really wide formats like CinemaScope or CineMiracle that the top masking had to adjust downwards?
haines, the top and bottom were not supposed to change, only the sides. Thats why it was called widescreen. Those old theaters you’re talking about that were originally built for 1.33 or 1.85 to 1 were doing what they could to accomodate the new wider screens. A few, like the Chinese, and later, the Egyptian, actually ripped out their prosceniums to accomodate a screen that was truly wider and at least as tall as their original 1.33 or 1.85 screens.
The whole idea of widescreen was to have a new screen that was at least as tall as the existing 1.85 or 1.33 screen, but wider.
at bignewport.com it says the screen is 40x80. Thats 2 to 1. Not 2.4 to 1 or 1.85 to 1. Edwards had mulitplexes with fixed screens like that down in San Diego County as well. How can they get away with that! I remember seeing a few films at their theaters back in the ‘90’s. Credits and subtitles and actors would be cropped off or missing. Ridiculous. Needless to say I never went back.
When Regal took over did they do away with those stupid fixed screens and install screens with adjustable masking so that films can be shown in the proper aspect ratio?
quote Mark Campbell: “The reason the top masking came down AND the screen widened at your old theatre was simply the constraints of that particular theatre’s design and adaption to 2.35 Scope films. Because that particular theatre, or others, presented the films that way, does not mean it was the INTENTION of the filmmakers. I know the Royal theatre does this with their masking simply because they kept the screen under the old proscenium. A 1.85 screen shape will fill the proscenium top to bottom, but not quite side to side. For 2.35 scope they can widen to the edges of the proscenium but have to lower the top masking to create the more rectangular shape. In other words, I think they are doing they best they can with what they’ve got. For a lot of older theatres with the screen either under the proscenium or moved in front of it to allow it to get much wider, I think this is a lot of the times the case.
However, I think the INTENTION of the studios and the filmmakers was to have the image keep the same height but get WIDER, creating a more open, panoramic look that replicates more closely a person’s true field of vision. There would be no purpose for the image to get a little wider, but a little lower at the same time. That is counterproductive and merely a flaw or drawback in a particular theatre’s design."
yeah. In order to properly convert his famous movie palaces to widescreen Sid Grauman ripped out the prosceniums at his Egyptian and Chinese theaters in Hollywood. On their pages here at Cinematreasures, there are links to old photos of what those auditoriums originally looked like when he built them in the 1920’s.
I beleive when the top and bottom masking moves its called a ‘common width’ screen, and when the right and left masking moves its called a ‘common height’ screen?
Another reason for a theater having common width screens might be so they can advertise everything playing as being presented on a ‘giant wall to wall screen’.
Don’t all the screens at Arclight Hollywood carry THX certification? I thought that one of the requirements of THX certfication is a common height screen, where the masking adjusts on the sides rather top or bottom?
does anyone know what kind of, and how many subwoofers it has? The ‘vibrating air’ effect doesn’t seem as awesome as it used to be before they upgraded the sound system a few years ago.
Looks like there will be a midnight show of Terminator Salvation in the Dome. It looks maybe 80-90% sold out. The Chinese has NEC 2k projectors? What about the Dome? Does anyone know?
“I have a feeling they might be getting Night At The Museum 2 since Arclight is getting Terminator which opens the same week.” — jeremy w.
Unfortunately Arclight Hollywood has advance tickets on sale for that movie now.
Well at least The Chinese got Wolverine and apparently HP6 this summer. The Pixar movie Up will be at the El Capitan. The Dome will probably get all the other highly anticipated hits besides HP. (Land of the Lost, Transformers 2, Ice Age 3, G.I. Joe)
^oops :) hehe.
thanks for the corrections Michael.
Well the ‘97 re-releases of Empire and Jedi played at the Chinese.
And I think SW, Empire, and Jedi played at the Dome one Saturday back in ‘87 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of SW.
Since Paramount owned or co-owned the the Chinese since the ‘80’s (I believe Ted Mann sold the Mann chain to the parent company of Paramount (Gulf + Western?) back in the '80’s?), I had mistakenly assumed that all the Trek films played there)
Arclight Hollywood has advance tix on sale for Star Trek, Angels and Demons, Night At The Museum 2, and Terminator Salvation. They are getting all the major May releases except Wolverine. The Pixar movie UP will play at the El Capitan of course. This really sucks.
All the Trek movies played at Graumans. All the Star Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones movies played at Graumans, but Episode III, Dark Knight, and Crystal Skull wound up at the Dome. Harry Potter 6 will probably wind up at the Dome even though all the other Potter movies played at Graumans.
advance tickets are on sale for Wolverine.
on the arclight website they are selling advance tix for Star Trek (May 8) at both Hollywood and Sherman Oaks, but they are selling advance tix for Wolverine (also May 8) only at Sherman Oaks. So it looks like Wolverine will play here.
I think the Village in Westwood has the best overall presentation quality of the few remaining first run movie palaces in southern CA. And at 1300+ seats I believe it also has the largest seating capacity of any first run movie auditorium in So Cal.
On the cinematreasures page for the Village they are saying that Mann will likely not renew the leases on the Village and Bruin when they expire in a couple of years.
if Pacific had both the Dome and Grauman’s, would they open the big tentpole releases like Indy and Batman in both of them?
:)
thanks for the corrections Roger.
So the proscenium at the Chinese wasn’t removed until Windjammer? I thought it would’ve been done for the The Robe in 1953.
this was already posted here last fall:
From “Los Angeles Business Journal” August 6, 2007:
Final bids were submitted for the purchase of the property beneath Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The theater itself isn’t part of the package until 2023, after the theater’s 99-year ground lease expires. Then the historic landmark will pass to the owner of the land. In the meantime, the winner of the bid will be able to collect rent from the Mann Theatres chain, which now owns the theater … . .
From “los Angeles Times,” September 3, 2007
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, a Hollywood landmark that attracts millions of tourists each year to its outdoor courtyard where generations of movie stars left their hand and footprints, has been purchased by Hollywood’s largest commercial landlord … . .
… . . Mann Theatres has a long-term lease on the legendary venue for movie premieres and will continue to operate it as a film house. It was sold to CIM by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Center of New York and Barlow Respiratory Hospital of Los Angeles … .
so CIM owns the land and Mann still owns the building? (until 2023?)
back in ‘99 I think Phantom Menace had its very first public preview screening at this theatre?
does anyone have any pics of the Loews auditorium? I’ve seen a pic of the screen with the proscenium. I’d like to see a pic taken from in front of the first row of the main floor, looking back at the entire seating area including the balcony.
do you guys agree that the Cinerama screen should only be used for films that were shot for Cinerama, and that for first run movies a screen with the proper dimensions and curvature should be used instead?
Or maybe it should be flat actually, since the projection booth is up high above the balcony we get the smiley banana effect on a curved screen. I guess, as long as the booth is above the balcony, for best possible image quality a flat screen is necessary.
IMHO, a lobby would be a more appropriate use of the Dome. As long as it has that overly wide, overly curved screen, the Dome has no business being a firstrun movie house, IMO. It should be a Cinerama museum and it could simultaneously double as the ticket lobby. The cafe or the gift shop/bookstore could be in the balcony maybe. Maybe one or two weeks a year all that would be cleared out and seats put in for an annual Cinerama Festival. They could show that small handful of films that were ever made for a Cinerama screen.
Why can’t they do it like the Cinerama in Seattle? From what I’ve read, the Seattle theater has a proper screen for 1.85 and 2.39 films, and once a year they spend a whole day putting up a Cinerama screen for a yearly Cinerama festival. Then when the festival is over they take down the Cinerama screen and first run movies are shown on a properly sized and curved 1.85/2.39 screen.
I was reading the AMC Empire 25 page here at cinematreasures. Cheers to AMC for spending all that money and going to all that trouble to move the old palace 200 feet down the street and saving it from a wrecking ball. Jeers to AMC for then turning the old palace into a popcorn lobby. It should’ve been the largest auditorium.
I think that was the right idea for the wrong theater. A grand old palace like that deserved to be the biggest auditorium instead of a popcorn lobby.
The Dome on the other hand could’ve been turned into the lobby for the Arclight complex. I don’t know why Pacific/Arclight needed such a huge lobby, but the lobby they built for Arclight Hollywood is like an airport, LOL. They should’ve used the Dome for that. Then the space where that huge airport like lobby is now could’ve been a 1000 seat first class theater with a large properly curved (the technique is raytracing I believe?) screen that doesn’t wash itself out and distort the picture, stadium seating, and that awesome sound system in a THX designed auditorium that doesn’t have a stupid domed ceiling that bounces the sound image all over the place.
now that the 1100 seat National has actually been torn down will Mann revive their plans of adding a multiplex behind the Bruin?
I don’t think anyone has accused you of of mis-remembering or even lying about the way the old movie palaces, which were originally built when films were shot and presented in a 1.33:1 ratio, had to lower the top masking in order to show the new widescreen formats that came along in the ‘50’s.
When you tell us that those old movie theaters lowered the top masking for the widescreen formats we believe you. We are not accusing you of lying or remembering wrong.
We are simply saying that the ideal way for a screen to switch from 1.85 to 2.35 is to keep the height the same and move the left and right masking outwards. All we are saying is that back in the ‘50’s those old movie palaces lowered the top masking not because it was the best way, but because their grand old stages and prosceniums were originally designed for a 1.33:1 ratio and they were forced to compromise.
haines said quote: “The height stays the same and the side masking opens to create 2:35 – only 2:35 does not have the same height as 1:85, so I don’t know what you’re actually seeing in those theater, but it seems bogus to me, like most of today’s moviegoing.”
haines said quote: “… I’m just saying, everyone here is saying that the height is the .1 of 2:35.1 and that that is a constant. And I’m saying, okay, by that logic that means that 1:85 should have the same height as 1:33. No? Isn’t that what everyone is saying, that the height remains constant? …”
haines said quote: “So, let me get this straight – via the photos posted above – the 1:85 screen masking opens up for 2:35 but the top and bottom masking remains the same??? Sorry, doesn’t compute. ”
It sounds like you don’t know how aspect ratio is computed. Aspect ratio is width divided by height.
For example, if the screen is 10 feet high then,
for a 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio the screen is 13.3 feet wide.
for a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio the screen is 18.5 feet wide.
for a 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio the screen is 23.5 feet wide.
etc.
Thus, if the screen is 10 feet high and 18.5 feet wide you can change it to a 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio by leaving the top and bottom masking right where they are and moving the left masking 2.5 feet to the left and the right masking 2.5 feet to the right.
View link
I didn’t know Star Trek: The Motion Picture had an overture.
Anyway, I remember seeing the restored directors cut of Lawrence of Arabia in 70MM back in the ‘80’s at the 1000 seat Mann Cinema 21 (later torn down) in San Diego, CA. Except for Gone With The Wind, it was the only time I ever saw a film presented with an overture. There were no trailers. The house lights slowly faded, the curtains remained closed, and the overture played. As the overture was finishing up the Columbia studio logo appeared on the curtains and then they opened up. I’ll always remember that.
all we have nowadays is 1.85 and 2.35.
Haines, did you get to see some of those old movies back in the ‘50’s that had a 2.6 aspect ratio? Was it just for those really wide formats like CinemaScope or CineMiracle that the top masking had to adjust downwards?
haines, the top and bottom were not supposed to change, only the sides. Thats why it was called widescreen. Those old theaters you’re talking about that were originally built for 1.33 or 1.85 to 1 were doing what they could to accomodate the new wider screens. A few, like the Chinese, and later, the Egyptian, actually ripped out their prosceniums to accomodate a screen that was truly wider and at least as tall as their original 1.33 or 1.85 screens.
The whole idea of widescreen was to have a new screen that was at least as tall as the existing 1.85 or 1.33 screen, but wider.
at bignewport.com it says the screen is 40x80. Thats 2 to 1. Not 2.4 to 1 or 1.85 to 1. Edwards had mulitplexes with fixed screens like that down in San Diego County as well. How can they get away with that! I remember seeing a few films at their theaters back in the ‘90’s. Credits and subtitles and actors would be cropped off or missing. Ridiculous. Needless to say I never went back.
When Regal took over did they do away with those stupid fixed screens and install screens with adjustable masking so that films can be shown in the proper aspect ratio?
quote Mark Campbell: “The reason the top masking came down AND the screen widened at your old theatre was simply the constraints of that particular theatre’s design and adaption to 2.35 Scope films. Because that particular theatre, or others, presented the films that way, does not mean it was the INTENTION of the filmmakers. I know the Royal theatre does this with their masking simply because they kept the screen under the old proscenium. A 1.85 screen shape will fill the proscenium top to bottom, but not quite side to side. For 2.35 scope they can widen to the edges of the proscenium but have to lower the top masking to create the more rectangular shape. In other words, I think they are doing they best they can with what they’ve got. For a lot of older theatres with the screen either under the proscenium or moved in front of it to allow it to get much wider, I think this is a lot of the times the case.
However, I think the INTENTION of the studios and the filmmakers was to have the image keep the same height but get WIDER, creating a more open, panoramic look that replicates more closely a person’s true field of vision. There would be no purpose for the image to get a little wider, but a little lower at the same time. That is counterproductive and merely a flaw or drawback in a particular theatre’s design."
yeah. In order to properly convert his famous movie palaces to widescreen Sid Grauman ripped out the prosceniums at his Egyptian and Chinese theaters in Hollywood. On their pages here at Cinematreasures, there are links to old photos of what those auditoriums originally looked like when he built them in the 1920’s.
I beleive when the top and bottom masking moves its called a ‘common width’ screen, and when the right and left masking moves its called a ‘common height’ screen?
Another reason for a theater having common width screens might be so they can advertise everything playing as being presented on a ‘giant wall to wall screen’.
Don’t all the screens at Arclight Hollywood carry THX certification? I thought that one of the requirements of THX certfication is a common height screen, where the masking adjusts on the sides rather top or bottom?
does anyone know what kind of, and how many subwoofers it has? The ‘vibrating air’ effect doesn’t seem as awesome as it used to be before they upgraded the sound system a few years ago.