The Lafayette’s new digital projection system premieres on Friday 3/5 with Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”, presented in Real-D 3-D. Hope some of you come out for the historic event this weekend!
Fascinating article Michael, thanks for writing it. Somewhere in my house I have a foot-long chunk of a 70mm print of SoM, it was given to me by a projectionist I worked with at the Cinema 46 in Totowa, NJ. The reel it came from was in the booth of the Cinema 46 and was from a print that ran at the Bellevue in Upper Montclair. If I recall his discussion about it, they had two prints over the 100 weeks it played there (he was the chief projectionist) and this reel was from the second print. He took it with him and used it as his 70mm set-up reel at the Cinema 46. It was bizarre to come in early one morning at Cinema 46 and see a faded reel from the film playing just prior to our 70mm engagement of Poltergiest there.
While we don’t have any regularly scheduled classics set up for Cedar Lane, we hope to do the occasional show. Ironically, one of the problems is the theatre’s success with its regular line-up of first-run, indie, and foreign films – the studios do not like us scheduling the classic film shows at a time when we have to cancel a showing of one of the regular films.
Here’s the final confirmed Big Screen Classics spring schedule for the Lafayette, all shows begin at 11:30am:
March 13 – DR. NO
March 20 – INHERIT THE WIND
March 27 – MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN
April 3 – THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)
April 10 – IT’S A GIFT
April 17 – GILDA
April 24 – THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956)
May 1 – THE LADY EVE
May 8 – THE RED SHOES (new restored print)
May 15 – SABRINA
May 22 – THE APARTMENT
May 29 – CHAPLIN FESTIVAL (4 SHORTS)
June 5 – PAL JOEY
June 12 – ANATOMY OF A MURDER
June 19 – THREE STOOGES/LOONEY TUNES
We’re very happy with this line-up, a nice wide range of films. Hope to see you there!
No offense taken – thanks for your support. Yes, there are checks taken as much as possible. The auditorium had a show the night before with no incident and I was told the afternoon run-through of the print of The Godfather yesterday was fine. So whatever the problem is (the technicians are coming out today to see what’s up) happened with no advance warning. If it’s an electrical fault with the lamp mechanism, there’s no way to predict that it would happen. An issue such as that tends to happen at the worst time. I could document all the problems over the years (exploding lamps, burned out amplifiers, blown speakers, et al) that I’ve either seen as an audience member, heard about, or been a part of at all types of theatres.
The Godfather showing will be the concluding classic show at Cedar Lane for now. We will still have a few special events there (silents, film festivals, etc.), but no regularly scheduled classics.
We’re still getting the final dates on the rest of the spring titles, but here are some of the confirmed films we are running this spring: DR. NO, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956 version), IT’S A GIFT, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956 version), THE LADY EVE, THE RED SHOES, SABRINA, THE APARTMENT. I’m expecting to get the final seven confirmations in the next week or so and will post the final lineup when it’s all ready. See you there!
Digital 3-D uses polarization, the same as the ‘old analog 3-D’ did, which includes all of the 1950s 3D films and the early 80s films. Spy Kids and Sharkboy weren’t in polarized 3D, thedy were in comic book anaglyph 3D. ‘Old 3D’ is just as impressive as digital 3D is shown properly.
MPol – Thank you; I hope you make it to a show some time. In addition to our Saturday morning Big Screen Classics shows, the Lafayette is open every day for first-run films.
Jodar – Just to update, the opera boxes are available for seating on Saturday nights (I don’t recall the price). We opened them up by popular demand – people had been asking for a couple of years to be able to sit up there.
Jodar -
The opera boxes are not normally open for seating at films. We do open them for special events such as the It’s a Wonderful Life showing. In my opinion, they are not great for movie watching because of their angle to the screen. Since we use a silver screen, the viewing angle is optimized for the seats on the floor and loge; the opera boxes are a bit out of the reflectivity range, so you get a dimmer picture in them.
3-D trailers: Alice, Dragon, Hubble, Shrek 4, Percy Jackson & the Olympians. In 2-D, they ran the trailer for some Tom Cruise disaster called Knight & Day.
Saw the noon show today in IMAX ‘digital’ 3-D here (lieMAX). The presentation was pretty good, though you can still clearly see the pixels from the digital projectors if you are seated in the front half of the house. Place was packed for that show and the one coming in. The movie was OK, about a 2 out of 4. Way too long, too derivative, and too silly at times. Technically very accomplished other than a few 3-D mistakes (too much camera shake during some action scenes, for example).
Thanks to everyone who came out to yesterday’s show of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the closing film in the fall 2009 season. We packed in over 900 folks for the movie and pre-show holiday festivities and it was a great event. We’ll be back on March 13 for another full season of Big Screen Classics.
Great info, as always. Interesting that there were no northern New Jersey showings until 1961 at the Adams in Newark and no Long Island bookings at all. I guess if you wanted to see it, you made the trip to Manhattan.
And yet when I showed it at the Lafayette Theatre last year, we had over 1000 people show up for an 11:30 am showing. Many people realize that the only real way to see movies is on a theater screen.
2K for now.
The Lafayette’s new digital projection system premieres on Friday 3/5 with Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”, presented in Real-D 3-D. Hope some of you come out for the historic event this weekend!
Fascinating article Michael, thanks for writing it. Somewhere in my house I have a foot-long chunk of a 70mm print of SoM, it was given to me by a projectionist I worked with at the Cinema 46 in Totowa, NJ. The reel it came from was in the booth of the Cinema 46 and was from a print that ran at the Bellevue in Upper Montclair. If I recall his discussion about it, they had two prints over the 100 weeks it played there (he was the chief projectionist) and this reel was from the second print. He took it with him and used it as his 70mm set-up reel at the Cinema 46. It was bizarre to come in early one morning at Cinema 46 and see a faded reel from the film playing just prior to our 70mm engagement of Poltergiest there.
While we don’t have any regularly scheduled classics set up for Cedar Lane, we hope to do the occasional show. Ironically, one of the problems is the theatre’s success with its regular line-up of first-run, indie, and foreign films – the studios do not like us scheduling the classic film shows at a time when we have to cancel a showing of one of the regular films.
What good is the digital IMAX when you can still clearly see the pixels on screen as you can at the AMC Rockaway?
Too bad it will be all digital as it still doesn’t look nearly as good as well-done film projection.
Here’s the final confirmed Big Screen Classics spring schedule for the Lafayette, all shows begin at 11:30am:
March 13 – DR. NO
March 20 – INHERIT THE WIND
March 27 – MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN
April 3 – THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)
April 10 – IT’S A GIFT
April 17 – GILDA
April 24 – THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956)
May 1 – THE LADY EVE
May 8 – THE RED SHOES (new restored print)
May 15 – SABRINA
May 22 – THE APARTMENT
May 29 – CHAPLIN FESTIVAL (4 SHORTS)
June 5 – PAL JOEY
June 12 – ANATOMY OF A MURDER
June 19 – THREE STOOGES/LOONEY TUNES
We’re very happy with this line-up, a nice wide range of films. Hope to see you there!
Hi Bolorkay,
No offense taken – thanks for your support. Yes, there are checks taken as much as possible. The auditorium had a show the night before with no incident and I was told the afternoon run-through of the print of The Godfather yesterday was fine. So whatever the problem is (the technicians are coming out today to see what’s up) happened with no advance warning. If it’s an electrical fault with the lamp mechanism, there’s no way to predict that it would happen. An issue such as that tends to happen at the worst time. I could document all the problems over the years (exploding lamps, burned out amplifiers, blown speakers, et al) that I’ve either seen as an audience member, heard about, or been a part of at all types of theatres.
Hi bolorkay –
The Godfather showing will be the concluding classic show at Cedar Lane for now. We will still have a few special events there (silents, film festivals, etc.), but no regularly scheduled classics.
Coincidence…c'mon, Bill. :)
Hi Bill. Unless something unusual crops up, it should start at the regular time of 11:30 am on Saturday, April 3. It’ll be a great show.
We’re still getting the final dates on the rest of the spring titles, but here are some of the confirmed films we are running this spring: DR. NO, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956 version), IT’S A GIFT, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956 version), THE LADY EVE, THE RED SHOES, SABRINA, THE APARTMENT. I’m expecting to get the final seven confirmations in the next week or so and will post the final lineup when it’s all ready. See you there!
Good luck with the festival – sounds like a great event.
For sale:
Article in MLive
Depending on the location’s screen type, certain digital 3-D playdates got 1.78-formatted ‘prints’.
Digital 3-D uses polarization, the same as the ‘old analog 3-D’ did, which includes all of the 1950s 3D films and the early 80s films. Spy Kids and Sharkboy weren’t in polarized 3D, thedy were in comic book anaglyph 3D. ‘Old 3D’ is just as impressive as digital 3D is shown properly.
MPol – Thank you; I hope you make it to a show some time. In addition to our Saturday morning Big Screen Classics shows, the Lafayette is open every day for first-run films.
Jodar – Just to update, the opera boxes are available for seating on Saturday nights (I don’t recall the price). We opened them up by popular demand – people had been asking for a couple of years to be able to sit up there.
Jodar -
The opera boxes are not normally open for seating at films. We do open them for special events such as the It’s a Wonderful Life showing. In my opinion, they are not great for movie watching because of their angle to the screen. Since we use a silver screen, the viewing angle is optimized for the seats on the floor and loge; the opera boxes are a bit out of the reflectivity range, so you get a dimmer picture in them.
3-D trailers: Alice, Dragon, Hubble, Shrek 4, Percy Jackson & the Olympians. In 2-D, they ran the trailer for some Tom Cruise disaster called Knight & Day.
Yes, lights went down all the way when the trailers ended.
Saw the noon show today in IMAX ‘digital’ 3-D here (lieMAX). The presentation was pretty good, though you can still clearly see the pixels from the digital projectors if you are seated in the front half of the house. Place was packed for that show and the one coming in. The movie was OK, about a 2 out of 4. Way too long, too derivative, and too silly at times. Technically very accomplished other than a few 3-D mistakes (too much camera shake during some action scenes, for example).
Sit as far away as possible – the back row is good for the Imax-lite screens.
Thanks to everyone who came out to yesterday’s show of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the closing film in the fall 2009 season. We packed in over 900 folks for the movie and pre-show holiday festivities and it was a great event. We’ll be back on March 13 for another full season of Big Screen Classics.
Great info, as always. Interesting that there were no northern New Jersey showings until 1961 at the Adams in Newark and no Long Island bookings at all. I guess if you wanted to see it, you made the trip to Manhattan.
And yet when I showed it at the Lafayette Theatre last year, we had over 1000 people show up for an 11:30 am showing. Many people realize that the only real way to see movies is on a theater screen.