OF 3-D, IMAX, AND MODERN MOVIEGOING
As home theater setups get better and better, Hollywood
is desperately latching on to gimmicks in an attempt to offer an
experience that can't be recreated in the living room. 3-D has been
making a comeback for a number of years now; animated and IMAX films
have benefited the most so far, and James Cameron's upcoming sci-fi
epic Avatar will be a major test of the technology's appeal in the live action realm. The Dark Knight was the first major feature film to shoot sequences using the giant IMAX format,and now Variety reports
that several other big time directors are looking to go IMAX, too. But
there are still relatively few IMAX screens in the world, and not
everyone enjoys the current, often blurry and/or headache-inducing 3-D
technology. In the end these aren't game-changers. The main appeal of
seeing movies theatrically, and one that can never be reproduced at
home, is being able to share a communal experience with a bunch of
strangers. Unfortunately, strangers these days are a bunch of bastards.
They kick your chair, shine lights in your eyes when texting, talk as if they're sitting in their own living rooms, respond with puffed up hostility should you (politely) ask them to be quiet, chat on their (ringing) cellphones, and just generally behave with a sense of entitlement that would have been shocking 20 years ago. Most of you are probably nodding your heads in agreement, and yet most of you are probably guilty of one or more of these social crimes - it's o.k. when it's us, right? And adults seems to be taking behavior cues from the kids, rather than the other way around. Behavior that's somewhat excusable when you're a teenage dunderhead is simply pathetic when exhibited by a grown-up.
And the theaters themselves often cheapen out and turn off the surround sound, don't replace dim bulbs, lower the volume to barely intelligible levels, have busted speakers or severely unbalanced sound, are careless with the centering of the frame so that either heads or subtitles get cut off, yadda yadda yadda - it's a mess. (When I saw The Dark Knight in IMAX, the picture was brilliant, and the fidelity of the sound outstanding – but it was cranked up to rock concert levels,which was literally painful.) Certain theaters, like the Arclight in L.A., pride themselves on pristine presentation and audience control. But you can do that in Movietown; it won't fly in Hometown, U.S.A.
If the studios really want to improve the theatrical moviegoing experience, then they need to A) educate theater managers on projection standards, and then enforce them, and B) pay for the entire country to attend etiquette school. Neither of these is likely to happen, so we'll have to rely on the managers and owners to start caring about, you know, their jobs. As most of them define their job as the selling of concessions, with the movies themselves a kind of afterthought, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for change.
KATE & LEO'S SUBURBAN ANGST
With the release of the first official trailer for Revolutionary Road, the hype machine is now officially in motion for the anticipated (?) reunion of Titanic duo Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, it looks an awful lot like a Mad Men/American Beauty mashup, but no matter. With Beauty director Sam Mendes calling the shots, and both Winslet and DiCaprio having matured greatly as actors in the intervening years, the affair should at the least be worth watching. The domestic commercial appeal seems limited, as it's hard to imagine anyone under the age of 20 or so wanting to see a film about adult suburban angst - especially one that seems to be as... methodically paced as this trailer suggests. Time will tell.
ODDS AND ENDS
For much of the 90's John Grisham's lawyerly thrillers dominated the publishing charts, and his "the" films (The Client, The Rainmaker, etc.) often performed well at the box office to boot. The last Grisham-based film was, er, Christmas with the Cranks; but now The Hollywood Reporter shares that
a screenplay of Grisham's The Partner has been commissioned, to be written by Ann Peacock (who adapted Nights in Roanthe) • Marvel Comics used to be in the business of licensing the theatrical rights to its characters to outside companies. This summer was Marvel's debut as a producer of their own films, scoring big with Iron Man and doing passably well with The Incredible Hulk (if not quite well enough to merit a sequel). Marvel may now produce the films, but one of the traditional Hollywood giants has to take care of distribution, marketing, etc. Variety reports that Paramount Pictures has signed up to handle these duties for Marvel's next five films, which include Thor, the Iron Man sequel(s), a Captain America film, and an Avengers film (which unites several Marvel heroes) • Nikke Finke has an interesting "inside baseball" look at how MGM interprets the buzz surrounding Tom Cruise Nazi flick Valkyrie • Sorry haters, but in an interview with MTV Kirsten Dunst says that, despite rumors to the contrary, she's "in" as Mary Jane Watson in the recently announced fourth Spider-Man film
Well we had the same turn out this month as we did last month for Nausicaa. At least we're not losing numbers. This month Eurotrip, suggested by Nick at R2D2, was the selection. Check out what all five of us had to say.
