HOW THE WEST WAS WON, THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, and THIS IS CINERAMA in full, 3 strip Cinerama prints. CINERAMA HOLIDAY in a digital remaster of a 3 strip print. And IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD in 70mm...
Yes, the titles are as long as the movies are. They all have overtures and intermissions. They all are 2 - 3 hours long. And they all are AWESOME.
I learned all about the camera (It's 150 pounds with 3 interconnecting lenses, 3 film mags and a single shutter. It captures 146 degrees of vision.)
I found out why the giant COOPER theater in Denver, where I grew up and watch Ghostbusters, Firefox and Return of the Jedi and other movies, existed. (The screen was 110 feet across!)
Or why the RIVER HILLS / RIVIERA in Des Moines (Cadry Nelson, remember that!) had that crazy curved screen. All these theaters are gone. Turned into Barnes n Nobles, TGI Fridays or Parking Lots. In fact, only 3 theaters remain IN THE WORLD that can show 3 strip Cinerama. How lucky that one of them is 10 minutes from my house?
It has been an absolute joy to journey through this once world famous, box office breaking, mindblowing -- yet now almost forgotten -- period of enormous widescreen cinema. This is the reason we have widescreen cinema and Surround sound. It all started here.
And to go back in time, 50-60 years, and see these movies larger than life itself, is a true treat. It has been so inspiring, and has shown me a pure wonder and joy of cinema that I haven't seen regularly in a long time. I only wish I could have shared the experience with friends or family. So they could also have a giant childlike smile on their faces right now. :)
There's a few more movies tomorrow (Thursday) including How The West Was Won. Treat yourself. Go back in time. See, hear and feel the power of movies. It truly earns the word AWESOME.
And the next time you watch something on a computer, or iPad or iPhone or iAnything, shot with a shakey, blurry, low res HD camera, you'll know what you're missing.
Bigger is better when it comes to movies.
Big film makes digital look like a toy.
And Cinerama was as big as it's ever been.
Posts
As there were few films shown at the festival in 3 strip cinerama ,it should have been called A DIGITAL festival masquerading as a CINERAMA festival.Cinerama was truly awesome and like no other film experience for those of us who saw it in the good old dayS.Sadly the experience of that cannot be enjoyed today at the Dome due to its many flaws.
ReplyDeleteThe digital scanned prints were cool to see for the historic content of the films, but definitely not as awesome as the 3 Strip prints they had of "How The West Was Won", "This is Cinerama" and "Brothers Grimm". Those were awesome to see in 3 strip.
Delete