Loew's Capitol Theatre

Thank you Mike (saps) and Bill Huelbig for the kind words. I may not find out until late April/early May, but as soon as I know if I’m running it, I’ll be sure to post it. I’m hoping I get it.

Thanks, Mark. I hope you get to run “2001” on May 18th.

Bill Huelbig, so you get a better understanding on how this works these days, if a movie is booked into a theatre by the theatre company like city cinemas village east or 1,2,3, that means they have in house projectionists. If it booked into theatres with studio owned equipment, booked by the studio, into the E walk or Lincoln square, then I and my team of projectionists are called and hired to do the run. CC is noted for scratching their prints and having problems. I just completed an 11 week 372 showing of Phantom Thread at Lincoln Square and my print went back scratch and dirt free. And at a cost of approx. $25,000 a print, the studios love me.

Thanks for the good news, markp. Is the Kings the theater with the wide curved screen and the elephant decorations? I’m basing this on that long- ago viewing of The Wild Bunch, but I’m sure there were elephants there somewhere.

The Village East on 12th St. and 2nd Ave. is showing Ready Player One in 70mm. I’ve never been there, but I am going to check it out. I heard that all 70mm engagements of Ready Player One are preceded by a 70mm trailer for 2001.

Waiting for Warner Bros. to post the list of 70mm screening venues. The story is all over the movie industry websites, and I even heard about it on the radio this morning. I’m a happy man.

Sadly, I think I remember reading that the Uptown has gone all digital.

Now, if only we could see it at the Capitol or the Rivoli or the State or the Criterion or the Strand or even the Ziegfeld, all would be right in the universe…

I realize this is confusing but at the end of 2001 in ‘76 the print most definitely said Cinerama at the end(I was very surprised to see this.) In '78 it said 70MM. I know it was not a Cinerama presentation but for some reason the '76 presentation was so much more impressive.

Also I assumed the screen size of the Warner Cinerama after the theater had been split was the same size it had been when it showed single screen Cinerama. It was huge curved and the 70MM/Todd AO festival in ‘78 was astounding which is one of the reasons I could never take the Ziegfeld seriously. Too bad it had become an exploitation house in the 70s.

The Rivoli and Warner were the real thing. Even the Bellevue in Montclair was a better 70MM house. They all blew the Ziegfeld away.

I just posted in Photos a full page ad of good reviews of “2001” from New York critics, taken from the NY Times, 4/5/1968. The 50th anniversary is only a few days away.

But isn’t 70mm the size of the film stock and not related to screen size?

That would be wonderful but is anyone around who would remember those presentations well enough?

But even as echt Cinerama and such magnificent visuals I still am interested in 2001’s presentation at various theaters.

I saw it twice at the Rivoli first in ‘76 which was overwhelming for me as I had first seen it many years before as a boy in the suburbs. A kid’s matinee where nobody got the space adventure they were expecting. Very noisy.

The end of the print at the Rivoli said ‘Cinerama.’

Then saw it at the Rivoli two years later on what seemed a smaller screen and was not nearly as impressive. The end where the Cinerama logo had been the first time it said 70MM.

Somebody once wrote here that the road show presentation of Sweet Charity was on a smaller screen because Universal did not want to pay for the Dimension 150 screen. Make of that what you will.

I’d have to give the edge to the Capitol, especially since it was my first time seeing the film. I’d also never seen a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall screen before. 5 years earlier, I’d seen How the West Was Won at the Clairidge Cinerama theater in Montclair, NJ, but that screen was positioned off the floor on, I think, a stage. Some mid-1960’s reference book I saw at my local library back then said that the Capitol had the world’s largest screen. I don’t think that can be proven, but it certainly seemed that way.

The screen at the Uptown was pretty overwhelming itself, especially when I sat in the front row. It was worth the trip from New Jersey all the times I went there, including when it played for a week in 1993 to commemorate the 25th anniversary. I’m hoping the Uptown is going to show it again this year.

Sound was excellent in both theaters. I think my favorite showing of 2001 sound-wise was a 35mm screening at the Lafayette Theater in Suffern, NY., with Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood in the audience. I remember thinking, they must be hearing this outside in the street.