anyway, if they wanted it on one of the smaller screens, why on Earth not put it on #13 as they did for Grease and the better of the two sets West Side Story showings (including the Wed ones last time; the Sun ones were on #5 had the dim, if also very crisp and sharp, projection that faded out a lot towards the edge of the screen). Same size screen too as #14,#5, again barely any seating difference between #13 and #5, just a few seats. That one has speakers set perfectly for this (#5 is pretty good in this regard though too) and top level projection. So why stick something so hugely visual as this one in #5 which has been bungled for months in some ways?
13 has crisp, bright, saturated, sharp amazing projection unlike #5 which has been having very crisp and sharp but dark projection that for some reason has been washing out towards the sides of the screen. Both have the audio set perfectly for something like this (unlike certain other screens which would be too loud and piercing or too loud and boomy and unbalanced, granted #14 has had a few odd issues, something the audio great if a trace loud other times something weird where for all or part of the movie it’s sounded a bit boomy and something odd with the treble not sure if one speaker, maybe a center or some equalizer has a loose connection?? Last two times I was there though the audio was fine though, but it has varied in #14 in recent times).
And really it would’ve been cool for them to just use #16 for two showings of this like they do for a lot of Fathom stuff, huge screen, audio great for this sort of thing. I guess the one worry on #16 is whether they show it correctly like for ET last Sept. and South Pacific this August or whether they go back to deciding for some reason to apparently stream it even though for Fathom Classics you both don’t need to and should not stream it, extra so when you have the color range set wrong for that and it looks all faded out. Did South Pacific looking perfect and amazing there again mean they finally got that straightened out again for good? Or was it the just a rare time like with E.T. they got it right?
Shit. Why the heck did they suddenly pull The Sound Of Music from #14 and swap it to #5? This is the sort of movie that is so visual and demands a fresh projection bulb and a good screen.
5 has something wrong with it, the projection bulb is worn out and the edges of the screen totally fade out in brightness, contrast and saturation in a weird way now
14 has perfect projection
both the same size screen and the seating total difference is so small, I mean what does it even matter one vs. the other that they had to switch it?
why move TSOM from the screen with the premiere projection and put Christopher Robin which has been out for weeks and weeks already and doesn’t need top projection as critically?
this is the second time they have ever showed TSOM here and now both times they have stuck on a shitty messed up screen that they have let run to pot, last time they had it on a bigger #7 but the projector was totally out of sorts and had huge color fringes around everything and this time they put on a screen with an all but burned out bulb and somethign wrong with the projection where if you sit on the left, then the whole right edge looked totally faded out or if you sit on the right then the whole left edge looks totally faded out and if oyu sit in the middle both sides look a bit faded out and just overall the bulb is almost burned out
so why swap the movie that screams for the best projection and rarely plays for a movie that doesn’t require top projection, they had even better choices than even CR to move to #5 films that are not very visual at all, and move it to one with dingier projection? I mean what because of like 100 vs 120 seats or something? It won’t make a difference either way.
and why let the projection quality keep running to the ground on certain screens here? once upon a time, maybe before the Chinese buy out of AMC, all the screens used to pretty much always have good projection
The Fathom classics mostly don’t use satellite feed (other than maybe they were accidentally using that option for some show in #16 when they;d have been bettr off using the regular method which is available for the Fathom Classics). Anyway, so far, I’ve never had a Fathom Classics, no matter what they used to show it, not run. Also aren’t they like only $1-2 more than a regular show at most? And actually less than some regular shows.
@markp – yeah it was great, you kept the print top notch too, I heard talk of dirt and scratches and so on at some other theaters 70mm showings, the Paramus one, even when we saw it quite a few days into the run, was pristine and great
But they have been showing lots like that in fairly wide release, mostly Sun/Wed pairings. Just over the last few years I’ve seen: South Pacific, 2001, West Side Story, Labyrinth, Carousel, Vertigo, Big, Grease, Titanic, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Bladerunner, Singin' In The Rain, The Lion King, The Godfather, Across The Universe, The Princess Bride, Bonnie And Clyde, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Fifth Element, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Back To The Future Trilogy, Terminator 2, Terminator, North By Northwest, Dirty Dancing, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Pretty In Pink, Home Alone, Jaws, E.T., The Breakfast Club, Ghostbusters (1984), Raiders Of The Lost Arc, Goonies, Sleepless In Seattle, Groundhog Day, Sixteen Candles, Top Gun 3D, Star Wars Episode I 3D, Wizard Of Oz 3D, Jurassic Park, The Sound Of Music, Wizard Of Oz and more great ones….
@Bill Huelbig “Can’t believe it’s in 350 theaters across the US. What other 50-year-old movie could accomplish that?”
It is pretty awesome to see stuff like that.
One thing though, check out the Fathom Events Classics series, it’s a lot more 30,40,50 year old movies that have been getting as wide of a release.
Just saw South Pacific today at the Rockaway on a nice big 55' screen and it was amazing. Everything look amazing, good black levels, rich colors, very crisp and sharp, perfect audio. Fantastic presentation.
And this is one that really seems like you’ve never even seen the movie before it plays so differently on the big screen. It felt like it was the first time I had ever seen it.
Films of this sort just have to be seen on the big screen.
And it awesome it was on #16, one of the largest non-IMAX/Dolby screens around (heck, I think it is at least as large as the Clifton IMAX).
I saw 2001 at Paramus in 70mm a couple months ago and then at the Rockaway, NJ IMAX the other day.
Definitely impressive to see this on the big screen for the first time! Almost like a new movie.
The 70mm film was really cool, cool to see film again and 70mm is nice and crisp. I felt it did have a little more detail, some fairly noticeably so, at times compared to the digital IMAX. The 70mm also had the lights all running and set properly. Even the digital one did run it the full way though with the full intermission and the post credits music, something I’ve heard that almost all showings other than a few of the 70mm ones at some theaters earlier this year, so that was good.
The Rockaway, NJ IMAX screen was bigger so that was cool. The colors looked pretty rich here too, a few times maybe a touch more for the 70mm versions, but generally it was pretty good for the digital IMAX regarding that too. Maybe a few 70mm things had a bit better shadow detail, hard to say. The 70mm for our liking the best seats with the way that theater was designed had us sitting at a lower level relative to the screen than at the IMAX so the screen was a bit higher up which feels a bit more impressive. The volume at the Paramus seemed too loud but it was beyond too loud at the IMAX, even with earplugs that transmission tone and some other stuff make you cringe. The Rockaway IMAX was a bit more rumbly, felt the bass more but also I think too much upper bass which left it a touch boomy at times compared to the Paramus 70mm showing. But still all impressive and a great see on a huge screen.
The 70mm was special. Both were great though. The Rockaway screen is nearing as big as the old Paramus Stanley Giant too and the if you see it at the Paramus IMAX or Jersey Gardens IMAX the screen will be at least as big and I think even a trace bigger than the old Stanley Warner giant.
Of course the most most version is probably the IMAX film version at the insanely huge screen at Lincoln here.
Saw South Pacific here on screen #16 and happy to say that they got the Fathom Classic events shown correctly on #16 again finally. First time since ET otherwise for the last two plus years they kept showing it oddly with the extreme edges of the screen blank and the black levels more like gray and saturation and contrast faded out. I wonder if since that theater can handle live streaming if they hadn’t been mostly streaming all the Fathom stuff in #16 even the Classic stuff where you can also get a much superior standard regularly, non-stream delivery and then had the live streaming set to maybe standard movie 0-255 levels when maybe they were sending out 16-235 video levels?
Anyway, whatever the case, they seemed to use a normal non-streamed one today and everything look amazing, good black levels, rich colors, very crisp and sharp, perfect audio. Fantastic presentation.
And this is one that really seems like you’ve never even seen the movie before it plays so differently on the big screen. It felt like it was the first time I had ever seen it.
Films of this sort just have to be seen on the big screen.
And it awesome it was on #16, one of the largest non-IMAX/Dolby screens around (heck, I think it is at least as large as the Clifton IMAX).
If you still can, catch it tonight! It’s a different movie on a giant screen like that compared to at home.
As you say they showed it the full way too with full intermission, post credit music, etc.
It’s not as sharp as the 70mm versions shown at Paramus a few months ago, but looks good. And the impact on a huge screen is not to be missed. Some movies like this and some others almost seem like different films when seen in the theater.
“I just saw the digital version in Clifton, NJ. It was quite beautiful. You could easily see all the incredible details in so many scenes. For example, the dinner recommendation on the wall of the kitchen on the Jupiter ship included roast beef, mashed potatoes, blueberry pie and coffee. I had never been able to read that before.”
All the IMAX screens are just 2k though not 4k unless you are talking a laser one/one of the few that can play IMAX film. Wouldn’t it show less detail than the 70mm print just played at say Paramus a few months ago?
yeah that is a weird thing, MI is better in IMAX since it has a number of scenes with expanded screen and the Meg probably works better in Dolby since you get 4K and don’t lose expanded screens, since this is basically the reverse of what would be best for each
although I think the pretty large screen #1 is probably good enough for the Meg for me in this particular case
Laser IMAX is pretty awesome (certainly the system they use on the real IMAX screens is at least)
hope the new rocker seats are not too large, since that makes for seating harder to find at the optimal distance and the mall already sells out big event stuff even with the current small seats
yeah it’s way too loud and the Dolby Cinemas tend to also be pretty treble hot which makes them real ear burners
I have to wear earplugs for many screens, including this one (of course that reduces the audio quality a bit but better than adding ever more damage to hearing).
Wow, that’s sad that they are tearing apart the Loews! That was the one really unique theater left in the whole region as far as I know. And the screen there was not small! It had the largest non-IMAX screen that I know of in the whole Tri-state area region at 65' (which is basically as large as the largest digital IMAX screens in NJ/NYC AFAIK).
I was wondering why I couldn’t find any showings there recently.
I kinda of wish they had torn up the second largest main screen here instead.
Oh and on screen size again, my guess it that the IMAX here is a 65' screen (and thus a touch larger than the famous old Stanley Warner Rt 4. Paramus 62' monster, auditorium is much smaller though, that one was nuts, I heard someone there claim it seated 2,500??? I was really little when I was there so I don’t recall the seat count myself, but I just know it had like a huge wide middle section and then two side sections, quite wide across in seating and then it was really long too, tons and tons of rows and then even more because of the balcony up top)?
Not sure what the Dolby Cinema is here, maybe a 60'?
Then screen #5, not sure, maybe it’s a 56'???
Maybe #15 is a 45'?
Rockaway has two 1.85:1 56' and then an IMAX that seems maybe 1.78:1 or so? and maybe 60'? And a Dolby Cinema, probably 1.85:1, maybe 56'-58'?
It’s all a bit confusing, the IMAX at Rockaway seems a bit bigger than the DC. The Paramus and Jersey Gardens IMAX are bigger than the Rockaway. The DC seems to have more seats across at Parmus than the Rockaway but isn’t as large as the IMAX so the numbers don’t quite all seem to work out. But anyway, probably they are reasonably close.
All I know is you can tell for sure the IMAX here and Jersey Gardens is a bit bigger screen than at Rockaway. And that the IMAX here looks bigger than the DC screen. The IMAX at Rockaway also seems bigger than the DC there (although with the screen being I think a touch different aspect ratio it’s a trickier call).
You might not think it should be apparent, but you can easily feel the difference in screen size from just an extra 5' width quite noticeably even when up in the 45'-70' range.
Manville Reading has two nice big 2.35:1 screens. Not as tall the Rockaway IMAX with it’s squarer aspect ratio, but they seems to be nearing as wide. The #4 there also has superb speakers and also kept at slightly more sane volume levels than many these days. #3 there since going Atmos has apparently had the volume turned nuts level as is all too common.
One final comment for now, for whatever reason, out of all the Northern NJ movie theaters, it seems to me that Rockaway AMC pulls in the largest crowds for things like Fathom events classics. Garden State is the premiere AMC for the region and in a much more populated area, but I’ve never yet seen it get larger (and often it gets a good bit smaller) crowds for Fathom Classics. Not that Rockaway has huge crowds for all of them, but for 80s pop classics it always gets a big crowd and sometimes pulls a huge crowd for other stuff, Grease was pretty packed and Singing In the Rain basically sold out the tied for largest (by seats) auditorium, Jaws literally did sell out that one, Godfather added a few extra showings so the prime time ones must have done very well, etc. Of course Fathom stuff only has 4 showings and that is it (well other than for The Godfather). Which is why it was odd when they kept trying to do stuff like cancel AMC Classics from Rockaway way back and make it Garden State only and then they tried to cancel Fathom at Rockaway at the end of last year and make it only GS and a few small, crummier AMCs, thankfully they brought it back again for this year.
With 2001 having more showings than that per day, I guess the number of people it is bringing in is not too bad (especially since so few people in the greater region had a clue it’s playing here in 70mm, not one person I personally knew had a clue and by the time I told them, most couldn’t schedule the trip way out there mid-week, at least a couple of them will make it though). Imagine that packed into just two Sunday and two Wednesday showings total like a Fathom event (which also get at least some advertising) and it might have been fairly crowded at each showing I guess.
(Also, interestingly, I overheard the HS/college kids saying something about how this 2001 70mm showing here looked awesome and that they should do a ton more film like that here.)
Oh and as far as stubs goes, it’s not a bad deal at all if you go to a lot of movies. You get regular movies for $5 on Tuesday and often IMAX will be nearly half price too on Tusedays and you score points for everything that end up way, way more than paying for the $12 a year fee. I do see a fair amount of movies though and a lot on the more expensive screens to my points maybe add up a bit faster than they would for some.
Speaking of Wanda, maybe they are messing up AMC. When the AMCs first went digital, basically every digital auditorium had bright, contrasty, rich projection of uniform quality. Now it’s really become so hit and mess, especially over the last couple years plus. They are really starting to cheap out on bulbs and projectors at times now. Like Rockaway, for instance, now has some great screens some pretty good and then a few stinkers, just totally dull, washed out, dark dismal image, awful quality, like gray blacks, dull whites, low color saturation, some of the worst looking projection I’ve seen like see screen #5 there now, bleh, and back when Blade Runner 2049 came out, #10 was so dark, although with deep blacks so not faded out, it was just ridiculous, OTOH some others have really bright, rich, contrasty projection with deep blacks and bright whites and rich colors, all depends upon the auditorium now days even at a single theater. Also, for whatever reason, for the last two years, other than for ET which looked great, every Fathom even they show on the #16 56' screen has the black levels all faded out and weak contrast, no clue why, the few times they show Fathom on other screens there it looks like normal projection with proper blacks and contrast and saturation.
And like Jersey Gardens AMC some screens look great but was in a small one last year and wow was the projection dark.
I don’t go out to this Garden State one too much but I haven’t seen a screen here use super dim projection yet at least. Although #4 when I peaked in, I did notice, at least like a year or two ago, had the projector mis-aimed and was projecting like a full 5' vertically offset from the screen! And speaking of that while Rockaway fixed the color fringing in #7 and it looks super sharp, bright, deep blacks, great colors, etc. somehow when they fixed it they made it project too large, it’s like masked off so it doesn’t show over the borders much but it’s like you see the movie slightly zoomed in and some stuff that has low subtitles can lose some of the bottom line of them and you can see stuff missing on the far left and right edge too that you’ll see on the other screens.
Until a few years ago, constantly seeing one weird issue or another seemed really rare at all these regional AMCs.)
@Bill Huelbig – at the Monday 3:30 there were actually some younger people, there was one pair that looked maybe high school age even and then one little group that looked maybe college age and then maybe a few 30 years olds and maybe a couple 40 year olds for the likely under 50 set. I was surprised that for this showing the audience hadn’t skewed mostly 60+. Instead it seemed to be mostly under 40.
Also I saw another film on a known 56' screen the next day and it was noticeably larger, so yeah this one is no way a 60-62', probably a 45', not huge, but not bad. Going by seat count across the wide and adding extra seats to the screen borders roughly x 2 often seems pretty close to screen size.
And yeah the projection was great! Even Monday a few days in, barely any dust at all. Almost looked like digital clean hah. I heard tell that at some other theater during this run someone just saw it and the image was dark and they said there was a huge scratch over the entire first half and it had tons of dust, no lighting tricks, etc.
It really was neat to see. My mom loved it too, hadn’t seen it projected since the original ‘68 release.
One slightly unfortunate thing is I’m not sure how many people, especially those for whom this is not their very most local theater, actually know this is being shown here this week. I only knew because I was actively looking since I first heard 2001 might get some releases this year and check various potential theaters/am subscribed to this thread.
whoa it made part of my text huge and red again, sorry, must be something about using the “#” symbol?
anyway, if they wanted it on one of the smaller screens, why on Earth not put it on #13 as they did for Grease and the better of the two sets West Side Story showings (including the Wed ones last time; the Sun ones were on #5 had the dim, if also very crisp and sharp, projection that faded out a lot towards the edge of the screen). Same size screen too as #14,#5, again barely any seating difference between #13 and #5, just a few seats. That one has speakers set perfectly for this (#5 is pretty good in this regard though too) and top level projection. So why stick something so hugely visual as this one in #5 which has been bungled for months in some ways?
13 has crisp, bright, saturated, sharp amazing projection unlike #5 which has been having very crisp and sharp but dark projection that for some reason has been washing out towards the sides of the screen. Both have the audio set perfectly for something like this (unlike certain other screens which would be too loud and piercing or too loud and boomy and unbalanced, granted #14 has had a few odd issues, something the audio great if a trace loud other times something weird where for all or part of the movie it’s sounded a bit boomy and something odd with the treble not sure if one speaker, maybe a center or some equalizer has a loose connection?? Last two times I was there though the audio was fine though, but it has varied in #14 in recent times).
And really it would’ve been cool for them to just use #16 for two showings of this like they do for a lot of Fathom stuff, huge screen, audio great for this sort of thing. I guess the one worry on #16 is whether they show it correctly like for ET last Sept. and South Pacific this August or whether they go back to deciding for some reason to apparently stream it even though for Fathom Classics you both don’t need to and should not stream it, extra so when you have the color range set wrong for that and it looks all faded out. Did South Pacific looking perfect and amazing there again mean they finally got that straightened out again for good? Or was it the just a rare time like with E.T. they got it right?
who not sure why some of the text became gigantic and red in my last post
Shit. Why the heck did they suddenly pull The Sound Of Music from #14 and swap it to #5? This is the sort of movie that is so visual and demands a fresh projection bulb and a good screen.
5 has something wrong with it, the projection bulb is worn out and the edges of the screen totally fade out in brightness, contrast and saturation in a weird way now
14 has perfect projection
both the same size screen and the seating total difference is so small, I mean what does it even matter one vs. the other that they had to switch it?
why move TSOM from the screen with the premiere projection and put Christopher Robin which has been out for weeks and weeks already and doesn’t need top projection as critically?
this is the second time they have ever showed TSOM here and now both times they have stuck on a shitty messed up screen that they have let run to pot, last time they had it on a bigger #7 but the projector was totally out of sorts and had huge color fringes around everything and this time they put on a screen with an all but burned out bulb and somethign wrong with the projection where if you sit on the left, then the whole right edge looked totally faded out or if you sit on the right then the whole left edge looks totally faded out and if oyu sit in the middle both sides look a bit faded out and just overall the bulb is almost burned out
so why swap the movie that screams for the best projection and rarely plays for a movie that doesn’t require top projection, they had even better choices than even CR to move to #5 films that are not very visual at all, and move it to one with dingier projection? I mean what because of like 100 vs 120 seats or something? It won’t make a difference either way.
and why let the projection quality keep running to the ground on certain screens here? once upon a time, maybe before the Chinese buy out of AMC, all the screens used to pretty much always have good projection
The Fathom classics mostly don’t use satellite feed (other than maybe they were accidentally using that option for some show in #16 when they;d have been bettr off using the regular method which is available for the Fathom Classics). Anyway, so far, I’ve never had a Fathom Classics, no matter what they used to show it, not run. Also aren’t they like only $1-2 more than a regular show at most? And actually less than some regular shows.
@markp – yeah it was great, you kept the print top notch too, I heard talk of dirt and scratches and so on at some other theaters 70mm showings, the Paramus one, even when we saw it quite a few days into the run, was pristine and great
But they have been showing lots like that in fairly wide release, mostly Sun/Wed pairings. Just over the last few years I’ve seen: South Pacific, 2001, West Side Story, Labyrinth, Carousel, Vertigo, Big, Grease, Titanic, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Bladerunner, Singin' In The Rain, The Lion King, The Godfather, Across The Universe, The Princess Bride, Bonnie And Clyde, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Fifth Element, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Back To The Future Trilogy, Terminator 2, Terminator, North By Northwest, Dirty Dancing, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Pretty In Pink, Home Alone, Jaws, E.T., The Breakfast Club, Ghostbusters (1984), Raiders Of The Lost Arc, Goonies, Sleepless In Seattle, Groundhog Day, Sixteen Candles, Top Gun 3D, Star Wars Episode I 3D, Wizard Of Oz 3D, Jurassic Park, The Sound Of Music, Wizard Of Oz and more great ones….
@Bill Huelbig “Can’t believe it’s in 350 theaters across the US. What other 50-year-old movie could accomplish that?”
It is pretty awesome to see stuff like that.
One thing though, check out the Fathom Events Classics series, it’s a lot more 30,40,50 year old movies that have been getting as wide of a release.
Just saw South Pacific today at the Rockaway on a nice big 55' screen and it was amazing. Everything look amazing, good black levels, rich colors, very crisp and sharp, perfect audio. Fantastic presentation.
And this is one that really seems like you’ve never even seen the movie before it plays so differently on the big screen. It felt like it was the first time I had ever seen it.
Films of this sort just have to be seen on the big screen.
And it awesome it was on #16, one of the largest non-IMAX/Dolby screens around (heck, I think it is at least as large as the Clifton IMAX).
I saw 2001 at Paramus in 70mm a couple months ago and then at the Rockaway, NJ IMAX the other day.
Definitely impressive to see this on the big screen for the first time! Almost like a new movie.
The 70mm film was really cool, cool to see film again and 70mm is nice and crisp. I felt it did have a little more detail, some fairly noticeably so, at times compared to the digital IMAX. The 70mm also had the lights all running and set properly. Even the digital one did run it the full way though with the full intermission and the post credits music, something I’ve heard that almost all showings other than a few of the 70mm ones at some theaters earlier this year, so that was good.
The Rockaway, NJ IMAX screen was bigger so that was cool. The colors looked pretty rich here too, a few times maybe a touch more for the 70mm versions, but generally it was pretty good for the digital IMAX regarding that too. Maybe a few 70mm things had a bit better shadow detail, hard to say. The 70mm for our liking the best seats with the way that theater was designed had us sitting at a lower level relative to the screen than at the IMAX so the screen was a bit higher up which feels a bit more impressive. The volume at the Paramus seemed too loud but it was beyond too loud at the IMAX, even with earplugs that transmission tone and some other stuff make you cringe. The Rockaway IMAX was a bit more rumbly, felt the bass more but also I think too much upper bass which left it a touch boomy at times compared to the Paramus 70mm showing. But still all impressive and a great see on a huge screen.
The 70mm was special. Both were great though. The Rockaway screen is nearing as big as the old Paramus Stanley Giant too and the if you see it at the Paramus IMAX or Jersey Gardens IMAX the screen will be at least as big and I think even a trace bigger than the old Stanley Warner giant.
Of course the most most version is probably the IMAX film version at the insanely huge screen at Lincoln here.
Saw South Pacific here on screen #16 and happy to say that they got the Fathom Classic events shown correctly on #16 again finally. First time since ET otherwise for the last two plus years they kept showing it oddly with the extreme edges of the screen blank and the black levels more like gray and saturation and contrast faded out. I wonder if since that theater can handle live streaming if they hadn’t been mostly streaming all the Fathom stuff in #16 even the Classic stuff where you can also get a much superior standard regularly, non-stream delivery and then had the live streaming set to maybe standard movie 0-255 levels when maybe they were sending out 16-235 video levels?
Anyway, whatever the case, they seemed to use a normal non-streamed one today and everything look amazing, good black levels, rich colors, very crisp and sharp, perfect audio. Fantastic presentation.
And this is one that really seems like you’ve never even seen the movie before it plays so differently on the big screen. It felt like it was the first time I had ever seen it.
Films of this sort just have to be seen on the big screen.
And it awesome it was on #16, one of the largest non-IMAX/Dolby screens around (heck, I think it is at least as large as the Clifton IMAX).
If you still can, catch it tonight! It’s a different movie on a giant screen like that compared to at home. As you say they showed it the full way too with full intermission, post credit music, etc.
It’s not as sharp as the 70mm versions shown at Paramus a few months ago, but looks good. And the impact on a huge screen is not to be missed. Some movies like this and some others almost seem like different films when seen in the theater.
“I just saw the digital version in Clifton, NJ. It was quite beautiful. You could easily see all the incredible details in so many scenes. For example, the dinner recommendation on the wall of the kitchen on the Jupiter ship included roast beef, mashed potatoes, blueberry pie and coffee. I had never been able to read that before.”
All the IMAX screens are just 2k though not 4k unless you are talking a laser one/one of the few that can play IMAX film. Wouldn’t it show less detail than the 70mm print just played at say Paramus a few months ago?
yeah that is a weird thing, MI is better in IMAX since it has a number of scenes with expanded screen and the Meg probably works better in Dolby since you get 4K and don’t lose expanded screens, since this is basically the reverse of what would be best for each
although I think the pretty large screen #1 is probably good enough for the Meg for me in this particular case
depends
Laser IMAX is pretty awesome (certainly the system they use on the real IMAX screens is at least)
hope the new rocker seats are not too large, since that makes for seating harder to find at the optimal distance and the mall already sells out big event stuff even with the current small seats
yeah it’s way too loud and the Dolby Cinemas tend to also be pretty treble hot which makes them real ear burners I have to wear earplugs for many screens, including this one (of course that reduces the audio quality a bit but better than adding ever more damage to hearing).
I also have a few photos of my own from inside the Loews. Had I know, I’d have taken a lot more and really shot the whole thing.
I am glad I did get a last viewing at the Loews during the Veronica Mars premiere at least.
Wow, that’s sad that they are tearing apart the Loews! That was the one really unique theater left in the whole region as far as I know. And the screen there was not small! It had the largest non-IMAX screen that I know of in the whole Tri-state area region at 65' (which is basically as large as the largest digital IMAX screens in NJ/NYC AFAIK). I was wondering why I couldn’t find any showings there recently. I kinda of wish they had torn up the second largest main screen here instead.
Oh and on screen size again, my guess it that the IMAX here is a 65' screen (and thus a touch larger than the famous old Stanley Warner Rt 4. Paramus 62' monster, auditorium is much smaller though, that one was nuts, I heard someone there claim it seated 2,500??? I was really little when I was there so I don’t recall the seat count myself, but I just know it had like a huge wide middle section and then two side sections, quite wide across in seating and then it was really long too, tons and tons of rows and then even more because of the balcony up top)?
Not sure what the Dolby Cinema is here, maybe a 60'?
Then screen #5, not sure, maybe it’s a 56'???
Maybe #15 is a 45'?
Rockaway has two 1.85:1 56' and then an IMAX that seems maybe 1.78:1 or so? and maybe 60'? And a Dolby Cinema, probably 1.85:1, maybe 56'-58'?
It’s all a bit confusing, the IMAX at Rockaway seems a bit bigger than the DC. The Paramus and Jersey Gardens IMAX are bigger than the Rockaway. The DC seems to have more seats across at Parmus than the Rockaway but isn’t as large as the IMAX so the numbers don’t quite all seem to work out. But anyway, probably they are reasonably close.
All I know is you can tell for sure the IMAX here and Jersey Gardens is a bit bigger screen than at Rockaway. And that the IMAX here looks bigger than the DC screen. The IMAX at Rockaway also seems bigger than the DC there (although with the screen being I think a touch different aspect ratio it’s a trickier call).
You might not think it should be apparent, but you can easily feel the difference in screen size from just an extra 5' width quite noticeably even when up in the 45'-70' range.
Manville Reading has two nice big 2.35:1 screens. Not as tall the Rockaway IMAX with it’s squarer aspect ratio, but they seems to be nearing as wide. The #4 there also has superb speakers and also kept at slightly more sane volume levels than many these days. #3 there since going Atmos has apparently had the volume turned nuts level as is all too common.
One final comment for now, for whatever reason, out of all the Northern NJ movie theaters, it seems to me that Rockaway AMC pulls in the largest crowds for things like Fathom events classics. Garden State is the premiere AMC for the region and in a much more populated area, but I’ve never yet seen it get larger (and often it gets a good bit smaller) crowds for Fathom Classics. Not that Rockaway has huge crowds for all of them, but for 80s pop classics it always gets a big crowd and sometimes pulls a huge crowd for other stuff, Grease was pretty packed and Singing In the Rain basically sold out the tied for largest (by seats) auditorium, Jaws literally did sell out that one, Godfather added a few extra showings so the prime time ones must have done very well, etc. Of course Fathom stuff only has 4 showings and that is it (well other than for The Godfather). Which is why it was odd when they kept trying to do stuff like cancel AMC Classics from Rockaway way back and make it Garden State only and then they tried to cancel Fathom at Rockaway at the end of last year and make it only GS and a few small, crummier AMCs, thankfully they brought it back again for this year.
With 2001 having more showings than that per day, I guess the number of people it is bringing in is not too bad (especially since so few people in the greater region had a clue it’s playing here in 70mm, not one person I personally knew had a clue and by the time I told them, most couldn’t schedule the trip way out there mid-week, at least a couple of them will make it though). Imagine that packed into just two Sunday and two Wednesday showings total like a Fathom event (which also get at least some advertising) and it might have been fairly crowded at each showing I guess.
(Also, interestingly, I overheard the HS/college kids saying something about how this 2001 70mm showing here looked awesome and that they should do a ton more film like that here.)
Oh and as far as stubs goes, it’s not a bad deal at all if you go to a lot of movies. You get regular movies for $5 on Tuesday and often IMAX will be nearly half price too on Tusedays and you score points for everything that end up way, way more than paying for the $12 a year fee. I do see a fair amount of movies though and a lot on the more expensive screens to my points maybe add up a bit faster than they would for some.
Speaking of Wanda, maybe they are messing up AMC. When the AMCs first went digital, basically every digital auditorium had bright, contrasty, rich projection of uniform quality. Now it’s really become so hit and mess, especially over the last couple years plus. They are really starting to cheap out on bulbs and projectors at times now. Like Rockaway, for instance, now has some great screens some pretty good and then a few stinkers, just totally dull, washed out, dark dismal image, awful quality, like gray blacks, dull whites, low color saturation, some of the worst looking projection I’ve seen like see screen #5 there now, bleh, and back when Blade Runner 2049 came out, #10 was so dark, although with deep blacks so not faded out, it was just ridiculous, OTOH some others have really bright, rich, contrasty projection with deep blacks and bright whites and rich colors, all depends upon the auditorium now days even at a single theater. Also, for whatever reason, for the last two years, other than for ET which looked great, every Fathom even they show on the #16 56' screen has the black levels all faded out and weak contrast, no clue why, the few times they show Fathom on other screens there it looks like normal projection with proper blacks and contrast and saturation.
And like Jersey Gardens AMC some screens look great but was in a small one last year and wow was the projection dark.
I don’t go out to this Garden State one too much but I haven’t seen a screen here use super dim projection yet at least. Although #4 when I peaked in, I did notice, at least like a year or two ago, had the projector mis-aimed and was projecting like a full 5' vertically offset from the screen! And speaking of that while Rockaway fixed the color fringing in #7 and it looks super sharp, bright, deep blacks, great colors, etc. somehow when they fixed it they made it project too large, it’s like masked off so it doesn’t show over the borders much but it’s like you see the movie slightly zoomed in and some stuff that has low subtitles can lose some of the bottom line of them and you can see stuff missing on the far left and right edge too that you’ll see on the other screens.
Until a few years ago, constantly seeing one weird issue or another seemed really rare at all these regional AMCs.)
@Bill Huelbig – at the Monday 3:30 there were actually some younger people, there was one pair that looked maybe high school age even and then one little group that looked maybe college age and then maybe a few 30 years olds and maybe a couple 40 year olds for the likely under 50 set. I was surprised that for this showing the audience hadn’t skewed mostly 60+. Instead it seemed to be mostly under 40.
Also I saw another film on a known 56' screen the next day and it was noticeably larger, so yeah this one is no way a 60-62', probably a 45', not huge, but not bad. Going by seat count across the wide and adding extra seats to the screen borders roughly x 2 often seems pretty close to screen size.
And yeah the projection was great! Even Monday a few days in, barely any dust at all. Almost looked like digital clean hah. I heard tell that at some other theater during this run someone just saw it and the image was dark and they said there was a huge scratch over the entire first half and it had tons of dust, no lighting tricks, etc.
It really was neat to see. My mom loved it too, hadn’t seen it projected since the original ‘68 release.
One slightly unfortunate thing is I’m not sure how many people, especially those for whom this is not their very most local theater, actually know this is being shown here this week. I only knew because I was actively looking since I first heard 2001 might get some releases this year and check various potential theaters/am subscribed to this thread.