AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center

Wow, Howard. Thanks for the post. Ultra panavision 70 sounds so h u g e. I wonder if the Silver’s 40 ft screen will do it justice. I’m hoping for the best..no, I’m going to set my expectations low, so if its good, then I’ll say it was great. :)

Here’s the text of the above 12-14-15 article-

The film premieres tonight in New York in 70mm at the Ziegfeld theater. Starting today, moviegoers can purchase tickets for the 70mm roadshow showings at tickets.thehatefuleight.com. To mark the occasion, Quentin and TWC are commemorating the opening with the “12 Days of Hateful Eight Giveaways,” where each day a different Hateful Eight prize, memorabilia or once-in-a-lifetime experience will be given away to moviegoers who buy roadshow tickets in advance leading up to the Christmas day opening.

The exclusive roadshow engagement that The Hateful Eight is embarking on will replicate the special event releases that films used to receive in the early and mid-twentieth century. They screened a longer version of the film than would have been shown in wide release, including a musical overture to start the show and an intermission between acts, and moviegoers received a special souvenir program. The Hateful Eight roadshow experience will offer moviegoers all three special features. Roadshows were the gold standard for exhibiting pictures like Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, Cleopatra, Battle of the Bulge, The Ten Commandments andBen-Hur. TWC and Tarantino’s presentation of The Hateful Eight will mark the widest 70mm release that the industry has seen in over twenty years.

The film will open in 44 markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Washington DC, Houston, Detroit, Phoenix, Seattle, Tampa, Minneapolis, Denver, Miami, Cleveland, Orlando, Sacramento, St. Louis, Portland, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Baltimore, San Diego, Nashville, Kansas City, San Antonio, West Palm Beach, Birmingham, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Austin, New Orleans, Providence, Knoxville, Santa Barbara, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. Quentin and cast members from The Hateful Eight will be touring the country making surprise appearances in select cities at 70mm roadshow showings.

Not since the 1966 film Khartoum starring Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier has a film been shot in Ultra Panavision 70 format. In 2012, TWC distributed Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed film The Master in a similar 70mm format. Beloved by filmmakers and cinephilesfor its wide-scope and high-resolution image quality, Ultra Panavision 70mm stock captures nearly twice the landscape of the more common 35mm and digital styles. Because of its unique quality and its importance to the art of filmmaking, Quentin, TWC, and a number of other major Hollywood directors and studios have negotiated deals with Kodak to continue production of 70mm and other film formats despite their higher costs and complexity of use.

The lead cast for The Hateful Eight includes Samuel L. Jackson (Django Unchained), Kurt Russell (Escape From New York), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle), Walton Goggins (“Justified”), Demian Bichir (A Better Life), Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs), Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs), and Bruce Dern (Nebraska). Written and directed by Tarantino, The Hateful Eight is produced by Richard N. Gladstein, Stacey Sher and Shannon McIntosh. Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein and Georgia Kacandes are executive producing, and Coco Francini and William Paul Clark are associate producing.

I just saw that, Giles. That is pushing it. Its outrageous! Now, if this were a DC exclusive, then okay. I’m pissed. Will I still see it here? Yeah. :) If they give out free souvenir programs, I’m fine with it. Something commemorative as this is a special event.

I looked at some Regal prices for the IMAX Star Wars and its $19!

Howard, I agree with you on the Uptown. Those are my fondest memories of 2001. I have yet to see it at the Seattle Cinerama and hopefully, will catch it there someday the next time they have a 70mm festival. Given the $ the owner has put in that venue, it has to be one jewel of a showplace.

Regarding The Hateful Eight, I should have read up more on the story. It seems it takes place in winter and not a desert Western. I’m not going to read much more as I want to keep an open mind and enjoy the ‘roadshow presentation’ we are to get. Can’t say I’ve ever experienced one of those in my lifetime, up until now. I hope they have programs for sale of the movie. Now, those I remember from the 80s :)

Perhaps, when Steve reads our posts, he can shed more details on the technical aspects and other plans for this special event.

I wonder if they’ll have an actual 70mm trailer.

P r e s e n t e d in:

< 7 0 mm Datastat Sound >

Yeah, yeah, my poor attempt at a widescreen trailer.

This would be a good time for the AFI to put together a featurette on 70mm. They had a simple one before.

Seems like they’ve booked the Hateful 8 in 70mm DTS. It should be interesting to see a newer film in this format. But a western? A space/fantasy epic with cool visual fx would be my choice. How immersive can you get with sunrise/sunset shots, snow, dust and more dust..maybe some pore shot from one of the actors during a close up shot. :)

On the other hand, the AFI’s kind of smallish 40 ft screen may not do this film justice. Something of this size would benefit from being shown at the Uptown.

I’m curious how modern audience reaction will be with intermission and proper curtain closures and entrance music. If done right and consistently so, it should be good. :) We’ll see after week 3 into its release.

I’d love to see 70mm prints of ‘Dark Crystal’ and ‘Aliens’! Interestingly I’m very keen on seeing the DCP of ‘Dark Crystal’ since the screening last year at the Angelika Mosaic (which was projected bluray) didn’t look or sound all that good.

I saw ‘Wreck it Ralph’ last week as part of it’s 3D festival – it looked great and it was the first time I heard the 7.1 surround sound mix [thumbs up!]

September 15th, 1938 grand opening ad in photo section.

I saw Blade Runner in 1998 at the Uptown as part of Warner Bros 75th Anniv. 35mm, I believe the ‘91 directors cut. The movie had not impressed me on TV but it was awesome on the big screen.

I didn’t. I think they had only 1 or 2 showings.

Thats awful to hear, Giles. Maybe the bookings were too heavy at AFI with their current schedule that they couldn’t get it. Or, the Wexner had exclusive rights to be the only venue in this market to show it? I forget the term now..but it was talked about in the Balto Senator’s forum a lot.

I did catch the Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture Thanksgiving week. There was a word document on the door indicating this version was not the theatrical version but is the first time this version has been shown theatrically.

An older man was at Concessions, no greeting, no thank you, no..‘your movie is showing in ..nothing. Its funny..I was running a little late, as usual, with the traffic and assumed it was in #1. They had the name of some other movie there and assumed it was in #2..ran there and nope, omg, not #3..ran there, nope. Went back to #1 and opened the door and yes, this was the one..they just started the overture with open curtains. I thought, maybe mistakenly so, that the curtains are closed during overtures. Being after the 4:30pm starting time and me finding my seat, I felt they were waiting just for me to arrive to start the movie :)

As the movie began, sure enough, the dulled picture was most likely the regular DVD that has been out for 13 years or so. Sound levels were okay, I did hear stereo in the front. Music was everywhere during the end credits. Despite the presentation quality, it was nice to see the TOS crew on the big screen. Despite its shortcomings, which are well documented, one has to appreciate the old style moviemaking such as key lighting on the bridge close ups of some of the stars, attention to detail such as the makeup, costumes and production design.

All in all, I enjoyed this presentation far better than the Richard Donner cut of Superman II they showed here in Blu Ray a few years back. Supe II was just awful and subdued as if to have a mono soundtrack.

If they ever make a proper theatrical print of the Director’s Edition of Star Trek, Paramount better do something about the current neutered soundtrack and polishing the VFX to theatrical standards of visual quality. Its okay to play at home. I’d think Gene Roddenberry would’ve objected to at least one change and that was the elimination of the ship’s male computer voice and klaxon ship alarms since it was his idea to have them in the first place. In the original release, they had you jump in your seat from the blaring alarms and the male computer voice was kind of futuristic cool, if a bit cold. It got your attention, which is the idea.

JodarMovieFan, though not exactly originally the intent when photos were re allowed, yes, nobody will give you a problem if you post at the Uptown page a scan of the Post’s ad for 2001 back in ‘90. Many posts of newspaper ads have been made. I won’t be attending the 70mm West Side Story but hope it is well attended.

“The soundtrack for this week’s showing was from the “5.1” mix which seemed to be nothing more than a 5.1 “safe” downmix of the orignial 6-channel for non 6-track theatres (or older players without the “Special Venue” version of the 6D). Normally, the AFI/Silver gets the 6-channel discs…not this time however.”

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well that makes me feel slightly better that I missed it this go around – how frickin' annoying.