AMC Tysons Corner 16

Hmm. I wonder how this theater holds up to the better THX-cert houses. I’m thinking Bow Tie Annapolis' #1. Its not DP, but the sound is killer. The $15.50 price is too steep. $10 is ok. For $15.50 they’d better include free drinks or popcorn. But hey, it may be worth checking out ONCE. ;) If only Tysons weren’t such a long drive from MD for me…

oops, oh well, the price did go up… ten dollars for the pre-noon shows, $15.50 (regular evening pricing). So… I can’t say that ‘Battle: Los Angeles’ is a great movie, but the ETX system is also a mixed bag. Visually the system brightness needs to be tweaked – essentially it’s too bright – the white lettering throughout the movie suffers and makes them fuzzy and out of focus looking; also black levels aren’t deep. Now, aurally the ETX system is a knockout, granted that ‘Battle’ could be best described as ‘Saving Private Ryan vs. the Alien Robots’ the sound is a juggernaut – sure it’s loud, but unlike say last year’s ‘Expendables’ it doesn’t give you a migrane. The various battle guns and airships and ufo’s sounds, and their corresponding explosions vary, it never drowns out the film’s moronic script (i.e, cringe inducing cliched dialogue) the bass is tight and in several key scenes drops several octaves, so much so, the floor literally shakes – I’ve never experienced that before (okay, sans ‘Honey I Shrunk the Audience’ at Disney World). While the film never achieves the beautiful soundmix of say ‘Avatar’ – the front heavy battle scenes and aggressive as sin mix compensate the film’s myriad other flaws.

and yes … according to Movietickets.com and AMC’s own website ‘Battle: Los Angeles’ will be on the new ETX screen beginning Friday, however tix price are on the low end, which I assume will be corrected once they note this mistake.

50K watts of audio power? I think that is 10K more then the Senator in Balto. The thing is with all that noise, what kind of insulation is in place so that the adjoining halls do not get two movie soundtracks for the price of one. When you’re a single screener, its no problem. On the other hand, will the movies be played to take advantage of the sound potential consistently? The problem with multiplexes is that lack of consistent audio visual playback whether there is a packed house or patron of one. I’ve noticed that the sound levels generally are higher in a packed house, then an emptier one.

They shouldn’t charge more for such ‘improvements.’ Did they charge more when we got Dolby Digital and DTS? DP? 70mm?

sorry, I’m on a stream of consciousness – since it appears that AMC now has the money and the actual effort in adding Sony 4K systems in and around it’s theaters in the DC metro area, it would behoeve them to upgrade a couple of other screens here at Tysons, so the films released in harddrive form to the digital projectors and specifically the ETX screen can move inbetween different auditoriums in the complex – it works for the Cinemark Egyptian since all the screens are digital alot of diverse films get the chance to be on the XD screen (examples being ‘The Karate Kid’, ‘Piranha 3D’ ‘Unknown’ etc,)

I think too much is made of Imax.just give me a good film with fewest people to watch it with.

oh and I understand it, ETX screens allow up to 11 channels of sound with the minimum of 7.1 with discrete 4-channel surround sound that is not achievable on the IMAX screen – these ETX presentations could easily sound superior to the IMAX sound setup.

For a surcharge to the ticket, AMC is going to deliver a slightly larger screen & better sound??

oh and this time around, the glasses didn’t produce that annoying glare that I had encounted with ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’

maybe I was sitting to close to the IMAX screen but ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’s’ surround sound mix was no where as immersive or inventve as ‘The Expendables’. The mix was very front heavy, alot of bass, but the surrounds didn’t seem well used. Another thing that bothered me was the IMAX glasses were producing reflective glare from the images on the screen(!) – this was extremely distracting – and something I’ve never seen before or encountered with the Cinemark’s XD system and 3D glasses.

It so happens that one of my cars is being fixed nearby the Potomac Mills 18 plex. I’m curious to see how that screen compares to the others. When it is ready next week, I hope to make a trek and see Dragon there maybe.

With regard to Hoffman’s IMAX-lite, maybe Tysons is a tad bit larger. The last IMAX-lite movie I saw there was the boring Night At the Museum 2. That movie was more of a retread of the first one. I wanted to call the new one Flight From This Awful Movie Ad Nauseum :) Sitting in the section that would be called the orchestra section in the olden days, it seemed to me the screen was the same size as the others, or at least as wide, if not as tall. Perhaps someone following this thread and will be able to get their hands on the theater specs.

As I’ve blogged in the news section about the recent (as in TODAY) price increase, its making it less palatable to see movies in this format and pay $16. Just looking at Cinemark’s XD 3D prices, they seem to be holding the line at $14.50. I have yet to experience their XD 3D presentations, but I’m guessing its the same as the IMAX-lite sans the branding. Unless they decide to follow AMC, they may get my business not only for the more reasonable pricing but that its closer to me :)

I made a trip to see Alice in Wonderland in IMAX-lite 3D, in Auditorium #3, before it gets replaced by “How to Train Your Dragon.” When films are shown full screen it is quite an experience BUT, again, the $15 full price is hard to swallow for what should be the ‘norm.’ The sight lines are perfect from the aisle level, with peripheral sight just right to avoid head turning. I think the screen size is pretty much the same as Columbia’s and Hoffman’s IMAX-lite installs. Its possible it may be a little larger, or it may be that there are more rows of seats closer to the screen making its largesse illusory. Bass is deep but to me there’s the slight lack of reverberation to give you the spine tingle of the best THX-cert houses.

Also, during the Dragon 3D trailer, it seemed as if the deep bass may have stressed some of the speakers to the point of some crackling. Subjective opinion, yes, which begs a subsequent visit. :)

As far as the film, itself, it was quite good. From the opening strains of Danny Elfman’s music, it had the familiar choral accompaniment to the orchestral score, to the zaniness of Johnny Depp’s and Helena Bonham Carter’s performances, I had a good time. Now to nitpick a little, I had expected better color contrast in the digital format. The wonderland sequences looked fantastic but lacked vibrancy and vividness. Even the opening set up in the current day was Merchant Ivory, yet the costumes and the garden looked….well, dull. I may have to see this in regular digital 3D to compare.

“even larger than KoP’s IMAX?”

KoP’s IMAX is a REAL IMAX screen. Sounds like I need to investigate this for myself….hehehe. :)