70 Mm Festival: "Around The World In 80 Days" 30 frame version comments and questions

Perhaps you can use your influence to get those who owns the "Blade Runner" rights to re-release that movie again(for the 3rd time) in a super deluxe high-def/high-fi DVD package. I've only seen one movie(that's not an IMAX presentation) in 70mm and it was "Star Trek-The Motion Picture and that was a blow-up of the 35mm film. But the 6-channel audio mix was phenomenal which unfortunately never made it to DVD and the grainy Laserdisc may be a 2-channel folddown of it.

 

Mini-hijack -

I remember sometime in the early 70's seeing an IMAX-like film at Six Flags Over Texas, but it was shown inside a geodesic dome - perhaps an IMAX release filmed in a fisheye lens? Or, was this an early version of OMNIMAX (which I have only seen once years later, in Seattle).

Anybody with some maturity remember this?

 

I remember it. I think it was called the Chevy Show, sponsored by Chevrolet. If my memory serves me right, it was projected in a semi dome screen with footage shot with extreme fish-eye lens. I believe the theater was located near the oil derrick tower in the park.

 

I wonder if the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood will ever run "Apocalypse Now"( 35mm blowup) in 70mm again. I have seen it three times there. Understand it was Coppola's own print.
Also, I understand the only surviving Cinerama prints around today are "This IS" & "How The West Was Won". They run one or the other ever year in the fall. Really a hoot of a presentation. The Dome rocks.

 

It is probably the same print I saw in 1997 at the now-defunct Northpoint in SF (advertised as the only surviving 70MM print, played per Coppola's direction without the titles). It was pretty faded and the mag tracks were partially degaussed in a few spots. Outside of those anomalies, the print was stunning.

-Aaron

 

Thanks for the tip again Steve. Last ones at the Egyptian, Hollywood (you tipped us off) that I went to were great fun. Everything was right about the theater too. I remember finding parking right out front both nights effortlessly. I love it when you can drive over to a theater park in front, go in and see a magical movie with no hassles. Like when you are a boy, and carefree about it.

That's the way I like to see stuff like these grand old spectacles with that killer 6 channel sound. It's what the silver screen was invented for in the first place!

And we are lucky to have the real film deal here in LA, and we are also lucky to have you here Steve.

 

Steve:
Check this out! I did a little research on Cinerama.......


An excerpt from the story below... 'Cinerama, as many of us know, is a process by which images are recorded on three separate strips of film and are played back through three separate projectors on a large curved screen creating the illusion of depth. The 146 degrees of image affects peripheral vision and enhances the experience.' Then... '3-panel Cinerama was abandoned in 1963 in favor of Super Panavision 70.'

Cinerama

 

This was the earliest incarnation of Cinerama, and used on demo items like THIS IS CINERAMA, and features such as HOW THE WEST WAS WON, but it wasn't used long (maybe 3 features?) before they developed the single camera - single projector method, primarily due to economic reasons, I believe. I saw HOW THE WEST WAS WON in real 3 strip Cinerama, and it was spectacular. If you ever get the chance, don't pass it up. Too bad the theater I saw it in no longer shows Cinerama anymore. I saw it in the early nineties in Dayton, Ohio, but I think the theater converted back to a standard theater a short time later. A shame. For more on Cinerama and 70mm, check out www.in70mm.com.

 

Yeah, I just read an article that said they switched over to single strip in 1963. I guess the only other major studio film in 3-strip, aside from HTWWW, was The Brothers Grimm, which I haven't seen, but which is apparently quite bad. I've seen THIS IS CINERAMA and HTWWW in their original form, and it was very cool, although one flying segment in TIC made me queasy. My dad saw HTWWW when it came out, and later saw the Cinerama single strip presentation of 2001. While not 3 strip, I'm sure it must've been quite impressive. Just out of curiousity, did you ever see a Showscan demo?

 

They showed them at Ontario Place in the past.

I saw "Apocolypse Now" and "Jurassic Park" there (I can't recall if they were 70mm - I just went to see them on the big screen)

 

I was clueless about the advantage of 70mm, these links helped me understand:

http://www.heightstheater.com/70mm.cfm

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/raintreegallery.htm

 

I love watching 70mm films. When I lived in Berlin I got to see a restored 70mm of Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" in one of the old Film palaces it was quite an amazing experience and a very good film made so much better.

When I was a kid in Phoenix there were a few theaters that had 70mm capabilities it was really impressive to go to the cinema. I loved the ones with the curtain that would open during the opening credits - what class!!

 

Far and Away, with Ron Howard was shot in Super 65mm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104231/trivia

 

It looks like
Hamlet (1996) was the last to use it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116477/trivia

 

DARK CRYSTAL was the Muppet movie. Dunno if it was 70mm or not, however, I do believe THE BLACK CAULDRON may have been the last time 70mm was used for a Disney animated film. The time before that being SLEEPING BEAUTY?

 

From www.ldsfilm.com:

Rich and Berman next directed Disney's 25th animated feature, "The Black Cauldron." This film remains one of Disney's most controversial animated features. It was the first Disney animated feature to receive a PG rating: skeletons and other frightening creatures were animated in such a realistic style that the film was considered potentially inappropriate for younger children. "The Black Cauldron" was also the first animated motion picture to be shot in 70 mm since "Sleeping Beauty" in 1959.

"The Black Cauldron," which cost what at that time was a record $25 million to make, and earned over $21 in U.S. box office receipts, is clearly the more interesting of Rich's two Disney features. It is often praised for the very things that its critics reject, such as its more sophisticated storytelling, cutting-edge and sometimes frightening special effects, complete and atypical lack of singing musical numbers, and its unusual mixture of disparate animation styles.

 

That, I'm not sure. I do know that THE BLACK CAULDRON was animated specifically to 65/70mm, which Disney had not done since SLEEPING BEAUTY. I assumed DARK CRYSTAL was 35mm, but I don't know so. Maybe they both were 70mm.

 

Depends on who you ask. I saw Dark Crystal when it came out, and loved it. So it has a certain appeal that it might not, if I'd seen it when I was older. I saw THE BLACK CAULDRON long enough ago, that I don't remember it very well. At the time (1985), Ebert gave it 3.5 stars, if that means anything to you.

 

Thank you, Steve, for the Around the World info! Wanted to find that out Thank you also for helping efforts to restore it. I still hope it somehow happens... heck I'd volunteer time if it helped... it's a very entertaining movie, something that's just plain enjoyable to watch. Aimed for that and succeeded, again$t the odd$, I gather. If anyone wanted, are the work elements still around to mix/assemble a complete soundtrack of the score?

In return maybe I can clear up the Caulron stew. Sleeping Beauty was Technirama. This process was shot on 35mm - horizontally, iirc, using 8 sprockets or something to that effect (it's been a while since I read about that...). So you effectively achieve similar negative res to 70mm with a 35mm film. Can be printed to 70mm prints or reduction to 35mm far as I know. The Black Cauldron was also Technirama, and was the last film, far as I know, to use that process. In my opinion, Black Cauldron is a boring disasterpiece that should've been great fun, and put next to Sleeping Beauty... well, Disney just wasn't the same by 1985. Dark Crystal - which has a sequel planned, btw - is a little too much like Black Cauldron to me, but has more merit for whatever it's worth.