Cinerama Hollywood

Kram, thanks for helping put another nail in the coffin of one of the last great single screeners. Your comment runs counter to the spirit of this website. The Arclight is great and all, but there are many other great reasons to visit the Village and I would encourage everyone who hasn’t been there to do so.

Michael list on in 70MM in NYC shows that it did not play in 70MM in NYC.

I’d love to see a 70mm print of ‘The Muppet Movie’ the 35mm print I saw last year at the AFI Silver was a cropped grainey looking one.

oh thats right, Run Simon Run (1974) was the one i was thinking of not Run Joe Run (ugh) I think it was an ABC movie of the week, Run Joe Run was the kids show from oddly enough the SAME YEAR!
I still can’t imagine how Zoot Suit got a 70mm Sensurround presentation.

Someone needs to track down that 70 print of the Muppet Movie and show it, whooo..!

Well there’s a Burt Reynolds film called “Run, Simon, Run” on IMDB.

Damon, Yes “Alien” opened the Egyptian Theatre in 70MM and they also had it running all night with a special display in the front of the theatre. The “Zoot Suit” presentation was in 70MM Sensurround-Plus.

was just perusing Michael Coate’s list above, some reason I could have swore “Alien” played at the dome (in 70mm) in ‘79, before or after Apocalypse but i guess not. Where did Alien open, the Egyptian? Some surprising 70mm engagements like “The Muppet Movie” and “Run, Run Joe!” (1974) a film i’d never even HEARD of before, strange that the TV movie “Run Joe Run” (Burt Reynolds) came out the same year. “The Earthling” (1981) there’s a forgotten film, as well as “Bully” (1978) “Sextette” (1978) “Maurie” (1973) “You’ll Like My Mother” (1972) and “Zandy’s Bride” (1974) And nobody ever believes me when i mention “Zoot Suit” as the last Sunsurround presentation (and 70mm too!?) How did THAT film justify that kind of presentation??
Sure wish i’d seen Quest for Fire (in 70) there, probably no prints on the planet left of that

They had a 40th anniversary screening of “2001” last year (two of them, actually) so the chances for “Ben-Hur” could be good.

I’ve been to the Dome a few times. It is similiar in terms of screen to the Washington D.C. Uptown. LA also has huge screens, though not curved, at Village (Westwood Village) and Grauman’s Chinese.

Here are some photos from the LA Library, circa 1980s:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics34/00036935.jpg
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics34/00036937.jpg

Here is a letter from an unhappy Arclight customer back in May 2002, via the LA Times:

I have swallowed—hook, line and sinker—the idea of Arclight Cinemas. I bought into the $14 tickets. I joined the membership club even before I set foot into the theater. I first went to Arclight to see “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and I loved every minute of the experience: the sound, the seats, the lack of advertisements, the picture. Going to the movies is a redefined experience.

Then comes the first blockbuster of the summer, “Spider-Man.” I cannot wait to see this at Arclight, and this time I want to see it at the Dome—the refurbished Cinerama Dome. According to the Arclight Web site, it has even more added features than the multiplex auditoriums. I sold my friends on the idea of $14 tickets by reciting news articles and the Web site.

I loved telling them that the theaters “exceed THX standards” with their state-of-the-art “Kinoton projectors, JBL speakers and Dolby and SDDS sound systems.” Some of them asked me if I was a spokesman for Arclight. I bought the tickets online; a bunch of tickets had already been sold, so I had to take seats in the back of the theater, Row Z.

Everything I had bought into, and therefore sold my friends on as well, was false for Row Z. It seems that the moviegoing experience described doesn’t fully apply to the last five or so rows in the Cinerama Dome. Imagine the dome and a circle’s perimeter. The last couple of rows are outside this perimeter, underneath the projection booth. This makes most of the features of the Arclight movie experience moot.

All of the speakers (and even the projectors) are way in front of you. I could hear the people around me eating their caramel popcorn and the girls talking about Tobey Maguire’s abs better than I could hear the film. Here’s a little more sensory overload. Imagine this space (outside the perimeter) with a short ceiling and walls on three sides, jammed with five rows of people. The warmth of body heat was unbearable for the first hour, not to mention the combination of popcorn, chocolate, hot-dog and other less pleasant smells.

I have had better theater experiences at the Bose store in the mall—and those were free.

In another brillant job of programming by our friends at Arclight, the day after its Best Picture Oscar Nomination was announced, they moved “Slumdog Millionaire” out of the Dome and put “Underworld – Rise Of The Lycans” in its place. BARF!

Well that’s what I thought Friday, but both films have been advertised since then daily.
JSA