AMC Garden State 16

One Garden State Plaza,
Paramus, NJ 07652

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Showing 101 - 125 of 272 comments

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on September 29, 2017 at 12:50 pm

I wonder if the AMC in Hackensack will share day and date product with its sister theater here.

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on August 30, 2017 at 7:21 pm

not sure, I think the Clifton is the smallest of these three in both dimensions. Not quite sure about Paramus vs. Rockaway for the Dolby.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on August 30, 2017 at 2:57 pm

How tall is the dolby screen in paramus compared to the ones in Clifton and rockaway?

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on August 25, 2017 at 6:28 pm

Manville has two pretty wide 2.40:1 screens, probably as wide as the Rockaway IMAX, at least, but not as tall.

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on August 25, 2017 at 6:26 pm

As best as I can tell: Paramus=Elizabeth > Rockaway > Clifton

I believe that Paramus and Elizabeth IMAX screens are the largest in all of northern and central NJ (although I have not yet seen the New Brunswick one, that one is probably at least as large as Rockaway and might be as large as Paramus and Elizabeth, perhaps even larger, although probably not).

I think the only two other screens in all of NJ that might be larger are the two real IMAX screens in the Atlantic City region, but those are far away and I’ve never been to them.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on August 15, 2017 at 11:51 am

How does it compare against Rockaway and Clifton Imax?

JB1981
JB1981 on August 15, 2017 at 10:52 am

Cool thanks, Alpine. I guess it wouldn’t be worth it to travel up to Paramus then. Jersey Gardens is closer to my office. I’ve been trying to find the largest local digital IMAX screen. The AMC Eatontown theater is around the corner from me and I like the theater but their IMAX screen is quite small.

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on August 14, 2017 at 10:01 pm

I think it is the same.

JB1981
JB1981 on August 14, 2017 at 11:45 am

How would you say this IMAX screen compares to the one in Elizabeth? The Elizabeth screen is VERY big for digital LieMAX in my opinion.

Bowery_Bum
Bowery_Bum on July 24, 2017 at 9:33 pm

That does help. Thanks. Do you know which seat you personally prefer at the IMAX screen? I’ll have to reserve a seat but I’m not familiar with that particular theater. I’m looking at seat H17.

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on July 24, 2017 at 5:14 pm

The digital IMAX 1.9:1 screen is way bigger than their 70mm equipped 2.34:1 screen if that helps any. I think their IMAX screen is about 65' wide. I think their 70mm one is #15 and I think that one is probably something like 38' wide?

Bowery_Bum
Bowery_Bum on July 21, 2017 at 7:25 pm

Thanks. So are you going to watch Dunkirk on 70mm, non-IMAX? I’m not sure if I’m up to making a trip into the city to watch it at Lincoln Square. Though I now wish I had gone into the city to see Ang Lee’s last film at the high frame rate, just for the experience.

Bowery_Bum
Bowery_Bum on July 21, 2017 at 6:52 pm

What is the aspect ratio of the IMAX screen at AMC Garden State 16? 1.9:1 or 1.43:1

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on July 4, 2017 at 5:00 pm

Dunkirk will be shown in 70mm when it opens in a few weeks.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on May 4, 2017 at 11:24 am

This coming memorial day weekend will mark 10 years since this theater opened on the 50th anniversary of the mall’s opening. Just like a decade ago, a Pirates movie is being played here.

markp
markp on March 31, 2017 at 10:37 pm

Good old management run projection at its best

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on March 31, 2017 at 4:33 pm

Oh #4 though, maybe they have fixed it, but when I peeked in a few weeks ago they had the projector misaligned from the screen more than I have ever seen. Literally at least the entire top 4' of the screen had no image and the bottom of the image was projected at least 4' below where the screen ended. A real mess. It was probably even farther off than that actually. So despite a decent screen size, if that is not corrected I’d avoid #4 for now. (should be a super trivial correction)

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on March 31, 2017 at 4:31 pm

Made a mistake. Took a closer look at Screen #4 across from the food and it’s actually not one the smallest screens. It’s one of the larger ones, like #1, although not nearly as big as #2 IMAX,#3 Dolby, #5. I think it’s actually #6 or #7 off in the corner that might be the really small one.

I think it goes #2,3,5 are really big to huge. #1,#4 are fairly big. #12 is decent. The rest are all smaller size, although most of them are still almost as large as the largest screens at those old 70s/80s mall type theaters that had lots of shoebox screens. #6 or 7 might be pretty small though.

The number of seats doesn’t seem all that tied to the screen size here and it appears can vary a lot for the same size screen.

moviebuff82
moviebuff82 on March 29, 2017 at 3:52 pm

Next year Regal will open the first ever movie theater in Paramus Park, a 10 screener with an RPX screen. This will give AMC a run for its money if it does well. They might show different movies kinda like years ago when Paramus had many theaters.

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on February 3, 2017 at 8:37 pm

“John Fink on August 25, 2010 at 3:58 pm: The IMAX here is one of the least immersive and underwhelming I’ve seen. The screen isn’t wall to wall as they’re are two access corridors to the exits behind the screen.”

Ah man, so I finally got around to actually seeing an IMAX movie at this theater and the screen is HUGE. I don’t know how you came up with that statement above. I can now verify it’s not even remotely true (well it is true it isn’t wall to wall). This is the largest digiIMAX screen I’ve seen. I can’t believe I let that comment make me write this screen off all these years without even bothering to give it a try. This is way bigger than the Empire 25 IMAX.

I could swear it’s bigger than the Rockaway IMAX, which itself is about as large as most of the digiIMAX usually get and larger than the Empire 25 IMAX, for instance.

And all these years I’m complaining about how they subdivided the old giant screen and then tore down the old Stanley Warner Paramus and how they never gave Paramus back a screen as big and it turns out this IMAX here is almost certainly just a bit larger than that old Stanley Warner screen had been (the auditorium is way smaller though of course, that one sat a crazy 2000 people! but the screen is what counts the most and this one is I think probably a couple feet or so wider). So for heading towards almost a decade now there has been a screen as big or bigger around.

It’s the biggest non-true-IMAX screen I’ve ever seen (well other than for Mann’s Chinese out in LA). I guess Lincoln Square’s largest non-IMAX is pretty huge too, I think this one is even a little bit larger though, certainly taller than that one since that is not digiIMAX 1.90:1 but wider aspect ratio.

I think it’s heading towards being as wide as the old true IMAX that they just tore down in that mall near Nyack NY, although maybe it falls a touch shy of that. If it were wall to wall (and it’s not due to the exits), I’d dare say it’d be likely even wider than the old true Nyack IMAX. That would give it another 8' width or so. For anything other than full 1.44:1 IMAX ratio I think this screen actually gives just about the same impressive feel as that one.

I do think they have the volume up a bit higher than the auditorium can handle since it seems to get some structural resonances during certain loud parts and really would sound better if they lowered the volume a touch (would be more comfortable listening volume that way anyway since loud parts, as is so incredibly common these days, are into hearing damaging zone).

poland626
poland626 on January 20, 2017 at 12:57 pm

I think with Clifton getting Dolby soon amc may focus some attention to that theater too. It must be just as popular to get such an upgrade

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on January 15, 2017 at 12:00 am

I don’t know what the top grossing one in the state is but apparently AMC says it is their premiere, head theater in all of Northern NJ at the very least. Any special anything always gets done at this screen, if anywhere it seems.

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on January 14, 2017 at 11:57 pm

As for the rest of the theater…. I didn’t peak at #1 but it has a huge seating capacity and the screen is probably pretty large.

I peaked at #2 the IMAX. Looking in it actually looked to me larger than Rockaway IMAX screen (which itself it a touch larger than the IMAX screen at the Empire 25 near the Port Authority Bus Terminal which I think they say is 57' or 58' screen). I had avoided bothering with it since someone had posted here that it was the tiniest most underwhelming IMAX experience they ever had. But I guess they were just comparing to the old 15/70 full size true IMAX screens or something because this is the biggest 1.90:1 digital IMAX screen I have seen anywhere yet. I now think the Paramus IMAX might be the biggest screen in all of northern NJ (although I haven’t seen the IMAX near the Newark Airport yet). Actually I think it is probably the biggest screen in the entire state of NJ other than for two true IMAX screens in the Atlantic City area way down south. I mean I could be wrong but I could swear it looked larger than the Rockaway one. Going by seat count across and how many seats wide it seemed to be I think it was a number of seats wider. I think it’s 32-33 seats wide while I think the Rockaway is probably more like 29 seats wide? Could be wrong.

I also peaked at #3 the Dolby Cinama screen and that looked pretty large too. Not quite sure how big it is but I think it’s probably at least as big as the Rockaway IMAX and it could be bigger.

And I think it is #5 that is also pretty large, although I didn’t see it. It’s probably like the larger non-IMAX screens at Rockaway.

So other than for the one screen out of 16 I think this theater doesn’t have any of those horrible small screens. Rockaway has none (Rockaway has a pretty decent #8 IMAX screen size for digital, maybe 60'-61' and then 3 other screens that are pretty large, all over 50' and at least two of three like 56'-57' these are #1,#9,#16 and then #2,#7,#10,#15 are somewhat smaller bit still pretty large as multiplex screens go; #4,#5,#12,#13 are the smallest, but still not bad by old 80s or city multiplex standards).

Reading theater in Manville NJ also has some larger screens (also some very tiny ones). The two big ones I think are at least as wide as the Rockaway IMAX but 2.35:1 ratio and I think a little bit shorter.

alpinedownhiller
alpinedownhiller on January 14, 2017 at 11:55 pm

Ended up going there and #10 seated something like 211, most of the rest down that end of the theater seat more like 264, but, as so often, seating capacity has nothing to do with screen size. I peaked in at most of the screens at that end and regardless of seating they all had the same size screen aside from #12 which had a much larger screen (much larger than the other 264 seaters down at that end which all had the same size screen as the 211 and smaller capacity auditoriums there). I didn’t see either #15 or #16, I think one of those two actually also has a much larger screen and probably seats well over 264.

Anyway most of the screens down there are not huge screens but they are decent. Much bigger than tiny shoe box screens some places have. And in one of those old 80s style multiplexes, like the old Rockaway theater or the Parsippany they would have actually been among the very larger screens.

I think this theater probably only has one really small screen out of the 16. I think it is near the bathrooms across from the food stands, maybe it is #4 (or perhaps it is #6,7,8,9?). Walking past that area, the door was open and I could see straight down the aisle to the screen. I just glanced from a distance but it looked really small, like a small old 80s multiplex smaller size screen. Pretty sure that one is much smaller than the smallest ones at Rockaway (which aren’t that bad, probably similar to #10 and a bunch at that end here, or only just a bit smaller).