Cinerama Hollywood

Has anyone seen Dreamgirls at the Dome yet?

They’re slightly stepping things up at the Dome with the upcoming Premiere engagement of “Dreamgirls” starting December 15th. They’re doing it Broadway/Roadshow style. $25 bucks a person gets you a seat, a souvenir program, and access to “Dreamgirls” merchandise.

I’ll be there on Saturday December 16. Should be a blast!

How well did they do the last time they ran them? Maybe they are just putting alittle more time between the last runs of them.

Another ho-hum Fall at the Dome. No Cinerama. No 70MM Special Engagements. Just digitally projected Hollywood mediocrity. The management at the Ziegfeld in New York got a clue. Why can’t Pacific/Arclight?

On closer inspection of the ad, there weren’t midnight shows every night – only Fridays and Saturdays. Still, that’s pretty cool – I would’ve loved being able to stagger out of the Dome at 3 AM onto Sunset Blvd. after seeing “Mad, Mad World”.

… and a midnight show every night! Those really were the good old days.

From the Los Angeles Times, November 1963: the premiere of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and of the Dome itself. Get a load of that celebrity guest list:

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The ArcLight complex is loaded with flaws (many are easily correctable) and it doesn’t even begin to live up to its own hype.

However I wouldn’t fault the Dome’s design for the inferior picture problems. It is entirely possible to have a brighter picture without any geometric distortion on a curved screen, but Pacific/ArcLight chose not to make the necessary adjustments. Instead, they used cheap workarounds… The bottom masking is actually curved UP on the ends to try to hide the keystoning, which doesn’t really work, and there is still a dip in the horizon line. They also chose a low-gain screen material to lessen cross-reflection. As a result, the picture is indeed much softer and dimmer than it could be, and darker curtains on the walls don’t hide that fact. The picture is distorted even with digital projection, (which one would think should have some capacity to adjust for the curve).

So many details in the Dome and the adjoining houses could have been much better with some thoughtful showmanship and finesse, but sadly, the ArcLight decision-makers are utterly clueless to that kind of thing. There aren’t many people around who know how to do it well, and the ones in charge don’t like to listen to them.

It is amazing that the ArcLight promotes its zero decor in their ads, and that they got someone at the LA times to say they had the best screens and best popcorn. I personally don’t find sitting in a “black box” a plus, I have seen seams on several of the screens, and I’ve gotten sick from the popcorn, which is rarely even warm, and often filled with broken pieces and unpopped kernels.

I much prefer the presentation and atmosphere at the El Capitan… not perfect, but there is at least is an attempt at showmanship, and I always have a better time there.

a number of people have said that the Dome has the finest presentation of any theater in L.A. I don’t see how you can possibly say that. According to the Arclight website the screen is 86 feet by 32 feet.

86/32 = 2.69. This is ok, I guess, for those tiny handful of Cinerama movies that were ever made, but for all first run films in 2.40 or 1.85 the image gets badly distorted on the sides. In the center area of the screen the geometry is ok, but out towards the sides it is stretched and looks awful. In Revenge of the Sith for example, there is a shot of a planet in space a little off center. The part of the planet in the middle of the picture looked circular, but the part towards the side looked elliptical, and the planet looked like an egg.

And its so deeply curved (and not louvered) that it reflects on itself and can look washed out if something bright is on one side and something dark is on the other side.

And there are still sound imaging problems caused by sound reflections off the domed shape of the ceiling, even thought they covered it with acoustic panels during the remodel a few years ago.

Pacific/Arclight probably has the best projection and sound equipment money can buy in the Dome, but unfortunately for showing regular first run films, the auditorium suffers from really serious design flaws. Best presentation of any theater in L.A.? LOL! Far from it!

More bad news for me: They have to do that the week I’m out of town on a business trip…

Anyone (besides me) going to see M:I-3 at the (digitally projected) dome this weekend? I’ve got tickets for the Saturday night 8:10 show. Let the summer begin!

Pacific/Arclight already has a “leg up” regarding the “Classics” concept. They regularly show classic films (old & new) in the Arclight portion of the complex every week…twice a week, I think. It shouldn’t be too much trouble moving certain films to the Dome.

One more thing I forgot to mention: In anticipation for the release of “Kill Bill Vol. 2” a couple of years ago, Arclight held a “Quentin Tarantino Retropsective” of all his films from “Reservoir Dogs” through “Kill Bill Vol. 1” IN THE DOME. The final event was a 9:00 PM showing of KB Vol. 1 followed by a midnight showing of KB Vol. 2 on a Thursday night. This is also the much ballyhooed incident where QT was supposed to be there holding a Q&A after KB Vol. 2 but “missed his plane”. :o)