Majestic 20
900 Ellsworth Drive,
Silver Spring,
MD
20910
900 Ellsworth Drive,
Silver Spring,
MD
20910
No one has favorited this theater yet
Showing 1 - 25 of 39 comments found
I saw Mission Impossible 4 in IMAX over the holidays. No complaints, everything was as it should be. The large screen canvas properly showcased some of the more harrowing scenes like Tom Cruise’s hop around the skyscraper hotel. Didn’t see the preview for The Hobbit though.
Like many of the multiplexes built by the Consolidated Theatres chain, the Majestic 20 was designed by the Charlotte, NC, architectural firm ADW Architects.
I revisited #1 after 7 years seeing the very entertaining movie Super 8. The movie was most likely shown in 4K DP. The movie was decently bright and in scope as I noticed the riser going down after the movie. Surprisingly, the movie had very good use of the surrounds this time and was not muddled from my memories of seeing the Day After Tomorrow, or whatever it was called, back in ‘04. If only the bass was deeper for the film’s tense moments involving the usual fx laden crashes and alien activity. I would have preferred to see it in IMAX-lite but my dumb friend decided to wait for ME to pay. Its ok…next week, he’s going to pay for Green Lantern in IMAX-lite 3D at the $18.00 per ticket price!!
BTW, I missed seeing Pirates in ETX at Tysons. That weekend they booked, of all films, Hangover 2 in the ETX auditorium. Who cares to hear that movie in a theater with 40K watts of sound?
well at Tysons, the IMAX auditorium and ETX auditorium are separated by a walk way, so the excess bass from either screen can’t be heard, however the screens that are left of the IMAX screen/right of the ETX screen might be another story altogether. The bass though during ‘Battle Los Angeles’ and ‘Fast Five’ on the ETX screen never drowned out the dialogue. But you have to remember the ETX screen can feature the discrete 7.1 soundmix of ‘Pirates 4’, the IMAX screen is standard 5.1
LOL. I want to and plan on it maybe this weekend. Pirates is playing there in 3D on the ETX screen and IMAX-lite. It seems the two are one and the same yielding a similar ‘experience’ other then the ETX’s 40K watt system. I enjoy louder presentations on the event films but not so loud that it diminishes the dialogue. If you happen to catch Thor here, you’ll see what I mean during preview time.
I consider $18 buck highway robbery and for Regal not to have reduced matinee pricing for the IMAX screen simply unexcusable. I have yet to see or give my impressions of the system here at the Majestic, but have you been over to AMC’s ETX screen over at Tysons, oh…my…god, the bass there is frightening, it literally shakes the floor, your feet, your legs – it’s “rumblerama”!
My friend and I saw and enjoyed ‘Thor’ in IMAX-lite 3D. I had bought tickets to see Tron in IMAX-lite when it opened here earlier, but missed it due to a family emergency. Hopefully, I can swap my ticket for a replacement show…I like the sightlines and the screen placement in this theater compared to the AMC installs. It appears to go deeper but I doubt it is much larger, if at all, then the AMC IMAX-lite installs in the area. The sound seemed to be played louder as the bass appeared to be deeper. The IMAX preview ad touts the 12K watts of power, which baffles me why I did not ‘feel’ the same deep bass at the AMCs. Maybe they just play the movies louder here? Further showings will have to be seen to be certain. Unfortunately, the deep bass interfered with some of the dialog..not good. Its nice they have a good cleaning crew thoroughly clean the place before the next shows. My 3D glasses were not clean. Even the replacement pair was dirty. I suspect they do not clean the glasses between shows. Where’s the
time? For the $18 price, that is inexcusable. I’m going to log a complaint and see what response I get.
Looking at the showtimes, even the matinees are not discounted. Not good. AMC does.
Hmm. Even if they installed DCinema here, look back at Steve’s post about how AMC replaced the sound system with an inferior one. Dumb, dumb, dumb AMC.
well… in regards to the Uptown… a little birdie told me… oh I won’t jinx it. nevermind…
They should put DP at the Uptown. If it works for Seattle’s Cinerama, and from what I gather their screen is also 70', it should work here, too.
On an aside note, I’m wondering if you can sneak into the IMAX-lite auditorium or is it far and away from the others and always attendant staffed? Hmmmm.
The Air & Space’s Chantilly IMAX would be a good alternate and REAL IMAX theater to see Potter. I’m not a real Potter fan, but am looking more forward to the Narnia and Tron sequels.
looks like Regal is offering NO matinee reduced prices for it’s IMAX screen – that’s just flat out robbery. Guess they think we’re Manhattan NYC
what’s interesting is that if you were to make an online purchase for a ticket for the IMAX (film) presentation at Udvar Hazy – it’s actually a dollar more. At AMC Tysons it’s $16.50/pre-noon: $11.00
but I’m going old school and see it on the Uptown screen for $6 (pre-noon price)
I agree – $17.50 for a NON-3D IMAX presentation that’s outrageous.
$17.50 a ticket?? $17.50??? Its ticket gouging deja vu. Didn’t the exhibitors learn from the mistake they made this past summer about out pricing themselves? I know many midnight shows are sold out all over, but the IMAX-lite prices are ridiculous. King of Prussia’s real IMAX venue has the same price. I’d rather see it there, spend the night and go shop at the mall. :) The thing is my previous experiences there have met with a projector breakdown of some sort ever since Polar Express in ‘04.
actually it’s auditorium #20 that is getting the IMAX-Digital conversion that opens this week with ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1’
question: which screen is getting the IMAX-Digital makeover? – as I noted before screen #1 might do the trick.
IMAX-Digital – really?!? oh come on, it makes more sense for a RPX screen – that’s discouraging news, since more films (other than the IMAX) get the deluxe theatrical experience – added to the fact that the RPX sound systems are configured to 7.1 sound – damn you Regal, that’s the reason I go over to the Egyptian [insert mad face]
I believe that and what used to occur and might start to be relaxed is that an exhibitor was given essentially a franchise over a certain territory by IMAX. Therefore AMC has Manhattan and Regal had to go RPX. I believe IMAX and Cineplex couldn’t come to an agreement on renewing their contract so AMC was able to build IMAX locations in Canada. Now AMC is getting greedy and putting in IMAX and ETX theaters in the same complex – are customers confused? One such location that was confused was AMC Garden State where the usher couldn’t figure out if I should get Real D glasses or IMAX 3-D glasses for Hubble 3-D.
As for IMAX’s “standards” – I don’t know what they are. I know Cinemark was shut out of many markets, saw how pathetic Digital IMAX is and said ‘we can do that’ – and so they did with XD. AMC did it when they at first couldn’t built an IMAX in the same territory as a Cineplex in Toronto, Regal facing the same thing in Times Square developed RPX. Cineplex in Canada has Ultra AVX (the IMAX screens they own were all from Famous Players). And now….Carmike has Big D and Rave is getting Rave Revue Big Screen. To be fair others had in house big screen formats showing “35MM Enhanced Prints” – such as Crown Theaters of CT (one of which – The Palace is still open) and Marcus Theaters UltraScreen.
Regal does have its own proprietary wide-screen format which they call RPX (Regal Premium Experience), but they also install these IMAX digital screens, as does AMC, which also has its ETX (Enhanced Theater Experience) screens. I don’t know why some theaters get the IMAX-branded screens, while others get the respective company’s own version. It may have to do with the fact that all or mostly all of these recently-installed large format screens are conversions of existing auditoria and that there are some that cannot accommodate the IMAX digital screens for some reason.
I thought Regal had an alternative to the IMAX-lite format that AMC uses. At least that is what I thought the E-Walk has. I suppose they are converting a theater, as opposed to actually extending the plex? If they book Tron here, it may be worth checking out, but I may want to see it at a real IMAX theater.
The chain should be changed to Regal. Regal is adding a digital IMAX screen to this theater in November, 2010: View link
The Majestic’s screens are mixed; some rooms have side masking and some rooms have top masking. #20 is the largest room (about 465 seats) with side masking and #1 the next largest (about 435 seats) with top masking.
14 is not the smallest room, I know #12 is a little smaller (with about 98 seats; not sure if it is the smallest, but it’s the smallest room I’ve been in so far…)
The sound at the Majestic does tend to be unimpressive; better than some theaters I’ve been to, but not one of my favorites.
Giles –
This month we are having auditorium #1 converted to Digital over at the Royale. They are having to use a Barco projector (instead of the typical Sony) because the screen is so wide. 1.85 Looks good in 1 & 14 here.
Majestic, Kingstowne (in Alexandria), Fox 16 in Ashburn, and the Royale are all originally Consolidated Theatres. No up and down masking at any of the locations (as far as I know).
really? that’s really wide – however, how would a 1.85 film look? I’m definately going to see ‘Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland’ at the Majestic since it’s a non-scope film and it would take up more of the whole wall (with no screen ‘top and bottom’ decreasing)
CinemarkFan – you asked about theatres that do side masking – i.e, extending the screen’s sides – I saw ‘Avatar 3D’ again at Mazza and the screens opens horizontally to reveal a scope (2.35) film
As far as a previous post in this section: Auditoriums 1 & 14 at the Royale 14 in Hyattsville have the largest screens in PG County. In scope – over 60 wide (measured it myself). And yes- there is side masking!