Palladium Times Square

You would think for the prices they charge we would not have to sit through 10+ minutes of commercials. It is really annoying.

Over the holidays I saw Bad Santa (hated it) in a multiplex and the film was started with then wrong lens, then the sound went out and the film broke 2x. When I was in the biz I would have given everyone a pass on the way out if they had not already demanded their money back.

Rhett..I saw Earthquake, Slapshot and Thats Entertainment 2 at the Cinema 46. A wonderful suburban theater. And did you ever go to the Stanley Warner on Route 4 before the slice and dice? Cinema Heaven!
By the way somebody told me that 2001 did not have an intermission at the Astor. So you did not the the effect of the great curtains slowly closing on the image of Hal listening in. Chilling beyond belief.

And William lately I’ve been getting leery of seeing any movie in a theater. The projectionists always seem top be getting something wrong whether its the film slightly out of focus(which is the worst because it seems I’m the only one who can tell)or not properly framing the image within the borders.

Your right on that 1993 restored “My Fair Lady”, I saw it at the Cineplex Century Plaza Theatre in Los Angeles. It looked great on the big screen, but the sound was not there. I had seen it many times before in different projection formats. The only way was in 70MM 6-Track Stereo sound. Also to add, at that time you had projectionists that knew how to run film right. Back in the early 90’s, when I was in Los Angeles. We use to run late show for friends at many of those theatres in Hollywood and Westwood, after close.
We ran “West Side Story”, “The Great Race” in 70MM 6-Track Stereo and “Airport” in 35mm IB Tech & 4-Track Stereo at the Chinese Theatre (main room). Then across the street at the Paramount (now known as the El Capitan) we ran “Empire Strikes Back” and a few other titles. Over at the Hollywood Pacific Theatre (Pacific 1,2,3)we ran “Dirty Harry” in IB Tech, “Star Trek III & IV” and “The Enforcer”. At the Dome we ran “Can’t Stop the Music”. At the Pantages we ran “Patton” in 70MM, At the GCC Avco in Westwood we ran “The Apartment”. At the Odeon in Westwood we ran “The Wall” in 70MM, “The Enforcer”, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. At the Beverly Connection 6 we ran “Where Eagle’s Dare”. This would go on during the summer time every year. This was just projectionists and friends, after the theatre closed for the day.
Not all of the palaces in Los Angeles are around today. Unless its located on Hollwood Blvd. or Westwood area. The ones that are located in the Downtown area of Los Angeles. Are all or almost closed to movies. One reason for Broadway is progress has not reached that street for night life. During the day its very busy along Broadway, but after dark it turns into a ghost town. During the 70’s thru early 90’s those 2000 seat theatres would be full on the weekends. But with rising costs and video and cable, people stayed home. So Metropolitan Theatres let the leases are just sold the properties. Some became churches or turned into stores.
By looking at New York’s Times Square area. Those large theatres like “The Capital” & “Roxy” were just to big and they sat on a lot of property in mid-town New York. When these theatres were built, we only had live entertainment and the movies to deal with. Now you add in TV, 100’s of channels of cable, internet. So theatre companies got rid of poor performing theatre locations. In Los Angeles, Mann Theatres and Pacific Theatres had some great single screen theatres. They got rid of them one by one, so they could make more money with a multi-plex.

How come all the great movie theaters in L.A. seem to remain and thrive, yet the great palaces in N.Y.C are gone and are dying a fast death.. Hopefully, the Ziegfeld will remain at least as a showcase for premieres… At last the marquee of the Paramount has been revived… The Empire 25 and 42nd St. E-walk are very, very pale comparisons to the great Time Square theaters of 50 years ago and before.. And, guess what… they should revive Radio City Music Hall… the greatest movie theater of all times!!!! Finis.

Vincent, We had the same thing happen in Los Angeles around the same time. Every year the three large theatres in Beverly Hills played many of those old hard ticket films. Many of those original 70MM prints are now no longer available. They played in the Art-Deco palaces of the Warner Beverly Hills and the Fox Wilshire and the Beverly. Many of the bookings were double features present in 70MM 6-Track Stereo sound and a few 35mm 4-Track Stereo shows too.
In your above post I was just saying that. When those houses ran 70MM 6-Track Stereo shows, they were the Best of everything in presentations.

William I was talking about the old hard ticket movies from the 50’s and 60’s which I was able to see a few of in the 70’s in revival at these theaters.
By the way I did avoid the revival of 2001 at the Astor Plaza because I knew that after seeing it at the Rivoli(a religious experience)the Plaza just wasn’t going to cut it.

I would love to know how Vincent saw Throughly Modern Millie at the Astor Plaza when the movie came out in 1967 and the theater didn’t open until 1974.
I agree with other comments. Someone should buy the old Demille/Embassy234 and restore it.United Artists should have bought it when they lost the Criterion. It saddens me that all the theaters in the Times Square area are almost gone. Loews should reconsdier closing the State if they are really going to loose the Astor Plaza.

In his April 26th comment Vincent states: “ It is stupefying when you see how arrogant these architects are and how much money they make and they come up with buildings without an ounce of imagination or style(see what they’re doing to Paris.)” I think most here would like to know more of why such depredations are happening, and there is no better explanation than in the book: FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE by Tom Wolfe, available at most libraries or via such as from this page: View link where you will also find my own review of this witty diatribe that skewers the pretensions of the modern day architecture as no one else can. For those unwilling to read even this short book, there are audio cassettes and downloads of it available there. Thank goodness our beloved theatres were mostly unaffected by the mad, headlong dash into modernism which indirectly has spelled the end of a number of theatres, especially in NYC, where property values are so inflated that any building more than 30 years old is considered passe, and something more profitable is eagerly sought by the money mad. This is the real reason so many theatres were demolished there: they couldn’t bring in as much money, and the power of influential people to desire and then clear a lot to build their own money-makers is awesome if not disgusting. As God’s word, the Bible, says: “The love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things.” (1st Timothy 6:10) [many Bibles translate this as ‘the root of all evil’, but our English word ‘evil’ is much more limited than the broad scope of the original Koine Greek word here.]

I remenber an evening performance of “Raiders of the lost arch” in 1981 the sound was absolutely perfect and the auditorium with confortable seats was giving such a quality never found in the movie theatres of Paris of these days only the tobacco smoke was unusual for us.During my last trip to New York four years ago i was surprised to see the Astor Plaza still runnig due to the development of multiplex in the city.
But the closing of such places is a loss and without nostalgy the end of a kind of pleasure to go to the movies never found in multiplex.

Vincent. I think you need to take a trip to Astor Plaza again. You need to see the screen there. You seem to have a bad vibe about the Astor, did you have a bad experience there?

When I see pictures of the displays that they used to put up on those giant billboards with neon and three dimensional objects it shows just how much things have changed. I guess the downfall all started with the showcase runs and the way movies open and close in a few weeks.