Ziegfeld Theatre

$20 for Kit Kittredge: All American Girl being shown here, ridiculous.

Ziegfeld Man:

You were at the Lafayette on Saturday. In fact, we met each other, but didn’t know it. I’m the one you asked if I was Pete, and I took you up the stairs and pointed him out to you. By the time I asked Pete who you were, I couldn’t locate you again. Maybe next season, hopefully if they get Jolson Sings Again.

I’m hoping “Mamma Mia” will be an exclusive run at the Ziegfeld only, like “Chicago” and “Dreamgirls” before it. For a week or two anyway.

My predictions about HANCOCK and MAMMA MIA were absolutely right.
The action comedy HANCOCK will be shown at the Ziegfeld beginning
July 2nd and after that, the big screen version of the MAMMA MIA
will also be shown at the Ziegfeld beginning July 18th, according
to the Clearview Cinemas website. Am I smart or just good?

Having had several rewarding visits to the Ziegfeld in its early years, including “Sleuth,” I was often dismayed when I vitied NYC in later years to find that it was temporarily closed (“for repairs” or otherwise). Until I read here the long lists of Ziegfeld bookings, decade by decade, and noted the many times the theater was closed for weeks at a stretch – and invariably during my twice-annual visits in early spring and late fall, I had no idea why my timing always seemed to be unlucky. It wasn’t just unlucky timing. I was always facing the probability that the theater would be closed when I happened to be in town. I did luck into a screening of one of the later “Star Wars” films once.

For anyone who was disappointed with the new “Indiana Jones” flick and needs to be reminded how GREAT the original “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” was, then I direct your attention to this little tribute thing I put together and posted on my Yahoo group website. Enjoy the flashback!

I don’t want to embarrass anyone by name, but one of the above posters virtually gave away the secret of what the McGuffin is in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

Please all posters! No spoilers! While this is a site for discussing movie theatres, I am all for discussing those movies we all love so much. I don’t expect anyone going to Cinema Treasures not to already know that Rosebud is a sled, but please refrain from giving away spoilers to current films, especially freshly opened movies.

Well Bill I wasn’t speaking about you. I did read your post and you did watch the trilogy (!) This was a comment on the state of American cinema. In 1981 there were a lot of critics that did not like Raiders. Carrie Rickey, of the Philadelphia Inquier blames Indiana Jones for the “dumbing down” of movies, a statment that I do not share. You, like so many did walk into that theater with your expectations too high, the film could never live up to. So, I stand by my post and please don’t be sorry because you didn’t like it.

I did not know that, this site had become a link to, ain’t it cool news.com. I watch the film with a big bag of buttered popcorn, and enjoyed it. This whole, “I was disappointed” bit is wearing thin. The movie could not compete with the one that was running in your head, since you just had to watch the Indy trilogy before you saw “Kingdom”. Some not having the common sense to realize that, movies you’ve seen as a kid, back when you had no worries or cares, are shocked and surprised when the same giddiness doesn’t happen when they make “a new one” in your adult years. For most of us, life has changed after school/college, jobs, marriages, children etc. and what some of s cannot achieve in our own lives, we tend to be over critical of art and of artists. Before Star Wars (1977), movie reviews appeared days later in your local newspaper, now as in the case of The Phantom Menace (1999), a month before it’s release, placing the seed of doubt in the minds of moviegoers. Movies today, are reviewed to death, every little rinky dink newspaper has a so called movie critic, and thanks to the internet, John Q Public gets to weigh in as well. Unless you have stock in Viacom, what this movie makes is none of our business. Steven Spielberg said, in this picture Indy “grows up”, and he does. When Indy sees the mushroom cloud, and nearing the begining of the 1960’s, he knows that the time of awe and adventure is coming to an end. Now for him, love and family is the greatest adventure of all. My Ziegfeld veiwing is in a few weeks, I am sorry the film is not in digital, Indy fans, see the film again it is preety good.

When looking back on what I didn’t like about it, there are several reasons: the weak story, the general tiredness of the whole affair as if the only reason the movie was made was to rake in the dough – but I keep going back to the overuse of CGI. Filmmakers can now put anything they can imagine on the screen with very little effort, but it’s ruining the movies. At least it’s ruining the sequels to older movies that were made without CGI. I’m just old-fashioned, I guess.

Pete – maybe the score is better on CD, but in the movie it makes hardly any impression at all. I came out of the theater whistling the music from “Temple of Doom”.

Since I was very disappointed in Temple of Doom and mildly disappointed in Last Crusade, I’m going in to this one with little to no expectation or anticipation.

Bill, John Williams' music score on the CD is very good, but the film has been treated to a Ben Burtt sound mix, which means it’s probably buried under the sound effects and dialed down way to low in his usual manner. I’ll be seeing it tomorrow afternoon at the Lafayette.

Glad you liked it, Gary, but I was left disappointed. Maybe I shouldn’t have re-watched the other 3 over the last few days, but the same sense of fun and excitement just wasn’t there in the new one. I blame all that CGI – seeing the digital Shia LaBoeuf or whatever that was in the jeep scene really turned me off the whole movie. Compare that to the under-the-truck stunt in “Raiders”, which a real human being actually did. I sound like a party pooper, but that’s what the movie seemed like to me. A couple of good scenes here and there, but overall not so good.

Real 1950’s sci-fi B pictures like “The Brain From Planet Arous” and “Teenagers From Outer Space” were much more enjoyable. I thought “Crystal Skull” was going to re-create the feel of those old movies, but it just left me wanting to see the old ones again and forget all about “Skull”. People were afraid it was going to be like “The Phantom Menace”, but that was actually a much better experience in every way. Even the music for “Skull” was bland – I’m surprised at John Williams.

Sorry to be so negative. I’d be interested to hear other opinions on it.

Hi Ziegfeld Man, Movie534 here, as far as your above post, well you know where I stand on that. After 33 years in the booth, film is it for me. However, I am glad to here that you enjoyed the new Indy movie. I am getting ready for work now. I will be running 4 prints of it in the place I work at today. I may even be able to watch the last show, as it is the last one to start for the day. I wont be getting home till after 2 a.m., but if I see it, I’ll leave a post on how I liked it. Have a nice holiday weekend.