Apple Cinemas Xtreme Hartford
330 New Park Avenue,
Hartford,
CT
06106
330 New Park Avenue,
Hartford,
CT
06106
4 people
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This theater is being taken over by Apple Cinemas: Hartford, CT: Bow Tie Palace 17 & BTX Theater Gets New Management [Jun 19, 2020]
fred 1 We’re going to see a lot of that.
Bow Tie cinemas has announce that the Palace won’t reopen once restrictions are lifted they choose not to renewal their lease. The landlord is looking for another operater
The Odyssey’s projector failed on opening day
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and still having trouble on November 28th
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This opened on October 27th, 2000. Grand opening ad in the photo section.
Article:
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The Odyssey Theater was a purpose built large screen format screen with stadium seating sight-lines quite comparable to legacy IMAX and big curved screen. I’m sure that hasn’t changed with the digital upgrade – I can only speak for it when they were showing “enhanced 35MM” in the Crown days but the sound and presentation was quite good although like IMAX the screen didn’t have masking.
(This screen is much larger than the mini-IMAX National Amusements opened at Buckland Hills – despite opening with 15/70MM they sandwiched a slightly larger screen into a 250 seat, two story room — the was of course the beginning of the “lie-max” era!)
The Palace was designed for Crown Cinema Corporation by Port Washington, New York, architect James Thomas Martino. The City of Hartford requested the rather traditional movie palace facade, a departure from the more adventurous designs Martino usually did for Crown. The theater had a total of 3,611 seats.
Cinema City is covered here by the Courant – so far it sounds like they’re doing the right things – I hope it remains and develops into a place for the Hartford film community and they get more involved. Parkville certainly isn’t a bad place to be with Real Art Ways down the street and the annual Hartford International Film Festival (if Bow Tie and the city lent some additional support that festival could grow and increase attendance – which in return would boast Bow Tie’s bottom line in developing a special wing for film goers with taste). Here’s the article on the new theater:
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With the nearby Cinema City Closes on July 22. The Palace will set aside 5 of its theaters to make The New Cinema City @ the Palace the next day. This will be great, it will have a separate enterance and upscale consession . This will offer the public an better selection . Insted of showing a hollywood blockbuster in 3-4 theaters you will get counter program with fine arthouse and independant features.
Not only the average Joe but the average film student at UHa, I doubt that was they were the problem. If anything you’ll have to start selling drugs on the side to afford the $11 Odyssey admission price and snacks. So I guess according to Joe they’ve added proper masking in the Odyssey, which like the I-Max at Buckland used to project things on the very large screen and it would be like watching a letter box movie on your TV. It the proper ratio but it only fills up part of the screen. Now if they were to convert it to a full I-Max (they used to show “enhanced 35MM prints” with more detail for the larger screen) they could compete with Buckland since I’m sure their screen is larger than the mini-I-Max there (I even argued to National Amusements that I bet the screens 7 and 8 at the Showcase West Springfield were larger than Buckland’s I-Max).
I knew the theater was on the verge of being sold when the operations improved and the prices was lowered, in its final months as Crown the place was spotless (I really haven’t been there much since the Bow Tie take over but things there seem to be the same and I’m glad to hear they have plans to improve Cinema City which I don’t think has ever been improved since it opened 40 years ago). But now with East Hartford out of the picture (also old, but very well run) and Bloomfield, it does make sense to me that they can play films day and date with Criterion and still keep Cinema City open, all without veering into Real Art Ways' type of film.
Bow Tie Cinemas assumed operation of this theater on 11/17/06.
if you’re into mainstream movies and stuff like me, the palace is the place to go weekdays or weekends.($5 on a saturday night for me thanks to my student ID) I’m sure RAW is good but they don’t show movies that would bring me there, so i can’t judge. Buckland is good and all cause they show movies past midnight on the weekends….but are way too expensive. I think it’s the best theatre cause of the sound. The sound here kicks the bejezzez out of Plainville and Buckland. I like my theatre shaking like an earthquake during explosions.
if you’re into mainstream movies and stuff like me, the palace is the place to go weekdays or weekends.($5 on a saturday night for me thanks to my student ID) I’m sure RAW is good but they don’t show movies that would bring me there, so i can’t judge. Buckland is good and all cause they show movies past midnight on the weekends….but are way too expensive. I think it’s the best theatre cause of the sound. The sound here kicks the bejezzez out of Plainville and Buckland. I like my theatre shaking like an earthquake during explosions.
Best theater in CT?? Crown Palace is okay but I still contend the best theater in CT is down the street, Real Art Ways (good movies, projection, and the place is kept very clean). Crown Palace has obnoxious people who talk on their cell phones even during movies like The Passion of the Christ. That to me was kind of amazing. Although you can’t beat Crown Movie Madness – 4 bucks for a student ticket, you can’t even rent a video for that. What incentive do you have not to go to the movies.
Buckland Cinema De Lux/Showcase was better but at more than double the price. Still my rule was this: Crown during the week when it was empty, Buckland on weeekends – they had a nicer crowd there in Manchester anyway…and when the movie was sold out at Buckland – East Hartford, but that option is no longer there.
The odyssey screen theater is still used, only for “enhanced 35mm” movies. Best theater in CT hands down. Way better than Loews in Plainvlle. This theater has the sound and even the small auditoriums are great.
Ooops. Sorry about that!
THIS INFO ALL WRONG……
This theatre is most certainly not open 24 hours a day. Also, the giant Odyssey screen has not been used in years.