AFI Silver Theatre

I added my photo of the 2014 70mm leaflet which does not mention L of A or West Side Story. The theater closed in March 2020 due to Covid, for the rest of the year.

I find the marquee very interesting

Joker is opening here Thu in 70mm. Its a rarity to have the AFI run a more commercial movie here with the 20 screen & Imax Lite Regal just around the corner. With so much bad news reported these days, I don’t know about a dark film and judging from the trailer, a dark character study and probably an acting (insert award title) nomination for sure.

The photos on Film-Tech list an SA10 for the Historic theatre. That’s the EX decoder.

if you want the full experience at home, get the 4k bluray. From what i heard, both the bluray and the 4k bluray have the sound mix sourced from 70mm six track elements. The 2001 special edition DVD’s sound mix was remixed for the release.

Most likely the point is money. I see it all the time at the one venue where I am a projectionist. Cost $250.00 to ship a 35MM print. Cost $4.95 to get a digital copy. And Im sure to ship 70MM must cost a fortune. Plus anybody can start can digital. You need people who know what they are doing to run 70MM.

I’ve been saying the same thing for the last few years. I don’t think they’ve gotten rid of all their projectionists. I thought they had one for those rare 70mm shows. I remember one of the last bookings they only played 70mm on the weekends, thinking they ran digital or some automated showing on the weekdays when attendance is lower.

‘2001’ – the IMAX DCP is now over at the Lockheed intown Air & Space IMAX screen

The new “unrestored” 70mm prints are from an IP made in 1999 and are not good at all – baked-in dirt, negative tears, faded color, scratches, etc. The new 4K DCP (and the IMAX derivative) is from a new cleaned-up scan of the original film elements; it is stunning and is the current definitive version of 2001 for large screens.

Hooray for me. I caught the last showing of 2001 this evening. This time I bought tickets online to avoid the mess from last time. Turnout was surprisingly decent for a weeknight showing. I guestimate about 200 spread out the Grand Theater.

The theater advertises fresh made Whole Food sandwiches and other items. Unfortunately, they were all sold out. This is ridiculous for a 7:30 pm show. And they stopped selling my favorite stuffed pretzels. And I ain’t paying no $10 for a Costco sized dog that Costco sells for $1.50. Instead, I paid $5 for one oversized cookie and a bag of super crunchy chips. Its funny in that the guy next to me also had chips and as anyone who has seen the film knows its mostly quiet. You can hear audience movement, coughs and whatnot. So he and I were careful to quietly chew our extra crunchy chips, stop when the soundtrack was dead silent and resume chewing when it got loud. :)

Excellent showmanship. They discontinued the slide show and closed the curtain promptly at 7:30pm while the overture or entrance music began. There were some film detracting artifacts such as a sudden drop out as if the film had been trimmed at the beginning of the Dawn of Man scenes. Spotting and lines in certain places led me to believe the film has been shown quite a bit and probably mishandled. Intermission started at 9pm and the show resumed about 15 minutes later. Curtain closed. Audience clapped at the end. After the credits, while many still sat in their seats, curtain closed. ^5s.

Thinking about the ‘experience,’ I have to say it was less than I hoped. While its always great to see a classic on the BIG screen, with a decent audience, there were some other detractions. The color seemed less vibrant from what I thought was a first generation print. For example, the close ups of Dave Bowman. The guy has big BIG BLUE eyes. We’re not talking exaggerated digital blue like Chris Pine in the IMAX-lite Star Trek reboots here. They looked more light blue. My memory of the virgin print from the Uptown viewing from 1990 was more engaging..this is aside from the superior w-i-d-e screen at the theater. BUT..what I did notice this time (for the first time probably) were the red blood veins in Bowman’s eyes.

Another color detraction were the ship monitor readouts as Hal kills the scientists in stasis. The colors looked faded and not properly contrast and sharp. Maybe I’m wrong but I had thought the readouts filled the entire screen not boxed. The sound effect had a less than vibrant piercing beep beep..beep beep. Or, maybe my hearing has, um..lossed some sensitivity after years of THX/Dolby Digital/DTS abuse. :)

On the positive side, in one of the moon shots, there appeared more ‘texture’ than what I remember from before. The space suits by the Discovery looked more blood orange then orange than I recall. Since this print was supposedly made from the original negative would I be correct to assume this was the original intent?

I didn’t spend much time looking at the exhibits, but I did take a minute or two to marvel at the decorations and interior designs and how well things seem to have held up since its reopening some 15 years or so ago.

If Spartacus were shown here in 70mm for the Kubrick retrospective, I would have driven back for it. But for DCP, not so much interest. Might as well see it at home.

JodarMovieFan, current 70mm film festival at Museum of Moving Image in NYC. In 2013, I saw the digital Hello, Dolly! as part of the 70mm film festival at AFI Silver, but the actual 70mm print will be in Queens this weekend. The following weekend, 70mm print of Cleopatra, another 70mm print that I don’t think was shown at AFI Silver. And, other films in 70mm.

There were a couple of instances of very minor print damage. Prior prints I saw had the blackness of space shots look ultra deep and inky. The quick overhead shots of the shuttle zipping over the moon’s landscape had a very 3D-esque layer effect, that wasn’t apparent in this newer version. On the plus side, this time around, I was really trying to take note of the five front channel (6-track) mix and it was very exemplary.

that’s too bad you missed out on the last screening Jodar, I saw this last Friday with a 14 year old family member, he really dug the whole Frank/Dave/HAL sequence of the movie; ‘The Dawn of Man’ sequence he kind of nodded out. As usual for this type of presentation, great use of the curtains and a twenty minute intermission. Of the prior 70mm presentations I’ve seen ‘2001’ here at the AFI Silver, this wasn’t the ‘best’ but regardless, it’s a treat and necessity to see this in 70mm and the Silver delivered.