Now this is a cinema

[George Bellefontaine]

Wish there was something like it in this part of the world.

http://www.arclightcinemas.com/dome.jsp?path=about

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[Eduardo]

Very cool Cinema George. I like that keep up with times. Most theaters close becuase lack of upgrades.




http://home.nc.rr.com/ejimenez

[Eduardo]

Very cool Cinema George. I like that keep up with times. Most theaters close becuase lack of upgrades.




http://home.nc.rr.com/ejimenez

[John Holmes]

Now that is worth the price of admission! Very sweet indeed. That would make me get back to going to the theater often.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Brandon B]

Movies I've seen there:

Raiders
CE3K
T2
E.T.
2001
Heavy Metal

and many I can't remember. One of my favorite theaters in LA. Except when the giant bees come out of the ceiling and carry off your date.

BB

[George Bellefontaine]

You are on e lucky movie-goer, Brandon. I'd be going to the movies again, like John, if a cinema like this was near me.




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[Bob]

L.A. has two great, modern, theaters. The Dome in Hollywood and the Directors theater on the westside at the Hughes complex. Reserved comfortable leather seats, which you are lead to by a usher. No bad sitting, excellent picture and sound. Nice little cafe's and expresso bars. Good parking and the excitment of getting caught up in audience reaction. Something you miss with home theater (rude moviegoers are rare at these two theaters).

[Brandon B]

I also quite like Mann's Village in Westwood.

When I saw CE3K at the dome back in 1979, I remember when the mothership came over the mountain, my friend and I couldn't hear each other speak 'cuz the bass roar was so loud it sounded like you were talking with earplugs underwater in a jacuzzi.

Haven't been there in a few years. OK like 8.

BB

[Bob]

Brandon, the Cinerama Dome you went to for those movies is long gone. The theater was shut down for a long time while Arclight completly remodeled it, if I am remembering right it was closed over a year. The new Arclight Dome is light years ahead of the old Dome you are thinking about. However, when it was new, the original was certainly state of the art in its' day. Like a phoenix it has risen to again lead the way in state of the art movie theaters.

[Brandon B]

8O 8O 8O
Wow. Guess I'll have to go try the "new and improved" version.

Did they exterminate the giant bees?

BB

[Brandon B]

Well, finally made it back here to see ROTK. While it was certainly a nice presentation (and you can buy popcorn with real butter, and they ush you to your assigned seat), gotta say it is not the best theater in L.A.

One or two of the big venues in Westwood village are better. The Cinerama screen is (still) problematic for many seats, with the first several rows probably being the best (IMO). At that distance, it literally wraps around you for a real immersive experience. Any farther back and it just sort of distorts the shape of the movie into a giant bow tie. Doesn't bother me horribly, but it did our friends.

The sound system is really nice and the surround setup works well, but this is a smaller space than the theater I usually leave the house for (the Village), yet it has a noticeably inferior low end, and the high end is not quite as nice either.

Plus they had the stinking red dot thing in their print, like anyone would try to videotape a movie off a curved cinerama screen.

Have to say I don't think they improved the presentation any over the old dome, and in fact lost some punch out of the sound system. The amenities and staff are, however, absolutely top notch. $14 per ticket ($11 M-Th, and matinees on Fri.), waiting as seats are assigned at ticket puchase anyway. And a cool gift shop.

Oh, and loved the movie. Can't wait for the 4 no 5 no 6 hour EE DVD.

BB

[Burke Strickland]

Seeing that makes me nostalgic for the Cooper Cinerama Theater in Bloomington, Minnesota (Twin Cities area) where I saw "Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm", "How The West Was Won", "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "The Hallelujah Trail", and "2001: A Space Odyssey". (Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.)

Sleek minimalist architecture though opulently luxurious in a classic modern style, (thick carpet on the aisles, firmly supportive upolstered seats, etcetera) it had reserved seating, classy snacks (no popcorn for the first few years years), uniformed staff (not just a white shirt and bow tie), and fairly steeply banked theatrical seating (not nearly as high a rise as stadium seating, but a lot better sightlines than most movie theaters of its day). The sound system was awesome, at least compared to what most theaters had back then.

Tickets were also fairly expensive for a movie theater, costing as much per ticket as the Guthrie Theater's live performances (at least the Guthrie's "cheap seats" that I could afford). But since experiencing a movie there was so much ahead of virtually all other venues in the area (the only real competior being the grandly old-style Academy Theater in downtown Minneapolis, which had shown Cinerama titles before the Cooper was built), I went several times per title anyway (except for Hallelujah Trail, which was billed as a comedy but was just not very funny)..

Alas, multiplexes have taken over almost completely and very few of the grand old movie houses are being restored and kept in use for the cinema. Instead, most are either being converted to other uses not at all related to the movies or being torn down. About twelve years ago, the Cooper Cinerama was demolished.

Burke

[George Bellefontaine]

I really miss the old movie palaces. There was one in Halifax called The Capitol. It had balcony seating as well as those little seating alcoves you see in the old opera houses. Forget what they're called. Also, in the rest lobby there was all kinds of interesting decorations, including a tin suit from the time of Richard The King and the Holy Wars. The theater itself had these huge and beautiful chandeliers. The screen ( saw the first Cinemascope feature there: The Robe) was surrounded by gorgeous red plush draperies.

Some of the movies I saw there indluded: SHANE, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, SAMSON AND DELILAH, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, just about all the Marilyn Monroe movies, HIGH NOON, and many others.

Sadly, there are no theaters like those in LA left in my part of the world. Just cold, bare, stadium seating multiplexes.They have lousy sound and are usually poorly screened. Hell, they don't even have draperies over the screen. And that's why I pretty much stick to my home theater.




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