Cool theater

Had a great time at this movie theater in St. Paul tonight.

It's survived over 60 years, without a parking lot.

Go figure.

Continue reading Cool theater

Imaginarium

Mrs D and i went out to see Terry Gilliam's new movie, "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," last night at the Carolina. It's one of those movies that i really want to see, "you have to go see this," but it's really not. Can't quite say why, either. There are several scenes (the monastery, the shoe fantasy) that are among the most visually stunning of all time, and Lily Cole as Valentina, the soon-to-be-sixteen year old daughter of the title character, is an eye magnet of the first rank. Throw in Christopher Plummer as the 1000 year old Dr. Parnassus, and Tom Waits, who some believe was born to play the part, as the Devil whose sole joy, it seems, comes from his ongoing wagers with the Doctor, and you have the makings of a stone classic.

Or not. Somehow the whole adds up to much less than the sum of its parts.

I'm not going to try to tease out why in the confines of a blog post. That's a conversation best had over a couple of beers with a few people who've seen the movie. I do want to wonder out loud, though, how much of this reaction can be tied to the nearly unintelligible sound in Cinema One at the Carolina. Hard to say, with just one viewing in one location, whether the problem is with the film, with the sound system in the theater, or whether it's just a mismatch in technology (maybe the movie's sound is mixed in 7.1 surround, and the theater was only carrying center channel information?) but the amount of concentration it took to follow any extended dialog in this film was straining. And it's not like there were competing sounds from adjacent theaters (no Avatar playing next door!) or from a disruptive audience (when the lights when down we were the only ones in the theater; two other couples arrived before the opening credits were finished). Whatever the cause, the effect was insurmountable. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this, and if there's a solution at hand?

Continue reading Imaginarium

Another one bites the dust

The old Carmike theater at the north end of the K-Mart shopping center on Avondale has been vacant for what, 6 years now? There' have been all kinds of rumors in that time of different plans to turn it into various kinds of specialty theaters.

Not no more:

Date: June 24th and June 25th
Time: 10am-5pm
Movie Theater Liquidation
We are Liquidating the contents of a Movie Theater located in Durham, NC. We have everthing from consessions to speakers to projectors. There is a list below of most of the items there . If any of these items are an interest to you and would like to know more, please call us at 757-622-1010 or 757-446-8080. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 14 lg round trash receptacles, 4 - 2 seat sofas, Beverage Air Cooler (approx. 3' tall), nacho machine server, 4 s/s popcorn holders/warmers, 4 Selmix ice boxes, 4 POS register system, 4 lighted menu boards, 4 movie ticket POS registers, 4 drawer file cabinet, small Sentry safe, large safe ( approx. 30" X 24"), 6ft folding table, Link computer monitor/keyboard, Epson LX-300 printer (pinfed), assorted Desks, Tables, and Chairs, Radio Shack FM Intercom, Scotsman 1000 lbs ice machine. Cretors Giant Dual Popcorn popping table w/ hopper, 3 - 6ft s/s racks, 3 compartment s/s sinks (no apron), 1348 theater seats, 54 speakers (on wall), 7 movie screens (approx. 24 ft wide), 7 base subwoofers, Film Splicer (model T), set of 6 ½ size lockers, 3 DTS-6D playback systems, 6 channel cinema stereo processor, EX520 Regulated Exciter lamp supply, 7 Strong X-90 Projection consoles, 7 passive crossovers, 3 Smart Model #3 sound processors, 4 smart Model Mod II C Sound processors, 7 Simplex 1050 projectors, 7 Simplex 2000 lens Turrents, 7 Simplex 5 star sound heads, 2 Schneider 75 primary scope lens, 2 Schneider 80mm Primary scope lens, 3 Schneider 95mm Primary scope lens, Schneider MC2x anamorphic lens, 4 Schneider 50mm flat lens, 3 Schneider 60mm flat lens, 7 Xenon power supply (model #6280001), 7 hi tech dimmers, 7 hi tech automation, 3 smart mn 586 monitors, 4 Smart Showman 4 monitors, 3 Smart exec. Power supplies, QSC power amps (run TA242), Sony cd player, 12 Telex Car A Mate slide projectors, 8 XBO Xenon short lamp, 6 flip top garbage cans, rewinder for trailer, 3 s/s racks, lot of used chairs/chair parts, 3 dbl metal cabinets, lot of Christmas decorations, old stereo system, lot of light bulbs, lot of upcoming movie trailers, lot of Coca-Cola slides, lot of misc. bulbs, solvents/degreaser/etc., 6 Schneider WA 2X anamorphic lens scope.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, and at the Indy's Triangulator blog, Chapel Hill's Varsity Theater is shutting down its operations on Friday.

Not that i go there often, but every showing i've been to at the Varsity has been well attended. It's a shame that a specialty theater can't make a go of it on the main drag of a college town.

Continue reading Another one bites the dust

Casting call

If you tuned in to Shooting the Bull last night, you heard us talking about Main Street, the new movie scheduled to begin filming in Durham in another month or two. Who do you think should be cast to play Durham's leaders and assorted (not to mention sordid) characters? Phil had the best suggestion of the night with Ron Glass to play Mayor Bill Bell.

Tell you what, though. If Ron, the elevator operator at the Snow Building, doesn't end up with a speaking role, someone is not paying close enough attention to downtown.

Continue reading Casting call

Don't bother

Eagle-eyed reader JH sends along this tidbit about the Bull Durham sequel, from the New York Post:

THE long-awaited sequel to "Bull Durham" is finally getting off the ground. A spy tells us Kevin Costner recently met with director Ron Shelton at Trader Vic's in LA to discuss reprising the role of carousing catcher Crash Davis from the 1988 baseball flick. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are also expected to return as pitcher Nuke LaLoosh and baseball groupie Annie Savoy, who are now married and owners of a Major League team that Costner manages.

Seriously? You're gonna do a sequel of Bull Durham and have Annie and Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh together as a married couple who own a big league team with Crash Davis working for them as manager? No fucking way. Nuke's big league career wouldn't have lasted as long as Mark "The Bird" Fydrich. You're gonna try and tell me he and Annie got together in 1996 after she dumped Crash Davis cause she didn't like living in Visalia, and made enough, a la Mark Cuban in the dot-com boom, to buy a fucking baseball team? And hire Crash to be their manager?

Oh, man. Maybe if they also do it as a zombie movie, it'll have a chance to be watchable.

Continue reading Don't bother

End of the World

Mrs. D's a long time Werner Herzog fan, so we decided that his new documentary, Encounters at the End of the World, playing at the Carolina Theatre, would be a more entertaining way to spend a Monday than either a City Council meeting or watching Bob Costas' toupee on the TV.

It's a fascinating movie, made in conjunction with experimental/noise guitarist Henry Kaiser, who, it turns out, spends a good deal of his time diving below the ice shelf and photographing the almost alien world at the bottom of the earth. Kaiser also did the music for the documentary, which some reviewers thought the best part, but i have to say i found distracting and obtrusive at times.

Herzog made it to Antarctica on a National Science Foundation grant. Scanning through the list of other grant recipients, there's only one other filmmaker, so it'll be interesting to compare "Encounters" with Anne Aghion's Ice People. Herzog focuses, if you can use that word about this documentary, on the oddest things in his environment. Interviewing a scientist who's spent 20 years observing penguins, and who is supposedly renown for his reticence, Herzog asks if he's ever seen any penguins go insane. (Later in the documentary he actually finds one.) The underwater scenes, and the audio of the seals singing below the ice are spectacular, but as at least one other reviewer noted, at the end of the movie you probably have gotten a better understanding of Werner Herzog than of Antarctica.

Continue reading End of the World