The Arclight is Worth the Eleven Bucks

But I don't know if Miami Vice was... hah, today I did nothing until 2:30pm. I slept in, the plumbers came over in the morning to finish installing the new pipes to our shower, and I finally got off the couch when Andrew got back from his internship. We ended up going to McDonald's to try their new Snack wrap thing and then we walked across the street to Border's before making our way to the Arclight Theater.

The Arclight is like this living memorial celebrating cinema. You walk into the windowed lobby and look up at the towering ceiling held up by curtain-draped walls. A giant screen with the movie titles and show times compliment a gigantic clock, reminiscent of a European train station. There is a cafe and lunge off to the right side and a small gift/memorabilia shop to the left. Under the large clock are two ticket desks... get this: you actually choose your seat, like you're going to the opera or ballet or something! You you get your ticket and walk between the two ticket desks and turn right past the giant hanging curtain(as if you're going back stage) to make the ascension to the top of the giant avenue like stair case... or you could take the long escalator at the left. We walked. Once at the summit, you give your ticket to the attendant at the ropes and either stand in line for concessions or go into your theater. We went in, found our numbered seats(only two other people were in the theater when we came in... we were early) and sat enjoying the big screen in front of us.

Andrew went to get us popcorn and candy for the show while I sat and listened to the movie score that was playing over the sound system. There is no "pre-show entertainment" like other theaters, just a simple screen and a magical movie score. As I sat there I realized that I had always thought it would be so cool to do nothing else but work on movies and go see movies... and that is exactly what I am doing. Andrew came back with the food and we discussed musical scores and how lucky we are to be doing what we had only drempt about when we were little kids. There is an usher stationed at the entrance to the theater who shows you to your seat, and right before the show starts, an Arclight employee comes out and addresses the audience, letting us know that we are about to watch a print of Miami Vice, which will run 2 hours and 14 minutes and that there will be an attendant stationed at the side if you have any questions or comments. He or she will tell you to sit back, relax and enjoy the show. The lights dim and the projector springs to life projecting twenty-four still frames of film per second, bringing motion to otherwise motionless material. We sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

However, when the lights came up, Andrew and I sat there trying to shake off the inconsistencies of the movie we had just viewed. It was an ok movie, it definitely wasn't a Collateral and for sure was NOT a Heat. The major issues were #1-it was super long, a lot of the close up inserts that added artistic slants to some scenes could have been cut way back, #2-the music was a disaster. I am never a fan of using music with lyrics in a movie that is trying to be serious and there were at least three Audioslave songs in the picture. I AM or was a big Audioslave fan until Mann used I Am the Highway in that one part of Collateral... ya, that made me mad. And the music cues were really bad, too. #3-the accents were very think, I missed a lot of lines because I could not understand them sometimes, #4- the quality of video kept shifting... within the same scenes! One shot would be good quality digital and then the reverse would have all this digital noise in the shadows, then cut back to good digital. I wouldn't have minded if the whole thing looked grainy or the whole thing looked smooth or even in it switched every other scene, but right in the middle of a scene? It just got distracting. The super grainy video got me nervous cuz it was like home video... so for me it was "real" but it should have bee consistent. And finally #5- the whole story was up and down, timing wise. I was into it one minute, then the next I didn't care, then I was into it again... up and down, up and down. But Dion Beebe did do a good job shooting, well, at least half the film... cuz the other half looked like they just got a minDV Sony Handycam and ran around videotaping the actors playing guns. I give it a 2 out of 5.

But on the bright side, I got my box of business cards today, and we finally have pressure in our show... but no showerhead yet.

PhillM tip-of-the-day:
Don't shoot digital if you want it to look like film.