We’re going to go a bit later this month on the principles that (1) I want to see what the fuss is about, and (2) to have right to kvetch, I really should see it first, as opposed to reacting to internet graffiti.
I also wanted to see it on a real IMAX screen that projects 15/70 mm IMAX film. Nolan made a big point of filming The Odyssey that way. Unfortunately, there are very few theaters that still project true IMAX film; most IMAX (”LieMAX”) theaters have switched to digital laser projection, so LieMAX is approximately 4k on a really big screen.
I remember seeing true IMAX films at the Air and Space Museum in DC, and they were stunning. Unfortunately, that switched to digital ten years ago, and the Udvar Hazy theater at the Air and Space annex at Dulles is also digital.
That’s the best I can do around here, but Nolan made a much more ambitious film. I would like to see it as it was meant to be seen. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that chance.
I would like to see that even if the movie itself is disappointing. Grok is telling me that 15/70 mm film projection can get up to 16k resolution. I don’t know what the old Air and Space Museum films got, but I remember them as the best films I ever saw purely from a cinematic point of view. I ain’t a techie, but even I can tell the difference.
Heck, I can tell the difference when I swing by the Magnolia store in the back of my local Best Buy. That exhibits up to 6k and 8k tv screens. Those are stunning, even compared to 4k. They are quick to point out that they have those screens mainly to demonstrate the technology and that they are running special demo tapes on a proprietary hookup that can handle 8k. No one produces 8k content for commercial distribution. No streamers will stream more than 4k, and that may require an upgrade to one’s plan. The Magnolia people tell me that they sell a few to companies doing professional film editing, so the pros use it if they’re doing high end work, but it will be a long time before it reaches the mass market, if it ever does. But Nolan has made a major movie, intended to be a blockbuster spectacular, to the highest standard possible. And very, very few people will ever see it to best advantage. The best tv’s now will upscale 4k to 6k. But what they will be doing in five or ten years, who knows. the technology is there if the market will support it.
Anyhow, I’ll be seeing The Odyssey on the best screen available in this area. Fingers crossed on whether it’s a decent movie. The usual nuke Hollywood set has been trashing the film because of its stuntcasting of Helen and Clytemnestra, and I can grumble along with that. Ellen/Elliot Page plays Sinon — not Achilles, as the internet graffiti artists were howling — and Sinon is not even in Homer’s Odyssey. He does appear in other classical treatments of the Trojan War, most notably in The Aeneid. He is the “deserter” left behind by the Greeks to trick the Trojans into dragging the Trojan Horse into the city.
I’ll hold off on criticizing the movie until I’ve watched it. I have to wait a bit because the Udvar Hazy showings sold out most of the good seats very rapidly, and I had to wait to get a halfway decent seat. I do not think I want to be in the front row with a six story high screen.
“ to have right to kvetch, I really should see it first, as opposed to reacting to internet graffiti.”
Is that allowed here?