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SoaP was worth seeing on opening night at a giant beautiful theater specifically for the "sheer rudeness of humanity." It was worth $10 to have 800+ other people laughing and cheering through all of the deliciously awful moments of the movie.

Some of the early reviews compared SoaP to a 2000s-era "Rocky Horror Picture Show" for the level of audience participation involved. If you rented RHPS from Netflix and watched it at home, you wouldn't get the same experience as watching it at a theater full of eclectic movie fans.

I've met them all, and Steve is more of a force for good, Paul is into sports (the SF stuff is fine) and helps out with the local Seattle International Film Festival by donating the use of his fantastic film theater Cinerama for a couple of weeks each year and bringing in some neat directors and actors like Adam Sandler, and Bill is spending ten times what the feds are on actual research and solutions for real problems impacting the world like malaria etc.

But that's my personal opinion.

Well, except for that big link to movietickets.com on their website where you can buy tickets to the show at that theater. Currently House of Flying Daggers.

I was able to see this movie when it premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival (at the Cinerama no less with it's kick ass visual and sound systems). It focuses on Bateau 3 years after the first movie. I enjoyed 2 in much the same way as 1 but it definitely has the same over use of philosophy and metaphors. If you don't get hung up on that, it is the most visually stunning film I've ever seen. While some of the scenes seem like they just did them to look good and don't aid the story at all, there are other moments where the juxtaposition of classical animation on top of intricately detailed CG environments gives it a remarkable look and sense of immersion. If you liked the first one, you'll definitely enjoy this one, even if it is a bit lighter on the substance. If you couldn't get by 1's philosophizing diaglouge, 2 will drive you insane.

"Appleseed in a theater near you April 16th. Why not see it at the Cinerama? Click here and reserve your seat now."

But apparently, there's only two operational Cinerama theatres left in the world... [the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood] and the one at the Motion Picture Museum in Bradford, UK.

Don't get me wrong, IMAX is great. The Boeing-IMAX theater in the Pacific Science center does some very exciting large-format movies. But when it comes to theatrical releases, I prefer to see them at the Cinerama when I can.

, they're aimed at the barely-bigger-than-a-home-projector multiplexes.


Some of the newer multiplexes have screens that are about the same size (if not the same size. . . .) as ones you can buy from consumer electronics shops now . . . . :(

I only go to the Cinerama now days, Thank You Paul Allen. :) (bill gates may suck but Paul Allen kicks ass. :) :) :) )

I saw AOTC at the Cinerama in Seattle. It was incredibly crisp, didn't have the subtle "flicker" and "scratches" that film had, and the sound was phenominal.

But the Cinerama is by far the best I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. It was Seattle's best older theater; bought, remodeled and brought into the THX age by Paul Allen. The screen is huge, the seats are comfy, the sound great, and inbetween what are usually the biggest, if not best, movies out at the time, you'll get the odd Kubrick film festival. In short, there is no better place to see a movie in Seattle. Hell between Vancouver BC and Portland. Seattle to Portland being the farthest I've ever driven to see a movie. In general, the vast majority of theaters in the seattle area are THX, DTS or SDDS certified. Most are relatively nice, but few have the nice nice stadium seating. Things have gone somewhat downhill after Regal and Lowes acquired Act III and Cineplexodeon (though the difference between them and Lowes isn't that great). At least they stopped forcing the poor Lowes empolyees to beg for money to help cure Terry Bradshaw's baldness or something.

And in any case, I'm sure that Cinerama will add one of the digital projectors to their entertainment aresenal. But anything I'm desperately anticipating and expecting to be a sublime movie viewing experience I go through the extra hassel and expense to see it there, and insure it's as good as possible. As good as it could ever be.

"I really can't understand people who think that watching a movie which has been compressed with a lossy algorithm (DivX image is fucking full of artifacts!) is worth watching. On a tiny monitor screen (21" monitor vs. 36+" TV) no less.

That's like butchering the movie. The only right place to watch movies is the movie theatre."

This is obviously a troll but. . . .

Ugh.

First off a WELL DONE DivX encode has _NO_ I repeat, _NO_ artifacts in it WHAT SO EVER. (at least visible to the human eye, bleh).

Pulling this off typically requires that a person run a crudload of filters on the video before even THINKING about using a lossy codec on it. These filters are to optimize the video for DivX compression. This pre-optimization is mostly comprised of removing any existing artifacts from the video (noise or any other sort of signal degration) preforming proper deinterlacing on the video (if necessary) and proper IVTC (read that page over completely until you understand it. :) )

A PROPER DivX encode does NOT use Flask.

At all.

Ever.

A proper DivX encoding is going to be running at a maximum of ~8fps, though 1 or 2 FPS is far more likely. No your CPU does not really matter at this point in time, quite frankly the difference between 1.5FPS and 2.25FPS is minimal. (1ghz computer VS 1.5ghz computer, and that is assuming a linear increase in CPU speed in regards to Encode speed!!)

A properly DivX encode will end up looking BETTER then the DVD source that it came from.

Yes that is right folks, I said it will look BETTER.

This is because even some of the finest mastered DVDs out there now days tend to have at least a few artifacts in them. A person who is good at their craft of video encoding will know how to REMOVE these artifacts and compress the video with the HIGHER QUALITY MPEG4 codec.

For crying out loud, MPEG4 is what, around six years newer then MPEG2? Of course it is more advanced.

Oh, and Analog Mediums by their very nature are lossy. That video that you see at the movie theater is covered in noise. It is just that you quickly become accustom to it.

Even digital projectors are not immune to noise unless the video was handled in a LOSELESS digital codec for its ENTIRE existence.

Which is not TOO likely to happen. At least in the near future.

Oh, and my home computer MONITOR _IS_ 36 inchs.

Which means it is progressive of course.

Wish I could find out a way to get it to do 720p. It is a Gateway Destination screen, hmmm. . . .

Ah, oh well. DVDs do defintly look better on it then through the SVIDEO port on my RCA TV screen.

(It is that RCA TV that was rated the "Worst TV ever made" a little less then a year or so ago back.)

And yes, Theaters DO rock for movies.

Specifically the Cinerama which is the second highest quality source cinema entertainment that you can get, only bested by an Imax screen.

And Imax does not show Lord Of The Rings or Harry Potter.

Hell even Star Wars: Episode 1 looked good at the Cinerama. :) It looked so damn good that it wasn't until a few minutes after the movie was over that I realized exactly how damn annoying that little bastard was. (you know which bastard I am talking about. . . .)

If you have not seen Gladiator with a PROPER THX sound system (as in the kind you CANNOT get unless you are in a movie theater) then your life is incomplete. Period. (Hint: In the intro scene you could COUNT the arrows flying by you just by the sounds that they made. Yes, they sounded like they were flying right past the audience, and each and every arrow was audible. Kick Ass.)

I am not sure, but I have heard the Cinerama in Seattle has a digital projector. It was remodeled a few years ago by Paul Allen (of Microsoft) and has awesome sound and video systems. It supports Cinerama format, possibly digital, and possibly 70 mm. It also has a huge Cinerama screen, but I have never seen it.
Andrew

The Cinerama is a one-screen theater.
The one fixed up by Paul Allen (of Microsoft).
Probably the best theater in the country.
Defininately in the state. You must have made
a mistake.
Also, they are showing star wars right now so
I KNOW you are wrong.