Tag Archives: theater

The Avengers and the Case of the Near-Disastrous 3-D

About 20 minutes into a 3-D press screening of The Avengers Monday night in Los Angeles, one member of the audience interrupted the superhero theatrics to make it known that all was not right with his viewing experience. “Fix the projector!” the exasperated gentleman bellowed during a conspicuously quiet moment, as Mark Ruffalo ’s contemplative face filled the screen. Something was very off, giving the complainant and others in attendance a less-than-ideal, even disastrous presentation. The only problem? There was nothing wrong with the projector. The issue that led this particular fed up gentleman — who may or may not have been a film critic on assignment, I’m not sure – to shout out in irritated frustration wasn’t any fault of shoddy projection, or texting teens, or (forbid!) an accidental digital file deletion up in the booth, or any of the common complaints audiences have in the age of modern moviegoing. It was a case of faulty 3-D glasses mucking up the picture for the poor guy, giving Joss Whedon’s ZOMG epic 3-D adventure an unsolicited layer of blurriness, blackouts, green tint and/or other visual muck — only he didn’t realize that it was because of the cumbersome contraption on his face and not the projection itself. I know this because about 10 seconds into The Avengers , I realized my pair of theater-provided 3-D glasses were also inoperable — and then spent 15 minutes running back and forth from lobby to darkened theater aisle, sorting through literally dozens of pairs in a frantic attempt to find ones that worked so I could get back to watching Hulk and Co. smash, already. Now, a brief techie aside: The Arclight theaters, which hosted the screening in Hollywood, employ the XpandD active-shutter kind of 3-D glasses — they’re the heavier ones with the rubberized frames and the just-cleaned wet spots, weighty because the active-shutters in each pair are synced to an infrared signal broadcast in the theater which switch alternate right — and left-eye images at high speeds and require batteries. (The alternate kind of 3-D glasses, passive glasses, use polarized lenses and tend to be those lightweight, disposable, hipster-looking shades; these were used at the incident-free Avengers ’ L.A. premiere last month at Grauman’s Chinese, but the Arclight cinemas are XpanD partners.) So the Arclight’s active-shutter glasses were causing a major malfunction for us unlucky attendees who’d grabbed bunk pairs on our ways to our seats. And the exasperated gentleman and I were not alone. In my journeys up and down the hallway I saw many fellow would-be Avengers -watchers doing as I was, all of us locked in a comically desperate dance of grabbing glasses, testing them, returning defeated. Trays upon trays of fresh 3-D glasses were laid out in front of us by the bewildered theater staff, who quickly retired their “These should be working” auto-reply and let us seize handfuls of the damned things at a time. (The Arclight Cinemas declined to comment for this article, by the way.) Critic/journalist Fred Topel , who’d been in the same boat, tweeted about the snafu that night along with an explanation he’d received from the theater manager later, after it had been fixed: @ arclightcinemas 3D glasses broke tonight. Some stayed blurry, some blacked out one of the eyes. I tried 7 before I got one that worked.— Fred Topel (@FredTopel) May 01, 2012 @ Arclightcinemas manager Joshua said they fixed the broken 3D by adding a second emitter in the booth.— Fred Topel (@FredTopel) May 01, 2012 Topel managed to find a working pair before too long, but others weren’t as lucky; of the handfuls of folks I saw leaving their seats to hunt down working 3-D glasses, some, like Screen International critic Brent Simon, gave up the search when he’d decided too much movie had gone by to return to his seat. “My glasses had in-and-out image flickering, one of them went black, and then I had massive green tinting on one pair — sort of like Hulk vision?” he told Movieline. “I tried watching with no glasses for a while, but that was problematic.” After 15 minutes of attempting unsuccessfully to find a working pair, Simon decided he’d have to see the film from the start another time, and left. But unlike those who’d exited altogether or managed to eventually find a working pair, there were the untold folks who, like our exasperated gentleman, either never realized the glasses were the problem or that they’d have to leave their seat and miss parts of the film in order to find a fix. “I had a good vantage point from where I was sitting of how many people were coming back and forth, streaming down the aisles,” said Simon, “and some people were just watching without their glasses.” If you’ve ever watched 3-D without 3-D glasses, you know that watching a film for any amount of time with that kind of consistent blurriness would totally suck. So is every 3-D release worth the potential hassle? Or worth the potential risk ? I’ll put this out there: The Avengers does not need to be seen in 3-D. For starters, it contains a number of scenes that are dark and dimly lit to begin with, notwithstanding the added dimness that most 3-D post-conversions usually suffer. (For example: The entire opening sequence is composed of nighttime action shots that are frustratingly hard to make out.) At moments I glimpsed the screen sans 3-D glasses and the film was brighter, crisper, much more vivid, even gorgeous, and if not for the blurriness of the third dimension I’d have preferred to watch it that way. Whedon seems to have shot for immersive 3-D rather than gimmicky 3-D, which is fine and all, but overall the added dimension doesn’t add that much. If I were to recommend The Avengers to anyone, I’d wholeheartedly push them toward 2-D. Besides, to be in a 3-D film and not get the full 3-D effect — or worse, to sit through a blurry presentation without even realizing something was wrong — would defeat the point entirely. And if 3-D isn’t an essential or notable enhancement to a film, why bother? Just remember: In our brave new world of 3-D dominance, we are all, potentially, that exasperated gentleman. How many of us might continue to sit there, watching through broken glasses, unaware of why the picture was so darn fuzzy? But 3-D continues to be pushed upon us, and while Monday’s minor debacle was just one isolated incident of the technology revolting against its bearer, I simply offer it up as anecdotal evidence of a bump in the road to our moviegoing future; take from this what lessons you will if you see The Avengers in 3-D this weekend. Just don’t rush to blame the blurry curves of ScarJo’s Black Widow getup on the projector. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

See the original post:
The Avengers and the Case of the Near-Disastrous 3-D

Matthew Broderick greeting fans at "Nice Work If You Can Get It"

http://www.youtube.com/v/aFxfpOlwdN4?version=3&f=user_uploads&app=youtube_gdata

Facebook.com – Become a Fan! Twitter.com – Follow Us! Matthew Broderick was spotted greeting fans at his Broadway show “Nice Work If You Can Get It” at the Imperial Theatre.

Continue reading here:

Matthew Broderick greeting fans at "Nice Work If You Can Get It"

Justin Bieber "Boyfriend" Cover by Dangerus Diva (Video Teaser)

dangerusdiva.com I love this song, Go bieber Justin Bieber – BOYFRIEND – official Video Teaser & Trailer SINGLE Justin Bieber – BOYFRIEND – official Video Teaser & Trailer SINGLE Justin Bieber – BOYFRIEND – official Video Teaser & Trailer SINGLE Justin Bieber – BOYFRIEND – official Video Teaser & Trailer SINGLE Justin Bieber – BOYFRIEND – official Video Teaser & Trailer SINGLE Justin Bieber – BOYFRIEND – official Video Teaser & Trailer SINGLE http://www.youtube.com/v/sWnPdnpdv_0?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata View original post here: Justin Bieber “Boyfriend” Cover by Dangerus Diva (Video Teaser)

See the rest here:
Justin Bieber "Boyfriend" Cover by Dangerus Diva (Video Teaser)

Justin Bieber – Boyfriend Lyrics ft. Mike Posner

New official song (: http://www.youtube.com/v/93rQgA1H25E?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata More here: Justin Bieber – Boyfriend Lyrics ft. Mike Posner

Read the rest here:
Justin Bieber – Boyfriend Lyrics ft. Mike Posner

Citizen Ruth: Looking Back at Alexander Payne’s Prescient Abortion Satire

What’s the Film : Citizen Ruth (1996), available on DVD and Hulu Why it’s an Inessential Essential : The premise — one woman’s attempt to have an abortion turns into a national debate and bidding war — was a bold choice out of the gate for writer-director Alexander Payne. Citizen Ruth is his first feature film, and like his subsequent work, it has a biting wit, absurdities from every corner, and deeply flawed characters. Ruth (Laura Dern) is a dim-witted screw-up who is pregnant for the fifth time; her four offspring have been placed elsewhere because of her addiction to inhalants. When she is charged with a felony for huffing “patio sealant,” the judge coerces her to terminate the pregnancy. In jail, she meets anti-abortion crusaders who start a tug-of-war with pro-choice rivals over the unborn child, who becomes widely known as Baby Tanya after a clinic doctor manipulates Ruth into imagining keeping it. Tackling this tricky subject matter, Payne found an unreal story to tell, except that part of it was real. In the DVD commentary, he and co-writer Jim Taylor reveal that the plot was inspired by the true story of a woman who was offered money by anti-abortion and pro-choice camps to honor their respective wishes for her fetus. The parallels to reality don’t stop there. In one of Dern’s best unhinged moments, Ruth screams at two overzealous medical staffers at a clinic, who then pull out all the stops and force her to watch a video of abortion footage. That seems far-fetched, though maybe not in places like Arizona, where a lawmaker recently proposed a bill that would require women to watch an abortion before having one. The state representative, Terri Proud, calls her idea “(The) Reproductive Games.” Truth is catchier than fiction. Why We Recommend It Now : Released in 1996, Citizen Ruth resonates today, of course, because the issue of affordable health care has evolved into a fight over reproductive rights. Although Baby Tanya, were she real/alive, would be old enough to have a Sweet 16 party this year, not much has changed in the public discourse. Payne skewers the radicals on both sides, who are largely motivated by impressing their leaders — Tippi Hedren, for example, as a mother/god figure to the lunatic pro-choice activists. Their behavior is over the top, but their ideologies still echo. Among the points the movie makes so nicely is that extremists tend to lose sight of the real people and issues involved. When Sandra Fluke testified about hormonal birth control, the point she made — that the drug treats medical conditions — was lost once Rush Limbaugh piped in and turned Fluke into an abstraction and a “prostitute.” Ruth is unfit to be a mother, yet a contingent of crazies think she should take a stab at parenthood, aided by 15 grand, because somehow it’ll just all work out. There’s something to be said for laughing so we don’t cry, and Citizen Ruth allows us to do that. The DVD has few extras, but it does feature a revealing commentary track from Payne, Taylor, Dern and production designer Jane Ann Stewart. Explaining that the film doesn’t take sides, Stewart says her team strived to make both camps look a little foolish. Payne gets to the heart of the matter, saying, “Jane, you asked me, ‘Is nothing sacred?’ And it’s true. Everything is sacred, and nothing is sacred. Everyone is open for being examined as a human being.” Other Interesting Trivia : Payne says the film’s limited release was probably the reason he didn’t receive one threatening letter over it, though he was concerned about potential violence at the time from groups like the Army of God. Dern recalls a conversation with the women who ran Planned Parenthood in Texas, who called her to say how much they loved being mocked in the film. Also, let the end credits roll a couple minutes for a hint at Ruth’s fate. PREVIOUS INESSENTIAL ESSENTIALS The Last Temptation of Christ The Sitter

Read this article:
Citizen Ruth: Looking Back at Alexander Payne’s Prescient Abortion Satire

Bully’s Latest Gambit: Permission Slips

It has come to this for “unaccompanied” teenagers desperate to see the unrated Bully : “An AMC spokesman said it will indeed allow that, but only if the child presents a signed permission slip from a parent, either via a form letter made available by the theater or an improvised note on a standard piece of paper. The move is an apparent attempt to support the film — AMC executive Gerry Lopez has two teenagers and has been vocal about its importance — while still paying deference to the Motion Picture Assn. of America and its ratings system.” Related: Is Harvey Weinstein just recycling tricks from his Kids playbook ? [ LAT ]

Visit link:
Bully’s Latest Gambit: Permission Slips

Galleries: Nene Leakes, Selita Ebanks, Phylicia Rashad, Victor Cruz And More [Photos]

Victor Cruz brought his (Superbowl) winning smile to Tuesday night’s New York Premiere Of “Hunger Games.” The NY Giants salsa-dancing star was among a number of celebs to catch the movie, which has already been hailed as one of the most anticipated films of the year. Oprah’s BFF Gayle King was also at the premiere with her “friend” Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Hit the flip to see who else saw the film in NYC last night and peep flicks of Nene and Selita Ebanks on the West Coast and Phylicia Rashad in Philly.

View post:
Galleries: Nene Leakes, Selita Ebanks, Phylicia Rashad, Victor Cruz And More [Photos]

‘Hunger Games’ Midnight Premiere: Pack For Survival

Don’t brave the wilds of the theater on March 23 without stashing these Hobnobbing -recommended necessities. By Amy Wilkinson Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games” Photo: Lionsgate The Tributes of the 74th annual Hunger Games enter the arena in just over a week. We have it on good authority that they’ve been training for weeks now, but we’re more concerned about you. Are you ready? Sure, you probably bought your midnight premiere tickets eons ago, but that can’t be the only provisions you’ve made for the bloodbath. After all, if we’ve learned anything from Suzanne Collins’ dystopian drama, it’s that preparation (and quick thinking) can be the difference between survival and having your face mauled by a Muttation. And though your local multiplex probably isn’t hiding a hive of tracker jackers under your seat, the wilds of a midnight premiere boast their own perils. Just in case you’re not stockpiled with the proper rations, this week’s Hobnobbing is dedicated to getting you Games ready. Here’s your midnight premiere checklist: Storage Before you even think of stepping foot in the cineplex, you need a sturdy, lightweight bag to store your provisions. Take a cue from Katniss, and keep your stuff in a spiffy orange backpack. We like The North Face’s Borealis Backpack , a sleek model with two big pockets, allowing for quick stashing and dashing if necessary. (Not to mention it will probably stand up to an unexpected fire assault better than that old Duane Reade plastic bag hiding under your bed.) Edibles You’ll need to keep up your strength while staking your claim on a primo theater seat, so calorie-loading is key. But there’s no reason your foodstuffs can’t be fun too. New York bakery Eleni’s boasts a Down With the Capitol gift box full of “Games”-themed cookies (dibs on Gale!). Or you can bake up your own (just like Peeta!) using a recipe from Fictional Food . Because, really, there’s no need to be hungry in your arena. Shelter Whether you’re stuck shivering outside the theater or in an aggressively air-conditioned lobby, you’ll want to keep yourself warm and cozy. We’re pretty partial to this bright pink Team Peeta sweatshirt we found on Etsy . Plus, it can double as a pillow if you want to take a quick Kat nap. Entertainment OK, reality check: It is likely — despite the high-stress, high-anxiety conditions of the midnight premiere — that you might get, well, a little bored. Temper a case of the dulls (and psych yourself up even more!) by popping in your ear buds and jamming to “The Hunger Games” soundtrack, which drops March 20. Taylor Swift will thank you. Inspiration If all else fails, take encouragement from loyal District 12 stylist Cinna: “I’m not allowed to bet, but if I could, my money would be on you.” What will you be packing in your “Hunger Games” go bag? Sound off in the comments below and tweet me @amymwilk with your thoughts and suggestions for future columns! Check out everything we’ve got on “The Hunger Games.” For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com . Related Videos Live From ‘The Hunger Games’ Red Carpet Premiere MTV Rough Cut: Gary Ross MTV Rough Cut: Jennifer Lawrence Related Photos ‘Hunger Games’ Blazes Into U.K. ‘Hunger Games’ World Premiere Red Carpet

Go here to read the rest:
‘Hunger Games’ Midnight Premiere: Pack For Survival

Meryl Streep Congratulated by Grateful, Aspiring Actress

http://www.youtube.com/v/bz7BjEj22ZU?version=3&f=user_uploads&app=youtube_gdata

Meryl Streep was in New York City today to attend the prestigious Women in the World Summit, held at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. The summit featured numerous distinguished guests, and was also attended by Hilary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, Upon Streep’s departure from the theater, she is greeted by an appreciative, aspiring actress.

Read this article:

Meryl Streep Congratulated by Grateful, Aspiring Actress

Cynthia Nixon Has Left the Theater

http://www.youtube.com/v/FHwgGG1yq6I?version=3&f=user_uploads&app=youtube_gdata

Cynthia Nixon departs the theater after another run of her production.

Read the rest here:

Cynthia Nixon Has Left the Theater