(Jon)Snow Screen: Game of Thrones IMAX

It's a blizzard in parts of the country this weekend with over a foot of snow falling on states like Illinois, Ohio and New York. It's never really winter here in Los Angeles as it's sunny and in the 60's and 70's but you know, I need themes for these posts.  I was a tad chilly in a tee shirt, jeans and flip flops walking around Universal Citywalk though when the sun wasn't out and the wind was a blowing.  Super Bowl weekend is notoriously slow at the box office but it's started to pick up in recent years with genre and counter programming titles like Taken, Dear John, Chronicle, The Woman in Black and Warm Bodies ringing in $20 million plus opening weekends.  American Sniper, the polarizing war story keeps on trucking as it set a SB record taking in $31 million.  Popular HBO show Game of Thrones hit IMAX for specially formatted episodes and a sneak peak at April's season 5.  Thursday night attendees received limited edition posters but I'm just too old for a 10:00 o'clock movie on a weeknight.  For episodes that aired last year and have been online since, the special event still managed to bring in a decent $1.5 million from 205 locations.  The exclusive trailer didn't stay exclusive for long as someone posted a bootleg copy online Friday so HBO just went ahead and put out the real thing.

Of course you know I have a love-loathe relationship with GOT.  It started off so slow with so many characters, dead ends and annoying leads that I just didn't care.  Like many subscription channel shows, it made it's mark with a mix of sex and violence with lots of oral and from behind action then stabbings and beheading galore.  Once they hooked audiences, the sex steadily declined while the violence is still a major part of the show.  That's America, I guess.  Nearly 40 hours later and some of the plot lines are starting to pay off, finally. Episode 9's The Watchers on the Wall focuses on bastard son and Night's Watch member Jon Snow as they battle 100,000 united Wildlings beyond the Wall.  Dog Soldiers and Centurion director Neil Marshall returns to helm after last season's stand out episode Blackwater which was filled with battles, castle storming and naval warfare.  The episode moved quite fast as the outnumbered and untrained Night's Watch faced off with the wild, crazy and hungry tribes of Wildlings with Kit Harrington's Jon Snow taking control after one of his leaders is killed and the other loses his nerve.  Holding back giants and wooly mammoths, the show continues to ramp up it's supernatural elements that already include dragons, resurrection, witches and three-eyed birds.

I wondered if they'd edit the two episodes together into a seamless 100 minutes but nope, we get the full credit sequences along with HBO's logo.  Not sure if it was done for the episodes screened or we just missed it on TV because we fast forward the opening credits, but only the names of the actors in the particular episode were shown versus the entire regular cast.  Episode 10, The Children, wraps up with the rest of the story lines as we get the dragon queen figuring out what to do as ruler and her deadly pets, the evil Lannister clan and their messed up family issues coming to a violent end, skeleton warriors killing that kid from Love Actually while Brienne and The Mountain duke it out on a mountain over Ayra Stark.  That fight scene raised many an eye brow last year with it's brutality and outcome and it had even more cringe worthy impact on a real IMAX screen.  Sword fighting, punching, kicking, ear biting and spitting out, rock slamming into the head and being thrown off a hillside, oof! The episodes looked great on the big screen besides the pixelation of titles and text with vast landscapes of snow and green country side and spotting who in the cast had braces as a youth and who didn't.  The teaser trailer for season 5 was just that, a quick glimpse of more shit going down, more people dying, getting it on and maybe that battle of the 7 armies will finally start to happen...yeah right!

Comic Shop of the Day: Things From Another World

It was a Universal Studios Citywalk Saturday as we ventured north to check out Game of Thrones on real IMAX then feasted at Karl Strauss and walked around the always nice but not too busy Citywalk.  It's been a while since I was here and was pleasantly surprised to see that the comic shop had moved to a larger space.  Things From Another World was always a stocked but stuffy joint in it's former location.  Now they've got all kinds of room to show off a life size Iron Man and all the toys, games, shirts, merch and comics you can shake a stick at.  As this area is a tourist trap, this is also how comic shops should be, slinging all the things you love to look at and might even buy.  From action figures to statues to mini toys, patches, keychains, playing cards, etc Things has you covered on the merchandise side but also has racks of graphic novels and new comics.  Big Trouble In Little China is already up to # 8!  Yeesh, will have to catch up sometime.

Check out all the goodness from their old store but imagine more of it in a larger space:

Science Screen: Interstellar IMAX

Home of the space shuttle Endeavor, a Pompeii exhibit and much more, the California Science Center is a beautifully modern piece of architecture in the middle of a rundown part of town.  Housed across from the main hall is the $8 million dollar IMAX theater opened in 1998, complete with full snack bar offering candy, nachos, Coke and Icee's.  Ironic that the actual theater has no cup holders.  Remember when IMAX was for educational films to give you a giant, up close look at space, animals and nature?  Now it's hocked at every theater to give you a more immersive experience while ripping you the BLEEP off.  A true IMAX theater is uncomfortable.  The seats are far from the padded, reclining lounge chairs of stadium cinemas and the aisles are usually quite narrow.  The screen is so large that sitting in the front row would mean missing part of the picture.  AMC touts the IMAX experience, converting existing theaters with improved sound and picture quality.  The real IMAX screen at CSC is something like 90' wide and 70' tall.  Around town, the giant screen in the Arclight Cinerama Dome is 85' x 32' so you just know some 1990's built AMC ain't coming close to that.  In fact, a typical large auditorium screen runs 40' x 20' or not even half a real IMAX yet you're paying an upcharge.  While IMAX quickly points out that it's not just about screen size, let's be honest, it kind of is.  The huge image and sound is the point.  Then again, movies need to be shot in the format to really take advantage otherwise you're just getting to see imperfections on the flick like I did on Iron Man III where some fuzzy something or other kept popping up.

Since Christopher Nolan is a huge supporter of film, he decided to shoot space opera Interstellar on 70mm and partially in IMAX.  Nolan had already shot portions of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX which require a huge camera and less movement from actors and the scene.  Watching Interstellar, the picture would go from rectangle a la widescreen for dialog scenes to square a la IMAX for outdoor, space or flying segments.  Seeing the corn fields, water planet, space vistas, station destruction and the ice planet on the big, big screen was amazing.  The lack of sound in various dramatic scenes works incredibly well as does the use of the organ on Hans Zimmer's score that hits you in the heart.  I know everybody is aiming for this immersive experience thing but I wasn't sitting dead center and could still see people around me.  Guess they'll just have to perfect that Oculus Rift thing sooner or later to really put people into the action.

I enjoyed Interstellar upon first viewing, harkening it more as an experience than a movie.  There's some very ambitious ideas regarding mankind, science, technology and exploration as well as excellent performances from the cast including Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and the voice actors playing the helpful robots.  There's been a lot of jabs thrown at Interstellar since it's release, picking apart the science, it's theme of love and an ending that goes a little bonkers with extra dimensions and future, future living.  Then there was the whole sound issue when people complained they couldn't understand what McConaughey was saying in a dream during a turbulent flight or when a character is mumbling on their death bed.  When I first saw it, I figured it was done on purpose as the dialog had no bearing on the story, you didn't miss anything and someone clarifies it later.  Do we really need to be able to hear every little thing or have it broken down in childlike terms?  I say no.  For a near 3 hour flick, Interstellar kept me engaged, even on a repeat viewing with it's mix of exploration, science, space and human drama.  While steeped in real science, Nolan and company had to create a film.  Interstellar isn't touted as a documentary so I'm not sure why it's being treated as such.  Just because you had fun watching Guardians of the Galaxy means you overlook glaring plot holes where thousands of innocents are killed off screen, the comedy negates any type of drama and that there are no risks taken, at all.  I appreciate Nolan and company telling a story that asks it's characters to yearn for more as individuals and a community even at great cost.  It's a firm reminder to the viewer to look up and keep reaching.

Gotta Eat (and Drank)! Study Hall

I've walked around UCLA's campus once for a book fair and checked out a movie at the Hammer Museum nearby but have never set foot on USC's campus.  Years ago I checked out the monthly Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention (kind of sad) at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Center and driven past the giant football stadium but that was about it.   Saturday night on our way to the California Science Center we stopped off at Study Hall for a bite and a drank before Interstellar in true IMAX.  Just up the street next to lots of college residential apartments and the surprisingly clean campus, Study Hall bills itself as a gastropub and serves up traditional American style sammiches and burgers with beer or wine.  It was a bit pricey considering it was next to campus but my What The double burger and fries wasn't bad.  Not amazing, but not bad.  Asked for no cheese but got cheese and the meat was a little rubbery.  There's cider in the house but instead of Strongbow you get more pedestrian Angry Orchard and the overly sweet Wood Chuck.

The place isn't that big but has TV's everywhere so people can watch sports and hoop and holler for their teams.  Being early Saturday night the joint wasn't too crowded, the service was quite friendly and the food came out relatively quick.  The future truly is here as a simple tablet replaced your old school clunky cash register.  By the time we left, a swell of college age kids swarmed the place and man was it weird.  I'm not old but I'm old enough to be long out of college and these students looked like not quite fully formed adults. 

Snow Screen: The Hobbit Battle of the Five Armies

It's been our tradition to see the new Hobbit movies at The Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, home of the largest capacity IMAX theater in the world allegedly with nearly 1,000 seats but the screen actually isn't a real IMAX screen.  With The Rave at Howard Hughes now converted into a Cinemark XD, the only true IMAX experience left in Los Angeles is the AMC at Universal City Walk.  Not that that really matters if the film isn't shot with IMAX technology, the giant square screen is so big that you have to move your head around to keep up and the seats at these original IMAX theaters are extremely squished in together to the point that a person couldn't cross in front of you.  Fortunately, The Chinese has spacious seats and aisles.  Sadly, there was no Hobbit set up outside in the courtyard or inside the theater lobby.  Usually there's some kind of faux statue or costumes but this year, nothing.

Picking up where The Desolation of Smaug left off, you know, where the dwarves work really hard to douse the dragon with melted gold only to see the creature shake it off and take flight and that's the infuriating end to the film in this three movie cash grab?  Anywho, now Thorin Oakenshield and his dwarf homies along with Hobbit Bilbo Baggins are all holed up in the mountain castle that is filled with gold.  The humans of nearby Lake Town scramble to survive after Smaug flames the shit out of their crappy little village.  Thorin reneges on his promise to share the wealth and before you know it, orcs, elves, humans and dwarves are all ready to go to war over the riches inside the mountain and for it's strategic position in the landscape.

Battle of the Five Armies might just have been my favorite of the three entertaining if not overly memorable Hobbit films.  There's a simple story, set up, a few dramatic moments and of course, lots and lots of action of the dwarf on orc on elf on human on orc persuasion.  At under two and a half hours, it's also the shortest in the trilogy with everything more or less being wrapped up nicely and not suffering from the half dozen endings that Lord of the Rings' Return of the King suffered from.  I don't think we've seen another film in High Frame Rate outside this series and again, it's kind of weird to get used to as things look really real and clear, as if you were watching an extremely well designed play up close.  Instead of things slowing down when there's lots of action on screen, things tend to feel sped up and a little herky-jerky even.  LOTR suffered from fake, shiny and cartoon-ish looking CGI while Hobbit and Weta have improved technology leaps and bounds.  The immense battle scenes with creatures and animals of all sizes look less fake but still fake in a different kind of way.

Peter Jackson and company have to be commended for taking on such a Herculean task as I'm always amazed by the sheer scale of these films and their attention to detail with the F/X, make up, props, costumes, sets, etc.  One thing that still bugs me is the fact that we don't get any amusement park style 3D, you know, like shit flying at you or things flying in front of your face and people reach out to try and touch it?  I know James Cameron and others consider that cheap thrills but come on, I'm still not immersed in the world as I can see the person in front of me, the edges of the screen, etc.  Would it kill you to have some arrows flying at the audience or some of those falling rocks look like they might hit us?  In one quick scene you get a sense of foreground as dragon Smaug puts his claw on a house but that's about it.

It will be interesting to see where Peter Jackson goes from here.  Talk of a Tintin sequel has never quieted down despite the lukewarm reception Steven Spielberg's initial chapter received in the states.  Here's hoping he does something small and weird like his old horror work.  Maybe he'll follow Michael Bay's lead and we get Pain & Gain 2.