Bad Projectionists and Bad Theaters really hit a nerve in me

 During my daily read through The Hollywood Reporter, I read Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Q&A on the demise of 3D with American audiences. It’s a pretty good Q&A with one of my favorite figures on the creative side of Hollywood about 3D in which he revealed how saddened he is about the 3D fatigue fallen on American audiences. When Avatar was released, 3D seemed to be the next greatest thing coming out of Hollywood. But unfortunately, as Katzenberg states, too many movies have been made that degrade the quality of 3D and has contributed to America’s distastes for the Hollywood’s newest art form.

Anyone who has ever seen a movie with me knows that I am very picky about where I’ll see a movie and I usually only go to certain theaters, those including the ArcLight in Hollywood, The Landmark in Westwood, or Laemmle Theaters in Pasadena. Those theaters all care a great deal about how they show movies, therefore my film experiences there have always been top notch. This partly stems from my tenure working in a movie theater in 2010 and being a digital projectionist in that theater.

One reason why I detest all AMC theaters equally is the lack of quality in the way they display movies. AMC projectionists are lazy, and I have caught one too many of their mistakes during the unfortunate times I find myself seeing a movie in their theaters. One thing I hate doing is seeing a non-IMAX 3D film in an AMC theater because it is always way too dark which frustrates me because I know that the projectionist can fix that. (IMAX projectors brighten the picture automatically, and usually IMAX films are shot with more light, anyways. So IMAX films usually don’t suffer [if at all] from being too dark.)

To show a 3D movie, an extra lens must be placed on the projector that darkens the image. In order to brighten the image, the projectionist must kick up the brightness so the viewer doesn’t watch a dark movie. On many projectors, the projectionist must do this manually, which unfortunately means that many projectionists do not do this step. And since many theaters (ahem, AMC) never quality check their films as they’re playing, this mistake is hardly ever caught unless someone (me) complains after the movie.

The above comment feed is from the Katzenberg story, and the large rant in response to the initial comment is from me. Apart of the reason people hate 3D is because theaters don’t do enough to make sure that the 3D picture looks good enough to the audience. Its ridiculous that large theater chains don’t care enough about movies to ensure that their projectionists do their jobs well.

This is the part in the post where I encourage everyone to be selective about what theater they choose to watch movies in. Find theaters that care about movies, and spend money in those theaters in order to get your money’s worth.

If you live in the LA Area, I recommend the ArcLight (any location, but mainly Hollywood), The Landmark in Westwood, and Laemmle Theaters (all locations).

 

 

 

Review: The Lincoln Lawyer

Procedural dramas are commonplace in Hollywood due to their familiar and dramatic nature; one can easily find a story to tell in the day to day lives of a cop, lawyer, or doctor as opposed to finding a story to tell in the life of a bank teller, retail worker, or biological engineer. Procedural dramas are so commonplace, that they have become pedestrian, predictable, and they often lack imagination or originality. Television is littered with run of the mill cop and doctor shows and every once in a while filmmakers dip into the ‘cop and doctor’ pot to find something to make a movie about, and sometimes those movies are as run of the mill as their television counterparts.

I had extremely low expectations going into watching The Lincoln Lawyer, but emerged out of the theater pleasantly surprised. Within the first few minutes of the film, I pegged it down as being a highly predictable film about an unorthodox lawyer overcoming some type of odds to keep their innocent client out of prison. On one hand, I was correct: this film is about an unorthodox lawyer overcoming some type of odds to keep their innocent client out of prison, but The Lincoln Lawyer surprised me by being creative, complex, and unpredictable.

Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is a defense lawyer based in Los Angeles who works out of the back of his Lincoln Town Car. He represents the type of people that law enforcement refers to as “the scum of the earth” all while maintaining that he is on the true side of justice. Haller usually represents the middle-class accused criminals, but is approached by a wealthy man from Beverly Hills named Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe) to defend him against accusations of rape and physical abuse. From there, the film takes off as Haller tries to defend Roulet all while staying on the right side of justice.

To my surprise, Matthew McConaughey delivered a very strong performance. He was supported by a well rounded cast including Ryan Phillippe (who I thought dropped off the face of the earth), Marisa Tomei, William H. Macy, John Leguizamo, Josh Lucas, and Frances Fisher. What I liked most about this cast is that none of them are extremely huge stars, so they were all able to complement each other’s shine. McConaughey is the type of actor who has chemistry with nearly any other person he’s on screen with, which is his ultimately his greatest strength. He’s great in scenes with Phillippe, and their matched intensity works extremely well on screen without becoming too tense for the viewer. McConaughey and Tomei also had great onscreen chemistry, and I was pleased that their subplot stayed relatively small in perspective to the larger plot. McConaughey was a stronger actor than I expected, but Phillippe lacked believability in parts of his performance. I really thought that Phillippe would outshine McConaughey, but McConaughey was a lot more natural in his character than Phillippe was. Some of his scenes (especially the ones where he cried) seemed a bit forced, I suspect those aren’t the most comfortable scenes for Phillippe to perform.

John Romano‘s script is an adaptation from Michael Connelly’s book, also titled The Lincoln Lawyer. The script was pretty damn solid: the dialog was easy, fresh, and natural, the plot and subplots progressed at a good pace, and there were a few really cleaver plot twists. The dialog is the shining triumph of this film, it was witty and smart, but most of all, it was extremely natural (aside from a few times where Ryan Phillippe kinda botched his lines and made them unbelievable, but that’s more of an actor issue and not a writing issue).

Brad Furman is a relatively new director, and this film will prove to be his most commercial (and hopefully most successful) movie to date. I’m extremely impressed with the way he approached this film. He chose to shoot this film in Los Angeles, but he didn’t choose to shoot it in the overused beautiful parts of the city like Pasadena, West Hollywood, and Santa Monica, but he chose grittier, more realistic locations like Highland Park, Inglewood, and the area around Downtown LA. The locations of the film added an element of realism sometimes missing from other movies and shows shot in Los Angeles. I hope this film does well commercially so Brad Furman can show us more of his promising talent.

What I liked most about the film overall is the overall message of true justice, not justice in the eyes of the sometimes-corrupt law, but the type of justice that must be carried out because it is the absolute right thing to do. Mickey Haller is a defense attorney who defends his clients against unfair trials and government officials “loading the deck” illegally. Haller doesn’t provide a judgement or justification for his clients, but he views them as humans who deserve justice despite the system. Where other films depict defense lawyers as people without conscious’, The Lincoln Lawyer demonstrates a defense lawyer ruled by his conscious.

I definitely recommend this film.

Non-Film/Television Related Post of the Week:

Los Angeles Meat Week!

It is real, it does exist, so go forth at eat meat!