Been to a Fathom Event recently? Worth the trouble?

My local theater is showing "Goldfinger" via Fathom Events tomorrow night and I was thinking of taking my eleven year old son to his first James Bond on the (relatively) big screen. To anyone who has attended one of these recently: is it worth the trouble, cost, etc.? We run Blu-rays at home to a 46" screen, if that is helpful as a point of reference. Specifically, how is the image and sound quality?

 

I saw "Rear Window" on a Sunday afternoon at a Cinemark with a quiet, appreciative audience, and was very pleasantly surprised. I was afraid it would be like projecting a Blu-ray onto a big screen, but it was a very "filmic" experience visually and audibly, and nearly flawless except for one short glitch. It was totally engrossing and quite moving. I'll be checking out "Jaws" too.

 

Thanks for the positive review. I have found little in the way of recent critical (positive or negative) comments about the process, but did come across a blog post from 2012 that suggested the dish/satellite delivery system resulted in some compression issues. I'm hopeful that technical problems like this have been resolved by now.

 

I second what sparkydog said. I've been to a lot of these revivals over the years, and they are almost always quite good. Nothing like seeing a movie on the big screen. Try to catch Lawrence of Arabia, GWTW, Oz, etc. if you ever get the chance....

 

I saw Rear Window and the Birds at a Cinemark and thought they looked very good.

If you get there early they usually have that guy from TCM talking about the movie before it shows.

 

A few more films this year.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...es-Returns-Cinemas-Fan-Favorites#.VXh9Hsko7qA

 

Once a year Fathom has a Grateful Dead event, usually a concert video of some sort. Outside of one theater messing up the download the night before and having to cancel their showing, they have all been first class.

 

Going to see Jaws in a couple of hours!

 

Just another 'perk' of living in the wilds of South Carolina, but we have to drive 50+ miles to get to a theater that shows any of the Fathom events. Would love to see many of the older films or Rifftrax, but the 2-hour roundtrip on a weeknight usually convinces us not to go. My wife and kids did manage to see The Wizard of Oz, but I think that's the only one we've attended.

 

I'd had several positive experiences with Fathom Events showing before until last evening...

I attended Halloween last night at our local theater. When the film was originally released I was only nine years old so I don't believe I had seen it on the big screen prior to last night. I was really excited to finally see a film I've always loved and watched dozens of times at home the way it was meant to be seen...but unfortunately that wasn't the case.
The trouble started during the John Carpenter intro before the film. This was roughly a ten or fifteen minute documentary with a recent Carpenter interview and some documentary footage. They didn't turn the lights down until about five minutes into this. Even worse was the sound not being on at all for at least half of this. Someone in the theater ran out and told them and they eventually got it on. Ok, fine. It's ok because I'm finally going to see Halloween the way it was meant to be seen. Maybe not. What we got (and I've confirmed that was true nationally from various posts across the nation) was a showing with absolutely horrible image quality. Tons of digital artifacts, a yellow line running up and down the screen through the film like a scan line on an old tv, extremely dark (washed out) image quality to the point where it made it hard to follow what was going, bad focus, etc. Probably the worst visual presentation I've ever seen in a big movie chain theater. During the end credits a graphic accidentally came up indicating this was in 1080 resolution. That's inherently disappointing but this fell FAR short of the quality you'd expect with 1080 at home. And they charged a premium ticket price of $15 for this! Truly a disappointing evening. It's not about getting my money back (and by the way the local theater refused to do anything for the many people complaining) but it's about being cheated out of what I thought would be a wonderful way to experience a favorite film.

 

A few months ago, the Cinemark chain showed the restored version of Cinerama's "How The West Was Won." I was very excited to see this on the big screen as I already have the fabulous BluRay box and it's simply the best looking disc I have ever seen. Just flawless. Well, the version shown not just at my local Cinemark but at ALL of the participating theaters in the chain looked like hell. It was the restored version, alright, and it had incredible detail and wonderful sound, but the colors were way, way, way off. It looked like a sepia-toned black and white movie with splashes of yellow and occasional blue. No reds or greens or purples, etc. I was stunned.

I complained to the manager. He investigated and discovered that the digital downloads provided to the entire chain were defective. Sure enough, I saw complaints from people in other states appearing on line soon after. What disgusted me was that NO ONE in the entire chain must have previewed/tested this movie before it was rolled out to all the theaters nationwide. I mean, within five seconds of the opening credits appearing on screen it was obvious that almost all of the color was missing from the image. This was at the Sunday afternoon showings. All of the theaters showed this same defective version AGAIN that evening, and then twice more the following Wednesday. How they could, in good conscious, continue to charge people to see the movie knowing it was that messed up, I will never know. The sad thing is, I doubt they'll ever bring it back for another run, the way they do with "Wizard of Oz," "Gone With The Wind," etc.

This Sunday, I am headed back to the same theater for their showing of the 50th anniversary restoration of "My Fair Lady." It has shown at many other theaters last month and the reports are that it looks great, so unless the presentation is screwed up at the local level, I should be in for a treat.

This same theater has also botched showings of "The Birds," "West Side Story," "Singing In The Rain" and "Wizard of Oz." But it also responsible for perfect screenings of "Lawrence Of Arabia" (well, the sound was off for part of the documentary that preceded the film), "Yellow Submarine," "Cleopatra," "Dr. Zhivago," "Gone With The Wind," and at seven or eight others I have attended. So it's a very mixed bag.

 

The 50th anniversary version of "My Fair Lady" looks and sounds stunning up there on the big screen.
I saw it Sunday and hope to make it back Wednesday for the next (and final) showing.

 

I like Fathom Events for concerts and live events and find that worth the premium price and never had a problem at the theatre I see them at.

I think the old movies should be cheaper so I tend to avoid those.

 

Saw "Sword Of The Stranger" some time back and it looked/sounded fine. Saw something else recently-it's escaping me what-also fine. On another occasion at the same theater the main picture was out of focus. The manager said it was all auto-calibrated and we said "hey, even the CREDITS were blurred, just wanted you to know." He said (believably) that he would check it and out of the blue comped us tickets. Nice!

The Fathom events also tend to be not at all full, at least by me (downtown L.A.)

 

Yes indeed-I have attended all the GD fathom meet-ups. Enjoyed all of them. Looking forward to whatever is in the works for 2016.

 

I've been to all the Dead events as well, and I'm planning on going to the Neil Young double feature next Monday.

I haven't been disappointed yet, but for the music events it does help to go to the front desk before it even starts and ask them to make it louder (because it's NEVER loud enough, no matter what theater I go to).

I've considered going to the classic films, but I've yet to pull the trigger.

 

I noticed that, too, about it not always being loud enough. And yet a movie in the same theatre can often be too loud.

 

Are there any Fathom events coming to Columbia, South Carolina? I would love to see a classic film on the big screen.

 

Yes, I saw it in a Regal theater in Alexandria, VA. Quality was excellent, although this isn't a visually stunning movie anyway. Sound level was a bit low, but the audience was very quiet so I didn't miss a word.

Definitely go on the 24th.

 

I saw To Catch A Thief couple weeks ago.

Very good job on it. Looked great...

 

The Classic Film Series that's coming up includes "To Kill A Mockingbird," "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly," "The Ten Commandments," "Raiders Of The Lost Ark," a double-feature of "A Clockwork Orange" and "2001 A Space Odyssey," and the fabulous "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," in that order.

The six-week series begins the week of March 7, with most theaters opting for Sunday/Wednesday showings of each feature over the course of a week. The series ends the week of April 10. Many Cinemark Theaters participate in the series, so check your local Cinemark's web site for details.

 

Saw "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" at my local Cinemark today and it was an unbelievable experience.

For starters, the theater was packed -- which really surprised me since these classic-film showings usually get no advance publicity. What really floored me, though, was the audience reaction. For the full two hours and forty minutes the audience never stopped laughing. In 50 years of film-going, I've never seen an audience that engaged and that vocal. A lot of people were laughing all throughout Saul Bass' inventive opening credits, if you can believe it, and from then on it never let up. I think some of it was contagious, because I soon found myself laughing at lines that had just sailed past me when watching the BluRay at home, alone.

At the end, of course, there was sustained applause -- but it was that nonstop laughter that really got me. After all, it's a very long movie -- even though we were watching the shorter "standard" cut of the film -- and there was no intermission since part two the film began immediately after the intermission card faded to black. (I had been hoping for a real intermission with the police radio calls, as used during the original roadshow presentations.)

This is a great film to see on the big screen. It has all those wonderful early 1960s California locations, and of course some spectacular stunt driving and airplane piloting that really need to be seen on a theater screen to be fully appreciated. What a great, great movie.

Many Cinemark theaters will be showing it again this Wednesday afternoon and evening. I'm thinking of seeing it again!

 

I saw "Mad, Mad World" about 15 years ago in a soon-to-be-refurbished 1920's movie palace (it was a fundraiser to help finish the restoration). Similar to your experience - it was full - a few thousand people and endless roars of laughter. We did get the police calls in the intermission, and the intro and exit music (no restored road show scenes however).

 

Interesting. I wonder if my local theater screwed up with the intermission. Probably not, as I think these digital showings are "pre-programmed" with the intermission -- if there is to be one -- built right into the digital file.
We did get the full entrance and exit music, and the film itself looked amazing, with incredible detail and a beautiful color palette.