I’ve always wanted to try going to a concert at a different venue in L.A. every night for a week, to visit some places I like to see shows (The Troubadour, the El Rey, Largo) and to get myself out to some places I’ve never been before (The Fonda, The Echo, and so on). I figured I’d work it around a week that had at least two or three shows I actually wanted to see, and use the rest to expand my horizons. I fear that idea may be a little ambitious these days, so this week I’ve decided to modify that idea a little and apply it to the more manageable medium of film. Starting today, I’m going to be going to see a film in a different theater in the Los Angeles area each day for a week. I’ll be visiting familiar venues and theaters I’ve never been to before, and I hope to hit a wide variety of types, from the multiplexes to the high-end cinemas to the revival houses.
This week is a bit of a bad choice as far as timing goes because some very important screens are dark, including the Silent Movie Theater, LACMA, and the Billy Wilder at UCLA, but I’ve got the time this week so I’m going to go ahead with it. I’ve already had a bit of a setback, as I was going to hit the Aero in Santa Monica tonight as well, but I didn’t make it, which means I won’t get to the Aero at all, unfortunately. So, to begin:
The Samuel Goldwyn Theater Revolutionary Road Sunday, 12/28/08, 2:00 pm
Price: Free with my badge. Concessions: None. Audience: Maybe 150-200 people? Not full, not for a theater with 1000 seats. Trailers/advertising: None, thank goodness; one of the many things that makes this a great place to see a movie. Projection: Digital.
By a mile, this is the theater where I’ve seen the most films in Los Angeles, and happily enough, the theater with the finest sound and projection of any I’ve been to in L.A. (or anywhere, for that matter). Getting in free is also a plus. Today I sat where we’ve taken to sitting over the last few months, on the right-hand side of the left section, just off-center but with no one sitting directly in front of me, six or eight rows from the front. Sitting here also means you don’t hear the high-pitched whine from the ceiling above the right side of the theater which is an odd, persistent, and annoying imperfection. There weren’t too many people around, with the holidays, I suppose, though I did see Len Lesser, a.k.a. Uncle Leo. I’ll have to create a field for “familiar fellow filmgoer” if I see someone at the next screening.
Digital projection is becoming more and more common here, though most of the films I see here are still screened on film. It looked fine, except during the credits, when the pixelation in the edges of the letters was apparent. As for the movie itself, it was fine, I’d say, not one of my best of the year, a little strange, but well done, well acted, though not overwhelming. That sounds pretty equivocal, and I guess I was.
