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I thought Lincoln Plaza was purely a post-death location for those who are damned to hell. I'm not there...yet.

But does anyone know what is going on at MoMA. They have been showing virtually nothing for a long time. Their current Has "retrospective" seems to consist of 2 rather uninteresting titles.

One important thing to consider about 35mm prints - are they just prints of a digital master?

I bring this up because I was reading about that 2008 fire at Universal, and I remembered a conversation I had with someone in the business who mentioned that a lot of their old screening prints were destroyed in that fire. Going by memory, he said many of those old prints weren't as replaceable as you think because the nitrate negatives were long gone (at least their pre-WWII titles). When I brought up the "new" 35mm prints of Universal titles from that era screening at Film Forum and elsewhere, he said he was very certain that the prints were struck off digital restorations using modern negatives on an Arrilaser film recorder. He then named a bunch of vintage films as an example, citing companies or people he knew who made the studio archival negatives from a digital restoration. To him this was fine, as long as you weren't dealing with something more complicated like a three-strip Technicolor film, he didn't think a digital restoration was going to look worse for a vintage film.

I'm not sure if this is comparable, but I've never been a fan of vinyl fad for this reason - most of those reissues are just the same digital masters used for the CD, but etched into a vinyl slab, which defeats the whole purpose of analog listening. (hence the push for "AAA" vinyl reissues)

So, BAM will be having a Varda in California retrospective, which is the Eclipse set titles + Model Shop. I can't see print or DCP details on these, but let me know if I'm missing something. I dunno, I just sort of assumed most people interested in these films would have bought that set already? I've been meaning to see Model Shop for ages, so that's a sure in for me. Maybe Film Forum retros around the same time of same film's Blu-ray (re-)release aren't a big deal due to the lack of overlap between their audience and the Blu-buyers. (after all, Film Forum's newsletters often announce special DVD deals (usually upwards of $20), but this retro at BAM seems so unnecessary. I like these films, but I never thought I would need to see them in a cinema (though Uncle Yanco might be fun with a rowdy crowd).

I suspect that these will all be DCPs, as Varda/Ciné-Tamaris DCPed the hell out of all of Demy and Varda soon after DCPs became common. The results were not good. Demy's brash colors just look TV-gross and video-y in these DCPs. I haven't seen Model Shop in DCP, but it has a somewhat different approach to color than other Demy films, so it may be OK.

BAM Cinematek seems to have abandoned its preference for 35mm. I think there has been a change in programming director(s) there, because what they are showing now is different from what they have shown in the past. This includes format, types of films and screening rooms.

ALL of Demy's most popular films exist on watchable 35mm. Ditto Varda.

I also think and hope that a better technology will be devised to replace 35mm. 4K DCP is a start, but considering that you are dealing with eons of film history, I feel that people jumped on the DCP bandwagon too soon. There has got to be a better way to preserve films, but maybe it hasn't been invented yet.

If there is no format listed by Lincoln Center, BAM, IFC, or MoMA, it's definitely some sort of digital. Metrograph, FF, and MOMI always list format no matter what.

HTS: you make a great point, and I've skipped certain 35mm screenings that are advertised as a "brand new print" such as recent screenings of Badlands and Close Encounters.

James Caan retrospective at MOMI is almost all 35mm. I'll take a risk on Thief, but very bummed I can't make El Dorado. Maybe will schlep in on Sunday night for Killer Elite.

The first time I was completely unimpressed with a new 35mm print was when I saw The Wages of Fear at MoMA. This was around the time Criterion issued it on BD (and it did have a Janus logo at the beginning - that may have been new for the film at the time). Print was clean, and it was definitely a 35mm print, there were still tell tale signs that it was being projected from one, but it was lacking something, that bit of "sparkle" in the grain (or what some friends of mine call "the creaminess" if that makes sense). I'm almost certain it was just Criterion's digital restoration transferred to a film print.

hearthesilence wrote:I'm almost certain it was just Criterion's digital restoration transferred to a film print.

Does this happen? Seems like a waste of film stock just to rope in what can't be all that much more revenue.

hearthesilence wrote:One important thing to consider about 35mm prints - are they just prints of a digital master?

I bring this up because I was reading about that 2008 fire at Universal, and I remembered a conversation I had with someone in the business who mentioned that a lot of their old screening prints were destroyed in that fire. Going by memory, he said many of those old prints weren't as replaceable as you think because the nitrate negatives were long gone (at least their pre-WWII titles). When I brought up the "new" 35mm prints of Universal titles from that era screening at Film Forum and elsewhere, he said he was very certain that the prints were struck off digital restorations using modern negatives on an Arrilaser film recorder. He then named a bunch of vintage films as an example, citing companies or people he knew who made the studio archival negatives from a digital restoration. To him this was fine, as long as you weren't dealing with something more complicated like a three-strip Technicolor film, he didn't think a digital restoration was going to look worse for a vintage film.

I'm not sure if this is comparable, but I've never been a fan of vinyl fad for this reason - most of those reissues are just the same digital masters used for the CD, but etched into a vinyl slab, which defeats the whole purpose of analog listening. (hence the push for "AAA" vinyl reissues)

for more information, here's a good recent article, on managing digital asset storage (and basically everything exists digitally now)

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/it/t ... solescence" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

med wrote:

hearthesilence wrote:I'm almost certain it was just Criterion's digital restoration transferred to a film print.

Does this happen? Seems like a waste of film stock just to rope in what can't be all that much more revenue.

Well, no it isn't, that's not why they'd do it.

First of all, studios are getting in the habit of making 35mm prints of all films as a way of preserving them. To be fair, most of these are archival prints, a back-up they know will be reliable regardless of obsolescence or if the data starts to fail (analog fails gracefully, degrading gradually, whereas digital fails immediately with the data simply gone), but the same idea applies for any print.

Second, this was something like 5 years ago, when many venues interested in a title like The Wages of Fear screened only or primarily in 35mm. Not just theaters but schools/universities and even libraries, and having a 35mm print makes the title accessible to them.

I know about everything you mentioned in 1), but I hadn't considered the time frame you brought up in 2)

Can't believe MOMI is relegating 35mm "Killer Elite" to its small screen. That theatre needs to be added to the "deplorables" list.

Mastroianni retrospective includes a ton of 35mm, including Visconti's The Stranger. That one is super rare, right?

Wow! I've managed never to see it despite it being on my list for ages. I may have to brave my first Quad visit for this one. Maybe a R1 Blu-ray is around the bend from someone?

It is, from Cinelicious

Not sure if I posted this already...

New York in the 70s at The Film Forum, July 5 - July 27.

Catching the double bill of Shaft/Superfly on the 15th.

I'm excited for this. Been putting off seeing a bunch of these on 35mm for a while now.

BAM just posted their July schedule todayes, with three different series, and while the lineup and series are intriguing, way too many DCPs. A ton of those films just played in 35mm elsewhere, but so many relegated to DCP here. (Beguiled, Thief, and some others I would catch if they were 35mm as well).

ando wrote:Not sure if I posted this already...

New York in the 70s at The Film Forum, July 5 - July 27.

Catching the double bill of Shaft/Superfly on the 15th.

This was posted with the rest of the April/July calendar way back in this thread before the plethora of FF bashing started. So, yeah, thanks for bumping this up.

Drucker wrote:I'm excited for this. Been putting off seeing a bunch of these on 35mm for a while now.

BAM just posted their July schedule todayes, with three different series, and while the lineup and series are intriguing, way too many DCPs. A ton of those films just played in 35mm elsewhere, but so many relegated to DCP here. (Beguiled, Thief, and some others I would catch if they were 35mm as well).

BAM seems to have embraced a change of direction. They seem way less oriented to 35mm and have relegated the Cinematek to the backwaters. For years they had the best programming in NYC. No more.

Universal has a beautiful archival print of The Beguiled, but it's booked up for a while on account of the upcoming remake. I'm sure BAM tried to program it.

It just played at Metrograph. The one film I caught in their series, The Last Movie, was a beautiful print.

Just caught Leon Morin and Le Cercle Rouge at FF yesterday (the olds were out in force as advertised for the former, but were extremely well-behaved; the crowd for Cercle was substantially younger). It was heartening both as packed as they were for a mid-day Thursday screening.

Hitting up the Metrograph screening of Ghost World with Zwigoff and Buscemi tonight; never been there so interested to see how it compares to the older theaters.

I caught Le Samourai at FF which was a wonderful experience. Meant to add in my commentary to the old Melville threads, but I was in disbelief at how blue this film was. The walls in some of the dark hallways scenes are seriously marker-colored blue.

This isn't the thread for it but The Fall are playing a week long residence in September at Baby's All Right and tickets just went on sale a moment ago. Who knows when they'll be back.

Three encore Mastroianni screenings added for next week at Lincoln Center, including The Stranger which sold out the first time. Not missing it again, already got my ticket.