It's a Wide, Wide World

The Cinerama Dome is an incredible movie theater in Hollywood. The screen curves at the front of the theater to create a “surround” experience. I recall seeing Vertigo there (the re-digitized re-release. I’m not that old), and sitting on the far left of the front row. The result was a bizarre and skewed Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. Now the Cinerama Dome is part of the Arclight complex. The Arclight makes other movie theaters seem like filthy places where old men are touching themselves. I especially like being able to reserve a specific seat. I hate sitting in the middle, and prefer an aisle—hence the skewed Jimmy Stewart.

Cinerama was created in the 1950s along with a host of other technologies that would draw the viewers away from television and back into the theater. It was sort of like 3d now. Sometimes this was nifty, as in Lawrence of Arabia, but the un-letterbox version broadcast on television created many odd scenes of people talking to no one. The logos for these technologies were often better than the movie. So here, for you viewing pleasure, are some of them.