Sunday, November 11, 2012

Skyfail

My review of Skyfall would have appeared in this space today, but the AVX theatre projector at Windermere died a sputtering death and couldn't be fixed quickly enough to screen the film before the next exhibition was scheduled to begin. Sylvia and Claire and Alan and I waited in the dark for nearly an hour before theatre staff regretfully sent us on our way. However, they did give us two pairs of free passes, so we got an extra movie out of the deal.

This is the first time I can recall being in attendance during a projector failure since the 1980s at the latest, back in the days of actual film. I've seen the stereotypical "film melting on the screen" image two or three times in my life, and it's certainly more romantic than what we witnessed today, just some digital noise and choppy bits of a trailer's dialogue.

Sometime in the mid to late 1970s, my cousin Carol Ann came with me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey at the theatre in Leaf Rapids. The film didn't break, but the projectionist played the reels out of order; the film began with the astronauts on the way to Jupiter and ended with the guys on the moon discovering the monolith. As if 2001 wasn't confusing enough to kids our age to begin with..!

3 comments:

  1. I was once caught in a movie theatre that was on fire. The workers were well-drilled and conscientious, so there was no panic or danger. The movie was the Matthew Broderick "Godzilla", and we were thinking of walking out on it anyways. We just got one pass each for our trouble, though, and not two, so I guess you were lucky there.

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  2. I can only hope the fire started as Godzilla was breathing fire.

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  3. Godzilla was laying turds.

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