Been a while. Bike accidents, vacations, life, etc.
Anyway, went to see Apocalypse Now (1979) the other day at Chicago’s Navy Pier IMAX, which, unlike the local multiplex version of the format (snarkily referred to as “LieMax”), happens to be the real deal (60’H x 86’W
Living in the big city one sadly tends to take certain landmarks and cultural institutions for granted. Take, for instance, the John Hancock Center and Willis (Sears) Tower, two architecturally significant Chicago skyline stalwarts whose burly frames attract visitors from across the globe. And while multitudes daily gawp up at, and down from, these iconic landmarks, The Conflicted Film Snob, who’s seen them maybe a million times in his four-plus
With the exception of a couple of experimental shorts using a process called “Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre” presented at the 1900 Paris Exhibition and, of course, the live piano/organ accompaniment prevalent in the silent era (which doesn’t really count), cinema was purely a visual medium for the first 37 years of its existence.
(1993, Dir: Joe Dante)Recently, while taking in the newest and very gratifying Spielberg/Hanks collaboration, Bridge of Spies, I couldn’t help but recall Joe Dante’s 1993 classic, Matinee, which dealt with much of the same high-stakes Cold War paranoia, albeit comically.