Hollywood Gothique

It just wouldn’t be Halloween with Tim Burton’s THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS playing at the Disney-owned El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. This year, as for the last two years, the film will be presented in Disney Digital 3-D for an even more eye-popping experience.

The film will screen for one week from October 17 to October 23, with showings at 12:15pm, 2:30pm, 4:45pm, 7:00pm, 9:15pm, and 11:15pm. On Halloween weekend, Thursday, October 30 through Saturday, November 1, there will be 12:30am late shows.

At the 7:00pm showing on Friday the 17th, there will be a filmmaker discussion panel.

Call 1-800-DISNEY6 for tickets or visit the El Capitan’s website.

Other films at El Capitan:

• SLEEPING BEAUTY, Disney’s animated classic, through September 18.
• TINKERBELL (the computer-animated sequel to PETER PAN, which is scheduled for DVD release on October 28) from September 19 through October 2.
• BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA from October 3 through 16.

Tonight the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood launches their September Cinerama Showcase with screenings of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Stanley Kubrick’s monumental science-fiction epic. The film will at 8:00 and 11:40pm in the Cinerama Dome theatre in the 70mm Cinerama format with six channel sound, as it was screeened there when originally released in 1968. 100 copies of the Special Edition Blu-ray disc of the film will be given to the first 100 ticket holders in line for the 8:00pm show.

Unfortunately, the 8pm show is already sold out. There are still tickets for 11:40, available here.

Just to get pedantic for a moment, the use of the term “Cinerama” in reference to SPACE ODYSSEY has always struck me as a bit of a misnomer. The original Cinerama process created a triple-widescreen effect by filming with three camera - left, right, and center - and projecting the imags in sync. The aspect ratio was three times as wide as a standard format film (approximately four feet wide for every one foot of height).

SPACE ODYSSEY was filmed in anamorphic 70mm, a combination of two different widescreen processes. 70 mm is twice as wide as standard 35mm film, creating a project image approximately twice as wide (it comes up a bit short because some of the width is used to accomodate six separate soundtrack stripes). Anamorphic uses special lenses to stretch the image even wider, resulting in an aspect ratio of 2.75. The result is a spectacular image that captures the vast vistas of both “The Dawn of Man” and “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.” But it’s not really Cinerama. In truth, it is probably a little better, as Cinerama was frought with troubles (e.g., the three projectors going out of sync).

If that’s not enough great science-fiction on the big screen, the Arclight Hollywood will presente BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUTon September 10, with director Ridley Scott in person for a Q&A after the screening. This show, too, seems to be sold out, but there is always a chance you can get a ticket on the night of the event if some of the pre-sales turn out to be no-shows.

There can be no doubt about it: CineFamily’s Silent Movie Theatre absolutely owns Halloween this year. Sure, there will be two or three horror film festivals in Hollywood, and lots of other theatres and venues are scheduling special events for the season, but the Silent Movie Theatre is so loaded with horror titles that you could spend nearly the entire month of October there - if your endurance can stand it.

There are literally dozens of titles listed on their October schedule, divided into some pretty cool programs:

• Silent Wednesdays offers The Man of 1,000 Faces: Lon Chaney. The silent actor, known for his use of makeup to create deformed characters, was the world’s first horror star. Titles include PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
• On Thursdays it’s Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!Everything from RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD to TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, culminating in an awesome Lucio Fulci triple-header: ZOMBIE, GATES OF HELL, and THE BEYOND
• Early Fridays offers a series Japanese ghost stories, including the classics UGETSU and KURONEKO., plus the more recent RETRIBUTION from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (PULSE).
• Notice something missing from the Thursday night zombiefest - namely NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD? That’s because on Late Fridays there will be a George Romero fest, including his 1968 classic, plus DAY OF THE DEAD (1985), and several others.
• Early Saturdays gives classic horror fans a chance to enjoy the subtle atmosphere of fine 1940s black-and-white horror, thanks to a series of films from producer Val Lewton.
• Late Saturdays will be loaded with Evil Children.

But wait - there’s more! Scattered throughout the month will be screenings of FREAKS (the 1932 Tod Browning production with real circus freaks), Roger Corman’s masterpiece MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, Spooky animated shorts, THE BLOB (1988), THE HIDDEN, TV Halloween specials, a Wes Craven double bill, and the whole thing culminates on Halloween night with a screening of THE TINGLER, followed by a dance party in the theatre. (Appropriately, a subplot of William Castle’s gimmicky 1959 thriller, starring Vincent Price, involves the Silent Movie Theatre.)

All I can say is, the CineFamily should offer a contest - the winner being anyone who can sit through every item on this marathon agenda.

NOTE: For those of you wondering about the name “Silent Movie Theatre,” it is a bit of a vestige from the theatre’s previous incarnation. Silent films are still programmed on Wednesdays, but the rest of the week is given over to cult and classic titls of various shapes and sizes.

Take a look at the new Hollywood Gothique calendar. We recently added a Calendar page to the website, but we thought we should introduce the new feature by posting it here on the home page. We’ve been loading it up with information about Fantasy Films, Mystery Movies, Halloween Horror & Sci-Fi Cinema Events, so you have a one-stop shopping center to plan your schedule. Eventually, we should be adding a smaller version of the calendar to the sidebar, so that you can find interesting events without leaving the home page.

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No details yet, but the Hollywood Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy Film Festival will be back at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood this October. The fest piggybacks onto the larger Hollywood Film Festival, which will be running from October 22 to 27.

The website still has a link for the entry form, asking for submissions, so if you are an aspiring horror filmmaker, you may want to try to submit something.

My only question is: How many horror festivals does Hollywood need every October. Besides this one, we have Shriekfest and Screamfest, the latter of which inevitably overlaps with the Hollywood Horror Fest, making it impossible for the hardcore horror fan to attend both. Really, if we must have all these festivals in one month, couldn’t they be spread out a bit more so that you don’t need a time machine to get to all the screenings you want to see?

Just a reminder: tonight is the screening of THE FLY (1986) with David Cronenberg and Howard Shore in person to introduce the film. The event takes place at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Get more details from this previous post.

Above: A Studio City Yard Haunt

I’ve been hard at work updating the website for this Halloween.

You can see the results by clicking on the Halloween Haunts page, which now has listings for Yard Haunts and local community-oriented haunts. Not all the information is up-to-date, because they smaller amateur and semi-professional outfits do not necessarily have time to start planning this year or work out their schedule. Nevertheless, there is plenty of information that will help you start to plan for the October season.

Also I have created several new stand-alone pages for some of the more high-profile and/or high-quality haunts that deserve a little more space, either because there is so much to say about them or because I have photos and/or video to post of them. They are all listed on the Halloween Haunts page, and you can also find them in the left-hand navigation bar, listed as sub-pages of the Halloween Haunts page.

Fantasy author and sometimes screenwriter Ray Bradbury will be appearing at the American Cinematheque on October 10 and 11 for screenings of SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (which he adapted from his own novel) and MOBY DICK (which he adapted from Herman Melville’s classic). The screenings will take place at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

In this article at Cinefantastique Online, you can read previous comments Bradbury made about adapting MOBY DICK for director John Huston.

Speaking of Halloween horror, as I have been in a slew of recent posts, the American Cinematheque promises to run a great marathon of classic creepy films from October 30 through November 2, including HORROR OF DRACULA, BRIDES OF DRACULA, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, THE GORGON, and two versions of DR. JEKYLL AND MR HYDE (the 1932 version with Frederic March and the 1941 version with Spencer Tracy).

Screenings will take place at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Specific dates and times have yet to be announced, but you can check out their website for updates.

Fright Fair’s Halloween Harvest Festival is another Halloween Haunt that is getting a jump on the competition by starting this month - on Friday the 26th, to be exact.

Up until a few years ago, Fright Fair was a single, lengthy walk-through maze with a few other fun items (rock climbing, bungee cords) in the parking lot. For the last couple years, it has expanded into a month-long October festival that runs all day long, with kid-friendly stuff in the mornings and afternoon, and adult-oriented frights at night.

This year, the festival will run every day from September 26 through November 2. The night-time haunt will be mostly on weekends and some weekdays.

One word of warning: Since adding the Harvest Fest in 2005, the Fright Fair people have sometimes had their hands so full that cannot always get the night-time haunt attractions completed by their start date. If you’re planning to bring your kids to the day-time fest, it should be running by the 26th; however, if you plan on walking through the Factory of Nightmares and the Creatures of the Corn trail at night, you might want to check ahead if you plan on going opening night.

You can find contact information on our webpage for the haunt.