See "The Dark Knight" in IMAX, if you can
I was lucky enough to see a press screening of The Dark Knight at an IMAX theater earlier this week. I've been impressed by major feature films in IMAX before--The Polar Express 3-D, Open Season 3-D--and if I had to see Transformers, that was the way to do it. Then I saw The Dark Knight.
Breathtaking.
As in, I literally caught my breath at the opening scene high above Gotham City. A major reason is that some of the scenes were actually shot in IMAX (a first for a major motion picture), meaning that they filled the huge screen floor to ceiling. A little tech talk: The IMAX screen I went to in Seattle is six stories high and 80 feet wide. Movies like TDK are usually shot in an aspect ratio of 2.4:1, meaning they're 2.4 times as wide as they are high. So when you're watching a 2.4:1 movie on DVD at home on a squareish TV (1.33:1) or even a widescreen one (1.78:1), you get the black bars on the top and bottom, which preserve that aspect ratio. If an IMAX screen was six stories high and they wanted to fill the screen with a 2.4:1 movie, the screen would need to be over 14 stories wide! So generally IMAX theaters use the same black bars that you see at home. Here’s the difference with The Dark Knight: the scenes shot in IMAX do fill the whole screen, in spectacular fashion. So when the Wayne penthouse appears at the top of your screen, your eyes climb up the very tall building to find it. I know many (all?) of you are already planning to see The Dark Knight, but if you're close enough to an IMAX theater, I highly encourage you to go. Oh, and the movie? I'm not supposed to officially review it before it opens tomorrow, but I will say that, for me, it lived up to all the hype. Freakin' fantastic! --David
See more in The Dark Knight Boutique or below.
Listen to an interview with TV star Justin Kirk. He talks about filming the latest season of
Jen on July 18, 2008 at 11:02 AM
ooooh, I didn't know it was shot specifically FOR IMAX :) Now I'm even more excited for tonight...
Jordan on July 20, 2008 at 02:58 PM
It's hard to admit that you loved Transformers--just embrace it. It's liberating! Haha! :-)
And yes, TDK was ridiculously awesome in IMAX.