Widescreen: Big-screen grandeur at the Music Box, and another milestone for John Williams
The annual 70 mm Film Festival returns Thursday, March 5, to the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave, Chicago, with a two-week lineup of films presented in one of the medium's grandest formats.
Seeing a film in any size is a rarity these days thanks to the digital projection systems that have become the norm at theaters across America; 70 mm prints are literally twice the size of the 35 mm standard we watched for many years, allowing for clearer and more detailed images. The Music Box has been a steadfast supporter of the format, even showing new films in the old-fashioned method. ("Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and "Joker" both played last year.)
This year's lineup has 11 large-format films and one 35 mm presentation of "The Big Trail," which the Music Box describes as "the only surviving feature film shot in Fox's 70 mm Grandeur system and John Wayne's first starring role."
The 11 films are:
• "2001: A Space Odyssey," Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic
• "Hello, Dolly!," in which Gene Kelly directs Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau
• "Interstellar," Christopher Nolan's sci-fi wannabe classic
• "Khartoum," a historical epic with Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier
• "Last Action Hero," Arnold Schwarzenegger's satirical '90s flop that's ripe for reevaluation
• "Lifeforce," Tobe Hooper's absolutely bonkers space-vampire epic
• "Murder on the Orient Express," Kenneth Branagh's star-studded retelling of the beloved whodunit
• "Roma," Alfonso Cuaron's widescreen tableau of Mexico City
• "TRON," the quirky birthplace of CGI visuals
• "The Untouchables," Brian De Palma's Chicago classic
• And saving the best for last, "West Side Story," in which every frame is a work of art.
Tickets are available now for Music Box Members and open up to the general public at noon Monday, Feb. 10. Tickets cost $14, $12 for seniors and kids, and $11 for members. See showtimes and buy tickets online at musicboxtheatre.com.
An unparalleled career
John Williams' name will be read at Sunday's Oscars for the 52nd time as a nominee, though his emotional "Star Wars" finale will likely lose the Best Original Score award to Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir's appropriately nerve-wracking music from "Joker." Those 52 nominations trail only Walt Disney's 59 in the Academy record books, and Williams collected on five of them. (Uncle Walt won 22.)
The most celebrated and beloved film composer in history, Williams turns 88 Saturday, Feb. 8, and reached yet another milestone just two weekends ago: His "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Symphonic Suite," heard in the new "Star Wars"-themed areas at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition. It's Williams' 25th Grammy win, but the very first for a piece of music written specifically for a theme park, according to CinemaBlend - not even "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)" or Jerry Goldsmith's "Soarin'" got there first.
I hope Steven Spielberg is serious about this whole "Indiana Jones 5" thing, if for no other reason than our chance to hear just one more John Williams composition.
• Follow Sean on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.