House of Wax

[P3D <MarkKernes@xxxxxxx>]

Wow! P3D hits the millenium four years early.

Though I was sorry to miss the So. Cal Stereo Club meeting last night, I
nonetheless attended the American Cinematheque screening of Andre DeToth's
House of Wax in (polarized) 3D. I was surprised that they were able to show
it successfully on a white screen; I'd understood that only silver screens
should be used for that purpose. However, the picture was fine, except the
4th reel, which was out of focus on the left side, diminishing the stereo
effect somewhat (but, suprisingly, not totally). The film was shown with its
original intermission between reels 2 & 3. 
In general the stereo was very good, except in some of the night scenes,
which is as I would have expected. Particularly nice was the scene in the
cabaret with the can-can dancers - a nice zomming-in that segued nicely from
the inevitable flatness of distance to the 3D of the reasonably-close-up.
And, of course, the guy with the paddle-ball was interesting, but there
wasn't that much "grand-standing" 3D (don't know how else to describe it) in
the movie. DeToth explained, after the movie, that he used the
"grand-standing" 3D in that scene specifically because the guy doing it was
suposed to call attention to himself and the House of Wax show, and the
attention-getting 3D simply added to that effect.
Wish there were more 3D movie showings in this area.

Mark <markkernes@xxxxxxx>


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