imax 3-d Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As an opinionated cinephile, Roger Ebert has every right to dislike 3-D movies. And recently, on his blog, Roger Ebert's Journal, he wrote about such disfavor. Basically, in response to accidentally missing the press screening for the new animated 3-D flick Fly Me to the Moon, he admits that, because of a certain prejudice against the format, he likely wouldn't have enjoyed the movie anyway.

My issue here is not to attack Ebert's opinion or his belief that after half a century of dissatisfaction with the format he's never going to change his mind about it. He's free to express both. And while I disagree and am disappointed, I would never claim that Ebert doesn't know what he's talking about. He's certainly smarter about film than I'll ever be, and his opinions are far more respected than my own.

However, Ebert is also one of the most widely read film critics in the world, and therefore he is a pretty influential person when it comes to the subject of movies. And I would hate for moviegoers to dismiss the new wave of 3-D movies simply because of Ebert's stance on the format. So, I merely intend to respond to his opinion with an opinion of my own, as apparently one of the wider read gushers on the topic of digital 3-D.

If you're a regular reader of this website, then you might have noticed a little something missing over the last two weeks. That missing something is ... me. So my apologies to all (five) of you who look forward to my movie reviews, horror news, and random blather -- but I'll be back in full force next week! Still, after the cinematic experience I had last night, I just had to take a break from my UK vacation and share this anecdote:

Thanks to some contacts here in England, I was able to wrangle an invite to a BAFTA screening of Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf -- and since I was assigned that title for Cinematical review, I figured it was a smart move to go see the flick now. But then I looked a little closer at the invitation: The screenings were being held the BFI London IMAX Cinema! In Hi-Def 3-D! Whoa! (Special thanks to Mr. Alan Jones and Warner UK for the invitation!)

Now, before I continue, I think it's important to share some of my opinions on filmmaker Robert Zemeckis: I think the guy's a great filmmaker, but also that his last few films (particularly The Polar Express) were more interested in technology than storytelling. But it's pretty tough to hold a grudge against the guy who gave us Used Cars, Roger Rabbit and the Back to the Future trilogy, plus I was really curious to see what screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary were going to do with the classic Beowulf story, so off we went to the cinema: Myself, UK FrightFest co-honcho Paul McEvoy, Severance screenwriter James Moran, and Guardian film critic Phellim O'Neal. We climbed inside the stunningly massive IMAX theater, the lights went down, and ...

Wow.

My full review will arrive on Tuesday, but if you've never trusted me before, you simply must trust me on this: If you plan to go see Beowulf, you MUST see it in IMAX 3-D. Suffice to say that, for me, it was a cinematic experience on par with the first time I saw Star Wars. I felt like I was just being introduced to the future of movies -- and it was staggering to behold.

Plus the flick's pretty darn good.