Page 16 - CinemaRecord #11R.pdf

Moe The Fairsky Drive-in has been sold and the future is unknown.

Moonee Ponds Construction of Readings 12 screen Megaplex has started.

Ringwood Hoyts Eastland to be increased to 16 screens.

Warragul Warragul Triple Cinemas. This all-new independent complex managed by Mr. Graeme
Hollingsworth opened early in 1998. The site is part of the former Regent Theatre in the
heart of the town. Nothing remains of the original operation which was used for indoor
cricket after television commenced. The three screens seat 226, 109, and 95, a total capacity
of 430. Seating is the latest style and includes drinks/popcom holders and raked floor. A
remar1<ably spacious bio-box contains U.S.A. made strong projectors and platters with Dolby
SR in the two smaller auditoriums and Digital SR in the largest. The whole operation is a
credit to local enterprise.

Oldies But The MGM film library continues to provide major entertainments from Hollywood's Golden
Goodies Years. ABC Channel 2 recently repeated "Singin' in the Rain" in a peak Friday timespot.
Released in 1952, this famous musical has played consistently on television and in cinemas
ever since. The Astor Theatre, St. Kilda has re-released a number of MGM favourites including
"Gone With The Wind" (1939), "Doctor Zhivago• (1965) and "2001 : A Space Odyssey" 1968).
Their latest presentation is "Ben Hur" (1959). Screened in a new 70mm print on a truly giant
screen, "Ben Hur", like "Titanic" won eleven academy awards and is attracting the crowds.
The new screen is almost wall-to-wall and maximises the height available by skillfully en-
larging the proscenium while retaining three of the vertical lighting panels on each side. Full
stage curtaining is included but the last rows of the back stalls have been closed due to
restricted sight lines. State-of-the-art stereophonic sound and excellent focus complete the
presentation and the battle of the galley slave ships and the chariot race remain truly
spectacular. Anew 35m Vistavision print of Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest• (1959)
with Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason is another MGM feature retuming this
year.

Credits Credits on unused excursions are held in favour of the following members :-
$10.00- D. Howson, K. Tulloch, R. Seccombe, G. Saunders.$ 5.00 - D. Kilderry

Why The Need For Speed? by Laurence Money

The mystery about modem movies is the appetite of the viewer. It is gargantuan. It dwarfs anything Cecil B. De
Mille could ever have put on screen. You need a low loader to get the king-size popcorn box to your seat and a
coal shovel to throw it down the throat.

At Chad stone, the retail equivalent of the cars that ate Paris, the movie house sells cardboard tubs of Coke that
would slake the thirst of half a football team. Blocks of chocolate have ballooned into megaslabs big enough to
feed an extended family of 20.

At the adjacent confectionery store, there are plastic towers of sweets that you decant into paper bags. You
stagger in to your movie, slopping drink and spilling pop-corn and chocolate bullets.

Your parents didn't watch "Gone with the Wind" like this. A packet of Columbines, maybe an ice-cream. But at
the modern movie you engorge. This is movie-going, 1997.

(Part of an article in The Melbourne Sunday Age - 1419197)

16