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San Francisco Chronicle​

Which Bay Area theaters have the best projection and sound?

Dear Mick LaSalle: Which theaters have the best projection and sound? Teresa Concepcion, Emeryville Dear Teresa Concepcion: Well, in one sense of the word 'best,' I'd say the Roxie Theater, the Stanford Theatre, the Rafael Film Center and the theater inside the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive have the best projection, because they project the best movies. But in the sense that I think you mean it, the best sound and picture is at the private Dolby Theatre on Market Street. As for what's available to the public, I have no love for the Metreon, but its IMAX theater is very good. Dear Mr. LaSalle: I was surprised to learn from your article that apparently lots of people spread out a movie over several nights. I thought I was one of the few lazybones who did that. Michael Biehl, San Francisco Dear Mr. Biehl: Everybody does it, but it doesn't mean they should. True, 95 times out of 100, it doesn't matter, because most movies are unremarkable. But with great and near-great movies, watching them over several nights on a small screen – that is, watching them in the wrong way – can bland out the experience and make real greatness seem merely good. Cinema is an art form that assumes and needs a captive audience. Movies are made with the assumption that you're small and the screen is huge, and that you're staying in your seat, that the volume is turned up, and that you can't rewind anything, so you have to pay attention. Even with all those conditions in place, movies face a hard climb, because they're trying to make you believe in an imaginary world and care about the people in it. But strip away those conditions, and their task becomes even more difficult. The sad part of this is that some of the best films are subtle and most are in need of being met halfway. I mean, you can half-watch 'The Avengers' and get the idea. But a quiet masterpiece like 'Before Sunrise' requires that you actually watch, listen and take it in. Otherwise, it might seem like endless, pointless conversation. And no, checking your phone to read about the movie as it's playing doesn't count as watching the movie. Still, we all do it, probably for the same reason that there's a certain resistance to being hypnotized, and in the same way that it requires an act of will to take a nap in the middle of the day, even if you're sleepy. There's an inertia that must be overcome in order to let go of the state we're in, even when we want to or need to. Dear Mick: I just watched 'The Vanishing' (1988) and found the ending very disturbing. The kind of movie that stays with you but not in a good way. Have you watched any really creepy movies that you wished you had not watched? Joyce Harvis, Stockton Hi Joyce: Yes. I have one, and it's the same as yours – 'The Vanishing.' It's a seriously unsettling film, and while I can't say that I wish I never saw it, I can confirm that the movie's disturbing quality doesn't go away, ever. I saw 'The Vanishing' when it was released in the United States in 1989, and a few months ago I made the mistake of thinking of the movie's ending right before bed, and I couldn't sleep. Talk about a lasting impact. Here was this movie keeping me up some 35 years after I saw it. I won't reveal the nature of the ending here, because there may be hearty souls out there willing to risk it. Consider this a combination recommendation/warning. Also, readers should note that we're talking about the original 1988 'The Vanishing' from the Netherlands, and not the idiotic American remake from 1993.