The Day in Cinema, Wednesday, November 4

MOVEMENT 01

Celluloid is still the sharpest way to announce a movie.

IndieWire and Film Comment both spent the week tracking the autumn surge in 35mm and 70mm special engagements, where new releases share booth time with archival restorations. Rather than treating photochemical prints as museum pieces, studios are booking 35mm previews for contemporary ensemble dramas to get audiences out of the house on a weeknight. On the Pass, Wild Horse Nine screens on 35mm at the Alex Theatre in Los Angeles next Thursday, and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey continues its 70mm run.

“Rather than treating photochemical prints as museum pieces, studios are booking 35mm previews for contemporary ensemble dramas to get audiences out of the house on a weeknight.”

MOVEMENT 02

Local premieres are doing the heavy lifting for fall releases.

Across The Film Stage and World of Reel, the week’s festival dispatches kept returning to the same point: a packed local premiere changes how a movie travels. In Portland, Pray for Pow brings the Arsenic ski-film premiere (Chandelier, 200 Breaths, and Highly Favored) to Next Adventure on Thursday night, while Lionsgate and Gofobo have opened advance passes for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping across eighteen cities ahead of its November 20 release.

IN BRIEF

In brief.

Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas sets its November repertory and arthouse expansion, per IndieWire. Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky screens early at Alamo Drafthouse Bryant Street in Washington on Tuesday night. Siân Heder’s Being Heumann opens free advance passes in San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Charlotte.