Because Sherlock couldn't stay away from Watson, Benedict Cumberbatch set to take a role in The Hobbit.

So that's why in some movies I've seen in 2-D, the screen was so dim....

[link]

As if rising ticket prices and chatterbox patrons weren’t enough, moviegoers in the Boston area are being left in the dark thanks to the regular misuse of the lenses on new digital projection equipment at many of the region’s major theater chains. But almost no one at the theaters or their corporate headquarters is willing to talk about it.

A walk through the AMC Loews Boston Common on Tremont Street one evening in mid-April illustrates the problem: gloomy, underlit images on eight of the multiplex’s 19 screens (theaters 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, and 18, to be specific). These are the auditoriums using new digital projectors that are transforming the movie exhibition business, machines that entirely do away with celluloid. The “film’’ comes in the form of a software file, and the projector pumps it onto the screen at high intensity.

Why, then, do so many of the movies look so terrible? This particular night “Limitless,’’ “Win Win,’’ and “Source Code’’ all seemed strikingly dim and drained of colors. “Jane Eyre,’’ a film shot using candles and other available light, appeared to be playing in a crypt. A visit to the Regal Fenway two weeks later turned up similar issues: “Water for Elephants’’ and “Madea’s Big Happy Family’’ were playing in brightly lit 35mm prints and, across the hall, in drastically darker digital versions.

The uniting factor is a fleet of 4K digital projectors made by Sony — or, rather, the 3-D lenses that many theater managers have made a practice of leaving on the projectors when playing a 2-D film. Though the issue is widespread, affecting screenings at AMC, National Amusements, and Regal cinemas, executives at all these major movie theater chains, and at the corporate offices of the projector’s manufacturer, have refused to directly acknowledge or comment on how and why it’s happening. Asked where his company stands on the matter, Dan Huerta, vice president of sight and sound for AMC, the second-biggest chain in the US, said only that “We don’t really have any official or unofficial policy to not change the lens.’’

A description of the problem comes from one of several Boston-area projectionists who spoke anonymously due to concerns about his job. We’ll call him Deep Focus. He explains that for 3-D showings a special lens is installed in front of a Sony digital projector that rapidly alternates the two polarized images needed for the 3-D effect to work.

“When you’re running a 2-D film, that polarization device has to be taken out of the image path. If they’re not doing that, it’s crazy, because you’ve got a big polarizer that absorbs 50 percent of the light.’’

...

So why aren’t theater personnel simply removing the 3-D lenses? The answer is that it takes time, it costs money, and it requires technical know-how above the level of the average multiplex employee. James Bond, a Chicago-based projection guru who serves as technical expert for Roger Ebert’s Ebertfest, said issues with the Sonys are more than mechanical. Opening the projector alone involves security clearances and Internet passwords, “and if you don’t do it right, the machine will shut down on you.’’ The result, in his view, is that often the lens change isn’t made and “audiences are getting shortchanged.’’

Hey, whose friend was it that made Orgasm, Inc.? Because it's finally coming to Netflix!

That really sucks (about the 3-D lenses) but no matter what they say about the difficulty in changing lenses - are we sure that they aren't trying to force us into 3-D showings?

It's not malice, it's incompetence - so many theatres are hiring non-union projectionists these days it's a wonder any movies get shown properly at all.

The shallow part of my brain is really, really easy to please.

This is the thread calling for more shirtless Thor ... so I guess we all have shallow, easily pleased, parts of our brains.

I've known plenty of competent non-union projectionists but it takes a lot of time and energy to train new people and with the digital projectors any clown can change the film or push the button (in many theatres you can start a digital film without even being in the projection booth) so I suspect it's not a concious decison on the theatre managers' part but a lack of training as digital projectors proliferate rapidly across the country.

The post-credits scene in Thor was directed by Whedon.

Nice!

Hey, whose friend was it that made Orgasm, Inc.? Because it's finally coming to Netflix!

Mine! And that's great news!