In This eNewsletter:
• He's Never Played the Palace by Thomas J. Norton
• Sony's Shocking New CEO by Scott Wilkinson
• March Madness by Scott Wilkinson
• Hot DVD: The Incredibles by Thomas J. Norton
• Flat Panels Make Big Gains in 2004 by Scott Wilkinson

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By Thomas J. Norton

When I wrote about the premier of the movie Collateral last week on our website, I noted that it was held in an old downtown Los Angeles movie palace, the Orpheum. This reminded me of several books I've collected over the years on similar, once-glittering movie palaces. The other day, I pulled out three that were on my bookshelves and took another look at a forth I recently added to my library. This isn't exactly a publishing avalanche, but it does indicate that there's an interest in the subject, and not only for its nostalgia value. With the growth of home theater, and particularly custom-installed home theaters, there's an audience looking for design ideas from books that take us back to an era when multiplex wasn't even in the dictionary.

The Last Remaining Seats: Movie Palaces of Tinseltown opens with a several-page history of that same Orpheum theater. Built in 1926 to seat 2190 moviegoers, photographer Robert Berger discovered it in 1990. It inspired him to produce, together with Anne Conser, the photographs in this stunning volume, not only of the Orpheum, but of other LA-area theaters as well.

With its brass doors, gold-leaf ceiling, marble floors, chandeliers of gold and bronze, silk trim, and other accoutrements, the Orpheum reflected its beginnings as a vaudeville theater that hosted, in its early years, such talents as Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, and the Gumm Sisters. (Frances Gumm was signed by MGM in 1935 and became Judy Garland.) The Orpheum was also home to a 13-rank, 3-manual Wurlitzer organ.

In addition to the photos in this book, you can also see the theater's interior in the movies Funny Girl, The Doors, Ed Wood, and The Last Action Hero. Videophiles will also recognize another of the theaters features in this book, the Los Angeles, as the setting for a sequence in the "Montage of Images" section of Video Essentials.

There's a fascinating 15-page introduction by Steven M. Silverman, but The Last Remaining Seats is primarily devoted to page after page of spectacular photos of the unbelievably ornate decor of LA's old movie houses. Many of them survive to this day, but, with only a few exceptions (including Grauman's Chinese, the El Capitan, and the less-ornate Village in Westwood), they are now little used as first-run theaters. (The Egyptian in Hollywood was extensively remodeled—not just restored—and is used as a revival house.) Others, including the Orpheum, have undergone extensive restoration and now look quite impressive, at least in the carefully lit photos. This group still run films in some cases, but they're usually not first-run and often subtitled in Spanish to serve the downtown population.

If you're in the LA area, Saturday morning walking tours of several LA movie palaces are run by the LA Conservancy ([213] 239-0939); reservations one month in advance are recommended.

The older, out-of-print American Picture Palaces, by David Naylor, is more wide-ranging, though the mostly black-and-white photography rarely does justice to the subjects. It has more text, but also some interesting—if sad—photos, including one in which the decaying parts of the old Michigan Theater in Detroit decorate a parking garage. Other theaters, however, have been more creatively converted to restaurants, shops, churches, and nightclubs. A handful survive, restored, as performing-arts centers.

Another book—more like a one-shot magazine, really—is London's West End Cinemas by Allen Eyles and Keith Skone. I bought it in London in 1984, so it might be difficult to find these days for a realistic price. The photography here is also dated and all black-and-white, but fans of old movie houses who are able to locate a copy (published in 1984 by Premier Bioscope, Sutton, Surrey, England) will love it anyway.

So why this extended survey of books about old movie houses? Simple. Many home theaters seek to emulate the look of these classic structures, from their ornate carvings to their dramatic lighting, and there's no better place to find ideas for this—short of the real thing—than in a well-produced book on the subject.

Is trying to imitate a classic movie palace at home really such a good idea? Certainly not all of us want to watch our movies at home in a pale imitation of a grand movie house. After all, you can only go so far in a small room before the result begins to look garish. It pays to recall that when most of these temples to film were first built (in the 1920s), the theater itself was most of the show. The films were crude by modern standards (though magical to audiences of the day). But modern home theaters are capable of knocking your socks off with their technical prowess, so you don't really need to show them in a gilded cage that competes for attention with the content. That's surely misplaced priorities, particularly if you've sacrificed technical quality to pay for the decor. Many of us prefer simpler spaces that reserve most of the budget for what we see and hear when the lights are down and the movie itself is all that matters.

Nevertheless, many who can afford it (and others who can't but are talented enough to pull off such a decorating feat on their own) want to luxuriate in an atmosphere they remember from their youth. I can sympathize. I remember well many a visit to New York City during which at least one Saturday morning (with the lowest admission charge of the week!) was spent with my uncle in the second mezzanine at Radio City Music Hall. It wasn't a special-event venue then, but rather New York's premier downtown movie house where a one-hour stage show was followed by a movie. That was most surely where my love of both music (the elaborate stage show was accompanied by a full symphony orchestra) and films was born.

If you're looking for ideas to help you duplicate that experience but can't locate The Last Remaining Seats or the other books I've mentioned here (all of which are listed in some form on amazon.com, as are several similar titles unfamiliar to me), you shouldn't have any trouble finding 2004's Cinema Treasures: A Look at Classic Movie Theaters by Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs (published by MBI). There's a ton of text here for those interested in movie-theater history. The photos are less striking than those in The Last Remaining Seats (easily the best of the books discussed here in its photographic and print quality), but many of them are in color, and there's more than enough of them to give you lots of ideas for your own Basement Bijou.

By Scott Wilkinson

On March 7, 2005, Sony announced that Nobuyuki Idei was stepping down after a decade as CEO and chairman of the consumer-electronics and entertainment giant. This, in and of itself, is not terribly newsworthy—after all, corporate shakeups are commonplace these days—but the industry was shocked to learn that his successor is Sir Howard Stringer, the first non-Japanese executive to head the company in its 59-year history. The appointment is effective immediately, but final approval must wait until a shareholder vote on June 22.

Stringer, 63, is a British-born businessman who has served as CEO of Sony Corp. of America since 1998. In that capacity, he was quite productive, bringing together the company's music and movie operations and overseeing the merger of Sony Music and Bertelsmann Music Group as well as the purchase of MGM. Prior to his tenure at Sony, he spent 30 years as a journalist, producer, and executive at CBS.

Why would a major company from such a tradition-bound culture take this relatively radical step? Perhaps it was in response to what many observers believe is a lack of communication between the hardware (electronics) and software (content) sides of Sony's business. According to Stringer, "We have clearly demonstrated in our US operations that we can achieve significant cross-company efficiencies, and at the same time deliver both extraordinary quality and record returns. I believe the entire global organization is hungry to make this same transition, and all of us in senior management are committed to achieving that goal."

Then there's the issue of the changing consumer marketplace. Strong competition from Chinese and Korean manufacturers is driving prices and margins downward, giving them an edge in key market segments such as flat-panel displays. Sony has already started to cut billions of dollars from its cost structure, eliminating many jobs, standardizing parts, and reducing the number of global suppliers, but that may not be enough. In 2001, Stringer cut $700 million from the annual operating budget of Sony's US operation, and it looks like he'll have to perform a similar miracle for the entire company.

Clearly, Stringer has his work cut out for him. "As with all great institutions, Sony has built a tremendous legacy over 60 years," he says. "But we cannot let that trap us or inhibit us. We need to take that legacy and reinvent it. The dynamics and competitive landscape have changed. The pace of innovation across all the businesses in which we compete has changed. So Sony, too, must change."

Exactly how that change will manifest itself remains to be seen. Stringer has little experience with hardware, having spent his entire career on the content side of the fence. So it seems a bit strange that he was selected to head one of the largest consumer-electronics companies in the world. For technological matters, Stringer will have to rely on the engineering background of Ryochi Chubachi, who is taking over Sony's electronics business from Kunitake Ando. According to outgoing CEO Idei, Chubachi is a good listener and consensus builder, skills that will be put to the test if he and Stringer are going to succeed in reshaping Sony to remain competitive in the coming years.

One issue they'll have to address is Sony's insular attitude toward proprietary technology. For example, when the Network Walkman was first introduced to compete with Apple's iPod, it could only play files encoded with Sony's compression algorithm called ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding); it couldn't play MP3 files, which seriously limited its appeal. Since then, the product has been updated to play MP3s, but Sony's Connect music-download service sells only ATRAC files and is compatible only with Internet Explorer on Windows computers.

On the other hand, it must be noted that Sony has been collaborating with other companies quite a bit lately. Last year, the company struck a deal with rival Samsung to manufacture high-end LCD flat panels. Also, the next-generation PlayStation 3 will be based on a superfast processor called Cell, which was developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM. Finally, Sony leads a large consortium of manufacturers that are bringing Blu-ray to market by the end of the year.

Speaking of which, how will Stringer and his new crew deal with the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD? Blu-ray has the clear advantage in terms of hardware, with many more manufacturers in their camp. But HD DVD seems to have the upper hand in terms of content, with more studios pledging their support to that format. If the conflict isn't resolved soon, it could mean failure for both, not unlike DVD-Audio and SACD, which fell prey to low-resolution MP3. Of course, there is no such alternative for consumers to embrace in this case, but they might well reject the whole idea of HD discs out of frustration at yet another format war, leaving both to swing in the wind.

I am most interested in seeing how Stringer deals with this situation. As he works on building bridges between different divisions of his own company, can he also bridge the gap between Blu-ray and HD DVD? I don't believe that either side will fold voluntarily, even if that would be in the best interest of the industry as a whole, so the only hope I see for consumers is a universal player/recorder that can accommodate both formats. This might not be easy from a technical standpoint, but if such a product is not brought to market, the promise of high-def optical discs—especially as an inspiration to buy HDTVs—will be left largely unfulfilled.

By Scott Wilkinson

It happens every year about this time: March Madness, an affliction that affects millions of Americans, leading them to abandon all reason in favor of frenzied cheering and screaming at their televisions as the best college hoops teams compete in the 2005 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. This year, many of those fans will have much more to scream at—that is, they'll see much more detail on the screen as Harris Corporation, a leading supplier of broadcast and other communications equipment, sponsors HD coverage of the games on CBS for the second consecutive year. Not only that, the number of games broadcast in high-def will increase from 12 to 39.

For the sixth consecutive year, CBS Sports will air the two national semi-final games and the national championship game in HD. But there's much more HD leading up to those contests. HD coverage will include 24 games from four of the eight first-round sites on March 17-20. In 2004, HD broadcasts originated from only one first-round site. And this year's Sweet Sixteen will be even sweeter, with all 12 games from the four regional sites in Chicago, Albuquerque, Austin, and Syracuse airing in HD. In 2004, only one regional site broadcast in HD.

The CBS telecasts will be "unified" productions created in 1080i and downconverted for analog broadcast coverage, providing the same camera angles, replays, and graphics as well as play-by-play for SD viewers.

"There is nothing like March Madness, and there is nothing like March Madness in HD and 5.1 surround sound on CBS," says Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports. "Now our friends at Harris are making it possible to take our HD coverage of the tournament to the next level." Jeremy Wensinger, president of Harris' Broadcast Communications Division, agrees: "Working with CBS to enable HDTV broadcasts of the NCAA tournament is part of Harris' commitment to the future of television. One of the best ways we can ensure the wide-scale success of digital television in the United States is by giving the American public the chance to experience HDTV, with its crystal clear pictures and dynamic surround sound, for themselves. High-visibility events like the NCAA tournament are an excellent way to do this."

CBS Sports' coverage of the 2005 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Final Four and Championship games will be broadcast live Saturday, April 2 (6:00-11:00 PM, ET) and Monday, April 4 (9:00-11:30 PM, ET) from St. Louis, Missouri.

By Thomas J. Norton

The voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee. Directed by Brad Bird. Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (anamorphic). 115 minutes. 2004. Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (English, French, Spanish). THX-certified. Walt Disney Home Entertainment 36387. PG. $29.99

Picture ****
Sound ****
Film ****

Showtime! Mix in equal parts of Superman, X-Men, any James Bond film you care to name, and even a dash of Spy Kids, and you have the latest Pixar/Disney computer-animated smash hit. The Incredibles may not have the fuzzy warmth that gave Finding Nemo its box office kick, but it has everything else: stunning animation, wall-to-wall humor, action that betters anything in any other 2004 live-action film, and a solid story. It was no fluke that the film was Oscar-nominated for its screenplay.

When superheroes are forced to abandon their vocation because of a rash of lawsuits (Mr. Incredible: "I saved your life." Citizen: "No, you ruined my death."), Mr. Incredible settles down to the suburban life with his wife Helen (the former Elastigirl) and their brood of three budding—though suppressed—young superheroes. But the schemes of a former acquaintance-turned-nemesis bring them out of retirement to save the day once more.

That brief description only begins to relate the plot. To tell you more would spoil the fun. If you're one of the three readers who missed seeing The Incredibles during its theatrical run, you're in for a great time. And even if you have seen it, you probably missed a lot of the gags as they flew by faster than Dash, the Incredible's wing-footed older son.

And at 115 minutes—unusually long for an animated feature—there's a lot you could miss the first time through. There seems to be an unwritten law that says an animated feature shouldn't be longer than 90 minutes; any more and you risk loosing the attention of the younger set. Funny, I haven't heard any stories of restless kids tearing up theaters in the movie's final 30 minutes. The fact that the last act is filled with nearly nonstop action is probably the reason.

Last year was a great one for animation. The Incredibles took the Best Animated Feature Oscar over the equally worthy but more leisurely paced Shrek 2. When John Lassiter brought in Brad Bird (creator of the traditionally animated fan-cult favorite The Iron Giant) to direct The Incredibles, his intent was to shake things up a bit at the phenomenally successful Pixar computer-animation factory before they got complacent. It worked. The only problem is that this film has "sequel"—or even "franchise"—written all over it, and Pixar likely won't be involved. They're severing their relationship with Disney after their next film, Cars, and Disney has sequel rights to all the films produced by Pixar under their banner.

Disney's in-house computer-animation staff isn't standing still. It's busy producing Chicken Little for release later this year. Trailers for Chicken Little and Cars are included on this 2-disc set, and if there's any upside to the Disney/Pixar split, it's that both of these films look like they'll be a lot of fun for everyone. Appealing to all age groups has been a key ingredient in Pixar/Disney's blockbuster partnership.

In addition to these trailers, there's a load of extra features in this Collector's Edition. Two terrific animated shorts, , which appeared with the film in its theatrical run, and Jack-Jack Attack, created just for this box set. are included. There are two commentaries, one from director Brad Bird and producer John Walker, the other from the animators. You also get an excellent "Making of" featurette, a blunder/outtake reel, storyboarded deleted scenes, and an alternate opening—which was best left on cutting room floor, if there is such a thing any more.

Unlike past Pixar DVD releases, this one does not include both widescreen and "full-frame" (4:3) versions in the same set. They're separate products, so be sure and pick up the right one. For us, that's the widescreen edition; after all, The Incredibles was a full "scope" release (2.39:1). Even though Pixar reformats their 4:3 versions to keep all the important elements on-screen at all times (so it isn't really correct to refer to them as "pan-and-scan"), it would be a shame to cram the wide, cinematic action of this film into a narrow aspect. They made it in genuine widescreen for a reason.

It's also possible that two different versions were released to provide a higher data rate for improved picture quality. If so, it was successful. The best animated features in recent years have had phenomenally impressive DVD transfers, and this one is no exception. The action pops off the screen, particularly in the more vividly colored superhero sequences. The image quality is simply off the chart, and flaws such as digital artifacts, softness, and edge enhancements are nowhere to be seen.

The sound (5.1 EX, auditioned here in conventional 5.1) is also as good as it gets on today's DVDs, with striking bass, active surrounds, wide dynamic range, and clean dialog. The film won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing, and it's not hard to hear why.

For my money, The Incredibles was the best film of 2004. Not just the best animated film, but the best film period. There's only one word to describe it, and it's in the title.

By Scott Wilkinson

It seems that flat panel displays are becoming as popular as the pundits predicted they would. According to DisplaySearch, a leading flat-panel market-research and consulting firm, both plasma and LCD sales posted huge increases in 2004. Plasma TV shipments were up 155% over 2003, totaling 2.8 million units; in the fourth quarter alone, shipments were up 173% over the same period a year before, totaling 1.1 million units. This is no doubt due in large part to increased holiday sales spurred by lower prices. The average price of a plasma TV in the fourth quarter of this year was down more than 20% over 2003, falling from $4200 to $3315.

By size, the 42" and 43" category remained dominant, with 42" enhanced-definition (852x480) being the single most popular format. The 32"-37" range increased its market share as holiday shoppers opted for smaller, lower-priced models, especially in Europe and Japan. Plasmas measuring 46" and larger fell slightly.

Panasonic retained its position as the leading plasma TV brand with 19% of the world market, leading in the Japanese and North American markets and maintaining double-digit shares in Europe, China, and the rest of the world. LG remained at #2 overall with 14.5% while claiming the #1 position in the 42" ED market as well as in models measuring 60" and above. Samsung overtook Sony to become #3 with 12% of the world market, holding strong shares of all regions except Japan. Philips leapt from #6 to #4 due to their position as the #1 brand in Europe. Sony, Hitachi, and Pioneer rounded out the top seven manufacturers, with Sony leading the 37" HD market, Hitachi at the top of the 32" and 55" categories, and Pioneer acing the 42"-43" HD and 50" groups.

Interestingly, Dell racked up a 3% share of the North American plasma market in their first quarter of participation, with 10% of the 42"-43" HD segment thanks to aggressive marketing and pricing.

LCD flat panels showed equally impressive gains in 2004, with shipments growing 123% to 8.8 million units. In the fourth quarter, shipments increased 134% over the same period in 2003 to a record 3.6 million units. Again, lower prices spurred these huge increases, especially during the holiday season.

Europe remained the single largest region for LCD TVs with 38% of the world market. Japan came in second with 27%, followed by North America at 26%. China represented 4%, with the rest of the world at 5%.

Sharp remained the #1 brand, with 22% of the world market, down from 28% thanks to increasing competition. Philips stayed at #2 with 15%, up from 11% the previous year. Sony retained their #3 position by rising from 10% to 11%. Regionally, Sharp led the pack in Japan and North America, while Philips was #1 in Europe. Breaking the data down by screen size, Philips was on top at 15"-19", Sony led in the 22"-24", 30"-32", and 40"-44" categories, and Sharp was #1 in all other size groups.