Rivoli Cinemas sessions

Quentin Tarantino’s 70mm Roadshow extravaganza had a simultaneous showcase release in no less than six Australian cinemas from January 14th 2016. Three of these venues were in Sydney, Event Cinemas George St Complex, The Hayden Orpheum and The Randwick Ritz. Three other venues were in Melbourne, The Astor St Kilda, The Village Cinemas Rivoli Complex and The Sun Theatre Yarraville.

Most, if not all of these venues were visited by the director himself accompanied by Samuel L Jackson and Kurt Russell, who gave post show Q & A’s with the sold out audiences at George St, Hayden Orpheum and Village Rivoli cinemas for those designated Q & A sessions.

I attended two of the film presentations in Melbourne, firstly at “The Astor“ St. Kilda with it’s 20 metre big screen high impact presentation. This cinema has two Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 projectors and its presentation was done with change overs. It used two of the original Ultra Panavision anamorphic lens attachments for their season.

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As I exited the 5:15 PM session I was confronted by a long queue of people waiting to enter for the 8:15 PM evening session. The queue ran from the cinema’s upper lobby area down the stairs through the lower lobby and then down the street beside the theatre. The following day I attended the 1:30 PM session at the beautiful art deco “Rivoli Complex“ cinema one. Here another Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 projector had recently been installed replacing the existing Kinoton FP30E projector that was side by side with the cinema’s digital projector. Both of these cinemas showed off the great quality of the Ultra Panavision 70 process to audiences that had mostly never seen this film format. On display was not only the razor sharp grainless image, but also the solid saturated colour rendition that only film presentations can currently deliver.

Of the six cinemas that played the film, only “The Astor“ St Kilda and the “Hayden Orpheum“ were already equipped with 70mm projection equipment. It has been an extraordinary achievement by the film distributor to have so many cinemas worldwide equip with the cinema’s premiere release film format, paving the way for more wide releases of movies in the prestige 70mm format. Film lovers can now look forward to future releases such as Christopher Nolan’s and the next “Planet Of The Apes“ instalment in 70mm release print format.

The Rivoli

The Astor