AP Film Studies: The Empirical Strikes Back

OMSI goes really, really big, with a Sci-Fi Film Fest.

IT'S REALLY, REALLY BIG: Galaxy Quest plays as part of OMSI's sci-fi festival.
By AP KRYZA

With science-fiction films, bigger is always better. Whether in the tight corridors of Alien or the cityscapes of Dark City, increasing your viewing radius even a couple of inches can transform an awe-inspiring world into a fully immersive experience. 
Portland theaters have long done a great job of reviving old-school sci-fi flicks. Hollywood just last month debuted its new 70 mm system with a revival of 2001.

Now OMSI is getting into the sci-fi game. From April 13 to 19, the Empirical Theater will host its inaugural OMSI Sci-Fi Fest. 

OMSI ditched the old, dome-style Omnimax screen in 2013, and put tons of effort into upping its presentation with a fully digital projector— North America's first Dolby Atmos surround-sound system. Sound blasts from four behind-the-screen speakers, 36 surround speakers, and 20 subwoofers. 

In layman's terms: It's really big and really loud. 

The festival itself is like a greatest-hits collection of sci-fi over the past 50 years. Sure, we've seen The Matrix over and over. But OMSI's high-tech presentation will offer up the most jaw-dropping look at the film since it blew minds when first released.

Even on the small screen, Alfonso Cuaron's vastly underappreciated Children of Men is a film of pulse-pounding intensity. But when projected on a four-story screen, the magnificent war-zone climax transports you directly into the action in the same way that his Gravity made you feel adrift in space. 

The 14 films in the series tick off all the boxes for hypersteroidal science-fiction experiences, ranging from the dystopian claustrophobia of 12 Monkeys to Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Galaxy Quest and The Last Starfighter. Trust me: You haven't seen Ricardo Montalban's shimmering man cleavage until you've seen Wrath of Khan on a screen the size of a building.

This being OMSI, you can even learn something. Joss Whedon's crowd-favorite Serenity screens Tuesday, April 14, along with a talk by PSU Professor Emeritus Carl Abbott, "Big Sky Country: Reliving the American West in Serenity, Firefly and American Science Fiction.” More to the point: Serenity. On a four-story screen. 

Lloyd Center might have an IMAX, and the Hollywood has upped the ante with 70 mm, but OMSI has something nobody else does: The ability to show big movies in a way that makes us all feel incredibly small, and a sound system with the ability to make us feel incredibly deaf.


Also Showing: 

  1. Our old friend Larry Colton—former MLB player, author, Wordstock co-founder, Fast Break star and generally nice dude—hits up OMSI for a Reel Science talk about Field of Dreams. OMSI’s Empirical Theater. 6:30 pm Wednesday, April 8.
  1. Never mind the dead-eyed romance between human sparkler Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. Weird Wednesday has 1973’s Count Dracula’s Great Love. Joy Cinema. 9:15 pm Wednesday, April 8.
  1. Church of Film presents a program of films by surrealist French filmmaker Germaine Dulac, a pioneering female director whose work dates back to 1915. North Star Ballroom. 8 pm Wednesday, April 8
  1. Jean-Michel “Son of Jacques” Cousteau beams into OMSI’s Empirical Theater for the world’s biggest Skype conversation, followed by a screening of his new doc, Secret Ocean. OMSI’s Empirical Theater. 9:45 am Thursday, April 9.
  1. KBOO returns to the Clinton to present Charles Lloyd: Arrows Into Infinity, a documentary about the pioneering jazz man. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Thursday, April 9.
  1. Burt Lancaster headlines 1963’s The Leopard, Marxist Italian auteur Luchino Visconti’s look at aristocracy and upheaval in 19th-century Sicily. 5th Avenue Cinema.  5 and 9 pm Friday-Saturday and 3 pm Sunday, April 10-12.
  1. A perfect snapshot of ’50s paranoia, 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers remains the benchmark by which all pod-person cinema shall be judged. Academy Theater. April 10-16.
  1. All you need to know about Kung Fu Theater’s presentation of 1983’s extremely rare A Fistful of Talons is that, yup, eagles get mixed up in the martial arts mayhem. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, April 14.

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