MoMI’s Annual ‘See It Big: 70mm!’ Summer Series Returns in August with Six Films

Featuring Douglas Trumbull’s BRAINSTORM, the original animated SLEEPING BEAUTY, TRON, LICORICE PIZZA, ONCE UPON A TIME ... IN HOLLYWOOD, and TOP GUN
August 5–September 4, 2022

Astoria, N.Y. — With a higher resolution and more light hitting the frame, 70mm film offers a bigger, brighter image than 35mm. It is the ideal film format for ambitious cinematic spectacles, yet with the transition to digital filmmaking, 70mm movies have become increasingly rare. Museum of the Moving Image will present its popular summer series See It Big: 70mm!, featuring six classic and contemporary films that will be projected in 70mm in the Museum’s majestic Sumner M. Redstone Theater, August 5 through September 4.

Among the highlights this year are two titles from Disney long unavailable in 70mm: Sleeping Beauty (1959), the first feature animation to be released in the Super Technirama 70 format, and Tron (1982), the groundbreaking sci-fi thriller featuring innovative early CGI, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The series also includes Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021) and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)—two retro Hollywood works by filmmakers who continue to shoot on celluloid. The series opens with Brainstorm (1983), one of only two films directed by the brilliant visual-effects master Douglas Trumbull, who died earlier this year, and closes with Top Gun (1986).

The Saturday, August 20 screening of Sleeping Beauty will be introduced by John Canemaker, the Academy Award–, Emmy Award–, and Peabody Award–winning animation filmmaker, historian, and NYU professor. He has authored twelve books on film animation history—with subjects including Winsor McCay, Felix the Cat, Tex Avery, and numerous Disney artists. He is professor emeritus of Animation Studies at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where he headed the animation program from 1988–2022.

See It Big: 70mm! is organized by Curator of Film Eric Hynes and Assistant Curator of Film Edo Choi, in collaboration with Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert, editors of Reverse Shot, the online film journal published by the Museum.

The full schedule is included below and online at movingimage.us/series/see-it-big-70mm-6. Tickets are $20 ($15 Museum members at Senior/Student levels and above). Ticket prices reflect the added expense of shipping and preparing large format films. Advance tickets are available online.

SCHEDULE FOR SEE IT BIG: 70MM!, AUGUST 5–SEPTEMBER 4, 2022
All screenings take place in the Sumner M. Redstone Theater, Museum of the Moving Image, located at 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria, NY 11106.

Brainstorm
FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 7:00 P.M.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 3:15 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 7, 4:00 P.M.
Dir. Douglas Trumbull. 1983, 106 mins. 70mm. With Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher, Cliff Robertson. Douglas Trumbull’s science-fiction thriller about a device that can record thoughts and dreams features stunning visual effects to portray telepathic experiences, cutting between widescreen and standard size. One of only two films directed by visual effects legend Trumbull, renowned for his work on such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Tree of Life, Brainstorm also features the last performance by Natalie Wood, who died during the making of the film.

Licorice Pizza
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 3:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 1:30 P.M.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 5:45 P.M.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 4:00 P.M.
Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. 2021, 134 mins. 70mm. With Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie. Anderson evokes his early seventies San Fernando Valley childhood in this hazy misfit romance. Alana Haim, youngest sister of the rock trio Haim, and Cooper Hoffman, son of the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, star as callow charmers Alana Kane, a mid-twenties high school photographer’s assistant, and Gary Valentine, a 15-year-old aging child actor, who form an unlikely attachment one never-ending summer, as they drift dreamily, sometimes dangerously, through a series of entrepreneurial misadventures.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 6:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 4:30 P.M.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 6:30 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 3:30 P.M.
Dir. Quentin Tarantino. 2019, 161 mins. 70mm. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley. The ninth film from Quentin Tarantino revisits Los Angeles at the tail end of the 1960s, when the Hollywood studio system was fading and hippie subversion was ascendant. Enter past-his-prime TV star Rick Dalton (a self-effacing DiCaprio) and his under-employed stunt double Cliff Booth (a never-more-charismatic, Oscar-winning Pitt), two walking anachronisms wading through the muddy waters of B-moviemaking, spaghetti westerns, hot-shot European auteurs, Bruce Lee, and, finally, Charles Manson. Informed by a melancholic nostalgia new to Tarantino’s work, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood ambles along deliciously until a vicious, hyper-violent climax yanks proceedings into darker territories, poignantly resorting to ahistoricism in order to reclaim and redeem a fallen culture.

Sleeping Beauty
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 3:30 P.M. introduced by animation historian and filmmaker John Canemaker
SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 1:30 P.M.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 1:30 P.M.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1:30 P.M.
Dirs. Clyde Geronimi, Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark. 1959. 70mm. At the time of its release, Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty was the most expensive animated film ever made, a passion project for the studio that ventured into new frontiers for the form and was originally formatted for Super Technirama 70mm exhibition. With art direction inspired by medieval and Renaissance painting and tapestries and music adapted from Tchaikovsky, this visually spectacular fairy tale, in which the deliriously evil and remarkably designed villain Maleficent makes things very difficult for betrothed royal lovers Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip, remains one of the most evocative, exquisitely detailed of all hand-drawn animated movies.

Tron
FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 7:00 P.M.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 3:30 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 1:30 P.M.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1:30 P.M.
Dir. Steven Lisberger. 1982, 96 mins. 70mm. With Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes. This groundbreaking feature follows rebel computer programmer Kevin Flynn as he is scanned and transported into an autocratic universe of zipping vectors and shiny surfaces, somewhere inside the mainframe of an arcade game. An expensive and risky venture for Disney at the time, Tron is notable for its sophisticated sets and elaborate costumes designed by renowned French comic-book artist Moebius (Alien, 1979), but perhaps its true innovation lies in its extensive use of 3D CGI and bold amalgam of traditional and computer-generated images.

Top Gun
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 6:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 4:00 P.M.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 7:00 P.M.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 4:00 P.M.
Dir. Tony Scott. 1986. 110 mins. 70mm. With Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt, Meg Ryan. A box-office smash and cultural touchstone of Reagan-era America, the original Top Gun was, and remains, an unapologetic turbo-engined Hollywood spectacle. Cruise plays Maverick, a cocky naval fighter pilot in training who feels the need for speed—and for his beautiful astrophysics instructor (McGillis). Featuring a blockbuster. multi-platinum soundtrack (including the Academy Award–winning “Take My Breath Away”) and head-spinning aerial cinematography by Jeffrey L. Kimball, Top Gun fully launched Cruise into the stratosphere and director Scott onto the A-list.

Top image: Cindy Morgan and Bruce Boxleitner in Tron / courtesy of Disney.

Press contacts:
Tomoko Kawamoto, MoMI, tkawamoto@movingimage.us or 718 777 6830
Sunshine Sachs for MoMI, momi@sunshinesachs.com

PRESS IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE HERE.

MUSEUM INFORMATION
Hours: Thursday, 2:00–6:00 p.m. Friday, 2:00–8:00 p.m. Saturday–Sunday, 12:00–6:00 p.m.
Museum Admission: $15 adults; $11 senior citizens (ages 65+) and students (ages 18+) with ID; $9 youth (ages 3–17). Children under 3 and Museum members are admitted free. Free gallery hours every Thursday, 2:00–6:00 p.m.
Address: 36-01 35 Avenue (at 37 Street), Astoria (Queens), NY, 11106
Subway: M (weekdays only) or R to Steinway Street. W (weekdays only) or N to 36 Ave.
Program Information: Telephone: 718 777 6888; Website: movingimage.us
Membership: https://movingimage.us/join-and-support/become-a-member/ or 718 777 6877
Film Screenings: Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, and as scheduled. Unless noted, tickets are $15 adults / $11 students and seniors / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / free or discounted for Museum members. Advance online purchase is recommended.

Please note safety protocols for visiting the Museum.

Follow the Museum on Facebook (@MovingImageMuseum), Twitter (@movingimagenyc), and Instagram (@movingimagenyc).

Museum of the Moving Image is housed in a building owned by the City of New York and has received significant support from the following public agencies: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York City Council; New York City Economic Development Corporation; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Institute of Museum and Library Services; National Endowment for the Humanities; National Endowment for the Arts; and Natural Heritage Trust (administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation). For more information, please visit movingimage.us