Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Jackie

This is topic Jackie in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 12-18-2016, 09:44 PM:

Pablo Larraín's film about Jackie Kennedy right after her husband's assassination is an example on how a bio-drama should be done, the acting from Natalie Portman is exhilarating and how the story transforms from different times and her exchange with other characters is transfixing.

The filmatic use and image of 16mm film stock seems to literally and appropriately transport us back to the early 1960's. Mica Levi's evocative and abstract music score conveys and supports Portman's performance as Jackie and her world and emotions start to crumble away, and tries to make sense of her loss (the final shot had me tears) One of the best of the year.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 12-23-2016, 11:33 PM:

CINEMA: Megaplex at Jordan Commons, Sandy, UT
AUDITORIUM: 1
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital Cinema
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Distracting ambient light
RATING: Three stars (out of four)

Megaplex has converted the lower stadium tier of this room into Recline-O-Vision and in the process inexplicably dipped into the multiplex architectural wayback machine and put in a CENTER AISLE. And with that center aisle came floor guide lights and really bright white seat mounted guide lights (partly for the row indicators). They are ANNOYING AS HELL if you're sitting in the standard seating in the upper tier.

I'm completely baffled by this.

THE PLOT: A President is assassinated. Wackiness ensues.

Although I was born during Johnson's presidency, I was well aware of, and admired Jacqueline. She was media savvy. And this movie basically focuses on that from the assassination through the funeral.

As Jonathan noted, the cinematography does an excellent job of transporting the viewer back to that era. Portman gives a solid performance, even if she looks more like Natalie Portman Dressing Up As Jackie Kennedy than Jackie Kennedy.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 12-24-2016, 11:27 AM:

I enjoyed Jackie very much. They did a great job with all the old footage mixed in with the new with the screen size pulled in. Of course at the Landmark Embarcadero Cinema in SF CA what used to have 5 semi small movie screens was fixed up a few years ago and they cut two theatres down and now have 7 cinemas in the same space. Very small screen and they did not close the side masking for the Jackie film. One scene that they did not do in the movie was to show little John saluting his dad when the casket came by. I never new Jackie was such a chain smoker. Very well shot movie about this tragic time in our history.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 12-24-2016, 02:30 PM:

As usual, in my line of work doing press, preview & QC screenings,
I first saw this movie several months ago. I knew nothing about it,
in fact, when I first saw the title I thought it might be about Jackie
Mason, not Jackie-O. Obviously, I was wrong.

Although I was very young, I am old enough to remember the events
depicted in the movie, and I, like Terry, was waiting for them to
re-create the 'salute' scene.

But I thought Natalie Portman did a decent job, given the fact that it
must be very difficult to portray someone so well known and photographed.

I also thought the film-makers did a pretty good job of mix-&-matching
new and archival footage, even to the point of 'fuzzing up' and EQ-ing
the new audio to make it sound like an old 16mm optical track in spots.

As for Terry's comments about the masking- - This movie's aspect ratio
is 1:66, a masking setting most theaters these days don't have-
- - if they have maskings at all.

Also at a regular theater they've got to run pre-show and trailerstuff B4
the feature, so they leave the masking set at standard 1:85 position.

Since I never have to deal with pre-sho & trailers, I was able to set
the screening room maskings properly.
In fact, the hard-drive came with a 1:66 framing chart file, which I
saved a copy of for future reference.

- - and speaking of "Jacke", we recently put up new shelves in my
booth for the hard drives. While getting all the drives re-organized,
I had randomly stacked a couple of them on one of the top shelves.
It wasn't until later I realized what I'd done:

I swear, this picture wasn't staged.
It was a totally random coincidence
that these two drives wound up together.