The Maryland Science Center wants Baltimore moviegoers to know that sensory-immersion filmmaking didn't start with "Avatar."
For more than 20 years, the five-story screen of the center's IMAX theater has featured thrills every bit as spine-tingling as seeing 10-foot-tall blue aliens ride flying dragons through floating mountains.
"Avatar" has been great propaganda for IMAX theaters: They've accounted for a whopping 12 percent of that blockbuster's domestic gross. Starting Tuesday , the center hopes to attract fans of all kinds - not only fantasy or sci-fi freaks, or lovers of artificial spectacle - to an IMAX film festival. With this seven-film roster, the Science Center hopes to popularize the "wow factor" of seeing natural sights in a format that floods eyes and ears with real-life wonder.
Jim O'Leary, the senior director in charge of programs at the Davis Planetarium and the IMAX theater, "says we haven't done a festival in years. We wanted to show off what IMAX can do with titles that everyone on our staff liked." The group's enthusiasm for experiencing exotic climes in ultra-high-resolution imagery and six-channel stereophonic sound resulted in an eclectic assemblage - travelogues, nature films, even a human-interest sports movie. "It's a mix of oldies and goodies and new ones," says O'Leary. "Also, a couple that we've shown only for specialized audiences."
With O'Leary providing running commentary, here's the scoop on the lineup:
'Grand Canyon: Discovery and Adventure': O'Leary calls this "one of the first classic IMAX films. It contains an amazing story of exploration about John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Union Army veteran who made the first passage through the Grand Canyon in 1869. This film mixes historical understanding with the majesty of the canyon itself. You are there in the white water when he shoots the rapids of the Colorado River."
'Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure': It's an abridged version of George Butler's majestic documentary "The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition." O'Leary keeps a copy on hand to show to the National Youth Leadership Congress as an example of, well, leadership. It chronicles Ernest Shackleton's 1914 attempt to make his British team the first to traverse the Antarctic continent - and his struggle to bring them back alive when the Endurance got stuck in ice a day's journey from the shore. O'Leary makes this version sound like "Titanic" without the laborious buildup. "Shackleton wanted someone to document everything, and he had a cameraman, Frank Hurley, who shot 35 mm footage, and when you see these actual shots of the ship being destroyed and the guys abandoning it, everything is dramatic - the masts splitting apart, the cracking ice floes."
