Case in point about shit-level

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Case in point about shit-level projection: the first time I saw David Cronenberg's A History of Violence was at the Grand Theatre Lumiere in Cannes, and it looked pretty close to perfect. Then I saw it again at the Pacific Grove in Los Angeles and did a reaction piece, and somehow this local experience overwhelmed my recollections of Cannes because I included the following: "One beef with this film: Peter Suschitzky's cinematography looks like it was soaked in Bolivian coffee during lab processing. I started to wonder if the projector lamp at the Grove's theatre #1 was dying, but the lamps in the other theatres were fine. The last film I remember being this muddy- looking was Fight Club." Four or five days ago I rented a DVD of A History of Violence and it was back to looking like it did at the Lumiere again. So the coffee-soaked appearance was the Grove's fault after all, and this is a theatre, mind, with a reasonably okay reputation.