Am I the only person on the North American continent working the Titanic 3D RealD vs. Panavision 3D story? Apparently so. But long ago I recognized that I’m alone, all alone, and it doesn’t bother me any more.

The long and the short is that next week I’ll be seeing Titanic 3D twice on separate 3D systems. On Tuesday, 4.3, I’ll see Titanic 3D at Paramount’s all-media screening with the film projected with the RealD process and (possibly) a Sony 3D projector. The next day I’ll drive down to see Titanic 3D at the UltraLuxe Anaheim 14, which is the only theatre in the Los Angeles area that’ll be showing the film with Panavision 3D, a year-old process that may deliver a brighter, sharper image. Or not. I won’t know until I’ve compared.

The basics are (a) Roger Ebert and David Poland griped about Titanic 3D looking a bit darkish and filtered when they saw it at special Valentine’s Day screenings in Chicago and Burbank, respectively, (b) I was told by Full Aperture Systems projection consultant James Bond that less murky 3D projection was attainable through Panavision 3D, a 3D image-enhancement system that works with 3D projectors manufactured by Christie, Barco and NEC, (c) Two weeks ago I went out to Panavision headquarters to see a demonstration of Panavision 3D; (d) Panavision 3D seemed well-lighted and well-focused, and definitely looked better than celluloid 3D; and (e) we’ll see what we’ll see when I watch and compare.

It may be that that Ebert and Poland were both unluckily subjected to sub-standard presentations of Titanic 3D, and that there will be nothing wrong or even underwhelming with the RealD presentation of Titanic 3D that I’ll see at the Paramount screening on 4.3.

On 2.14 N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick wrote that Titanic 3D director James Cameron “has obviously taken great care in using the technology to enhance the experience of watching his 1997 Oscar winner…the 3D in Titanic is more effective than in most films that were originally filmed in the process. It adds depth and makes the vastness of the titular ship, its decks and corridors look even larger and longer. The already-spectacular effects in the long sinking sequence look even more breathtaking in 3-D. Kate Winslet‘s voluptuous figure in 3-D is one of the most magical effects — along with Leonardo DiCaprio‘s climactic slide into the depths, wonderfully rendered stereotypically.”

Or maybe the Panavision 3D version will look a little bit better. Who knows?

It would so much easier if a theatre in Los Angeles proper had adopted the Panavison 3D process, but (a) I’m told that RealD reps have persuaded an awful lot of theatres to sign exclusivity contracts and (b) it always takes a while for new ideas and new systems to work their way in.

The Panavision 3D version of Titanic 3D will begin showing at the UltraLuxe Anaheim 14, 321 W. Katella Avenue, Anaheim, CA 92802, on Wednesday, 4.4.

In a 2.27.12 piece called “Can Titanic 3D Be Saved From “Filter” Effect?,” I wrote the following:

“Panavision 3D’s system (a) involves no polarization, (b) allows exhibitors to project 3D on white or silver screens, and (c) allows for brighter 3D light levels (which are measured in foot lamberts) than what Bond says is the usual-usual, or 2.5 to 4 foot lamberts.

Panavision 3D, which has only been around for about a year, allows for something closer to 4 or 5 foot lamberts. This cuts into contrast, Bond says, but is nonetheless much more preferable to what most people are seeing with other lower-light-level systems.

Right now Panavison 3D is ‘the very best of all…a very seamless process,’ Bond says.

“The one 3D system that Panavision doesn’t work with, according to Panavision 3D rep Sean Lohan, is Sony’s, which is much less admired among high-end projection consultants. (The Regal Cinema chain, he notes, ‘has finalized a decision to remove any Sony 3D machines they have in the booth.’) And yet in 2009 it was reported that Sony’s 3D projectors are technologically allied with RealD, the 3D projection process that Titanic 3D will be shown through.”

To repeat: I was definitely impressed by Panavision 3D. My pants didn’t unbutton themselves and fall to the floor as I watched the test screening out of Panavision’s Woodland Hills headquarters, but what I was shown did seem brighter than the norm. I really don’t care for that shadowed muddy effect that 3D so often renders, so we’ll see what transpires.

…the fuck? Here’s the iTunes download page for Jessica Pare‘s performance, which was seen in last night’s Mad Men 5 premiere episode. “Zou Bisou, Bisou” (which basically means “I’d like to express my feelings for you in an oral fashion”) was recorded in the early ’60s by Sophia Loren, of all people, and then Gillian Hills. The latter track was produced by George Martin.

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To have finally crossed over, to finally know the splendor of being dead and glistening and eternally omnipotent, to stalk young deer in the forest and the ecstasy of the chase and the take-down, ripping their necks open, arterial blood spurt…aahhh! Wonderfully free, where I want to be, and married.

I respected Twilight, but New Moon (’09) and Eclipse (’10) were so dreadful that I resolved never to see another, so I didn’t catch Bill Condon‘s Breaking Dawn, not even on Bluray/DVD/streaming. But I was thinking what an amazing opportunity to adopt Bella’s POV during her death and rebirth, to take the audience into the tunnel and sense the light at the end of it, and then to bank left and make a beeline for the vampire light instead. None of the reviews described or indicated this so I’m assuming Bill didn’t explore this.

For whatever reason I watched the Mad Men 5 opener twice tonight. Clearly I found it absorbing, but everyone — everyone! — always seem so tense and calculating and pissed off. Don Draper celebrates his 40th birthday in the episode, which means it’s 1966. But the climate feels more like ’64. And I cringe at every nearly moment spent with Vincent Kartheiser‘s character — his big forehead and that snippy expression and those twelve-year-old shoulders and his unrelenting pettiness. My hands-down favorite scene with when Jessica Pare, Don’s French wife, began to clean the apartment in her black underwear.

New York and NPR critic David Edelstein has delivered one of the better rip jobs on…I was going to say The Hunger Games but his criticism is really all about director Gary Ross and his expedient white-beardo ways. Here’s the audio.

Ross “has a penchant for showbiz satire,” Edelstein says, “pleasant in Pleasantville but ruinous in Seabiscuit — a great book about the torturous underbelly of horse racing turned into a lame, movie-ish period piece . He approaches The Hunger Games like a hack. The film is all shaky close-ups, so you rarely have a chance to take in the space, and the editing is so fast you can’t focus.

“The film gets some things right, like the shots of Katniss running through the woods, the canopy of trees above her streaking by. And it has an astoundingly good Katniss in Jennifer Lawrence. She’s not a chiseled Hollywood ing√©nue or a trained action star — she looks real. And without words, she makes it clear that Katniss’ task is not merely to stay alive but somehow to hold onto her humanity.

“A few other actors register in spite of the speed-freak editing. Josh Hutcherson has a strong, sorrowful countenance as Katniss’ fellow District 12 contestant, Peeta. Stanley Tucci in a blue bouffant as a talk-show host, Wes Bentley in a manicured black-fungus beard as the games’ high-tech coordinator, and Donald Sutherland in a white mane as the demonic lion of a president are all you could hope for.

“There’s a terrific score by James Newton Howard that captures moods — wistful, mysterious — that the director fails to evoke. The Hunger Games leaves you content — but not, as with the novel, devastated by the senseless carnage. It is, I’m sorry to say, the work of moral cowards.”

An amazing spot. I’m so hip it took me a whole month to catch up with it. I don’t even like Las Vegas, but I’ll be thinking about the Cosmopolitan if I go there again. (Which isn’t likely.) Hats off to Fallon, Minneapolis, director Steven Alsyon, chief creative officer Darren Spiller and…who else?

Here’s the first Cosmopolitan spot I could find, which appeared in the fall of 2010.

I would vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (nothing wrong with being 69), but on some level I’d feel more emotionally satisfied if Elizabeth Warren runs. Either way I’d love to see a tough, shrewd, battle-axe woman in the White House. I’m tired of guys and their guy games.

Mary Harron‘s The Moth Diaries is based on Rachel Klein’s 2002 novel about teenage fears of same-sex sexuality mixed in with intimations of vampire eroticism and the unbuttoning of white blouses. I was invited to a Manhattan screening or two, but none in LA. Wells to IFC Films: May I see this please?

Summit is allowing a select few to see Juan Antonio Bayona‘s keenly anticipated tsunami-drama, The Impossible, sometime early next month, even though it’s not slated for release until October 11th — i.e., over six months hence. I’ve always assumed this allegedly high-calibre, European-styled disaster drama would debut at Telluride-Venice-Toronto, but wouldn’t it be cool if it had an early peek-out in Cannes?

The death of three racehorses led to the cancellation of HBO’s Luck, but also, it would seem, to a blistering 3.24 N.Y. Times story, written by Walt Bogdanovich, Joe Drape, Dara L. Miles and Griffin Palmer, about how horses are dropping like flies on the nation’s racetracks, largely due to heartless owners and an over-reliance on drugs.

The story is called “Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys.” Here’s the sad video.

“A state-by-state survey by The Times shows that about 3,600 horses died racing or training at state-regulated tracks over the last three years. Since 2009, the incident rate has not only failed to go down, it has risen slightly.

“The greatest number of incidents on a single day — 23 — occurred last year on the most celebrated day of racing in America, the running of the Kentucky Derby. One Derby horse fractured a leg, as did a horse in the previous race at Churchill Downs. All told, seven jockeys at other tracks were thrown to the ground after their horses broke down.

“The new economics of horse racing are making an always-dangerous game even more so, as lax oversight puts animal and rider at risk.”

With the new Bluray of The Grapes of Wrath obtainable on 4.3 via pre-order, it’s worth considering this three-year-old Re-Think review by the highly intelligent Jonathan Kim. I was particularly charmed by his casual mention of Teabaggers as “idiots.” Too few film reviewers are willing to step outside the movies-only realm and call a spade a spade.

I still have problems with the diner scene, which, as I mentioned five years ago and then again in ’09, is a perfect thing until the very end when Ford’s Irish sentimentality kills it. This has always been Ford’s problem, and why his films are best appreciated in limited doses. Not to mention his tendency to prod his supporting actors into over-acting and doing the “tedious eccentricity” thing — Ford’s ultimate Achilles heel. The overacting of that waitress is especially painful.