Four flavors of the good stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n Nolan blesses four film formats, and they matter for reasons that are genuinely nerdy and genuinely beautiful.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Arts & Culture newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n THANK YOU!<\/p>\n You’re all set.<\/p>\n CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n The holy grail lives at Cinemark Dallas XD<\/a> and IMAX on Webb Chapel Rd. \u2014 one of only 25 U.S. theaters showing \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d in IMAX 70mm. We\u2019ll wish you good luck, because hose tickets have been vaporizing for weeks. Your realistic options are to wait, or to book a screening that starts after the bars close. Devotion has a schedule, apparently.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the reassuring part: Dallas didn\u2019t leave the rest of us out in the cold. Standard 70mm and 35mm are the next-best miracle, and two of our most beloved houses have thrown open their booths to prove it. The Alamo Drafthouse Cedars location<\/a> is running 35mm too, and a few other area spots are also showing the film on 70mm \u2014 AMC The Parks at Arlington 18,<\/a> AMC NorthPark 15 in Dallas and Cinemark West Plano 20 among them \u2014 so options are out there if you\u2019re willing to hunt.<\/p>\n The Angelika: two projectors, one glorious flex<\/strong><\/p>\n At the Angelika Film Center in Mockingbird Station, something happened this week that hasn\u2019t happened here since roughly 2012<\/a>: two working film projectors, running side by side, 35mm and 70mm. When the chance to grab a 70mm projector materialized, the Angelika expedited everything and muscled the machinery in to make the opening weekend for \u201cThe Odyssey.\u201d It\u2019s now fully operational in Theater 6, the roughly 300-seat house that ranks among the biggest on the property.<\/p>\n Events and marketing manager Adam Conway walked us through it, and the poetry of the moment isn\u2019t lost on anyone: the very first digital promo the Angelika ever played, back when it went digital, was for the Matt Damon film \u201cPromised Land.\u201d Now Damon returns \u2014 as Odysseus, no less \u2014 on 70mm film, quietly making the case that celluloid was the right call all along. The circle closes. Homer would approve.<\/p>\n Preston Barta for Dallas Observer<\/p>\n Step into the booth and the first thing that hits you is the noise. It\u2019s loud in there \u2014 the beautiful, mechanical roar of a machine doing honest work. Conversation becomes a shouting match, which is why the good quotes happen out in the hall. But the sight is the reward. Watch the film climb from the platter toward the ceiling, thread down into the projector, catch the light and throw those images onto the screen before returning home to the reel. Meanwhile, a disc plays the sound separately, because the old magnetic tracks simply aren\u2019t made anymore. Keeping picture and sound in perfect lockstep takes meticulous timing.<\/p>\n The room itself is a shrine, with movie posters papering the walls, each one a small reminder of why being a film nerd is a joy rather than an affliction. And keeping the beast alive in a Texas summer is a full production. A cooling box holds the projector at a steady 23 degrees Celsius. A booster fan pulls hot air out, with a fail-safe that refuses to let the lamp glow green if airflow drops. Dust-collecting rollers get washed between showtimes and swapped every other show. Overnight, the print rests on the platter under a protective sheet, as if tucking something precious in.<\/p>\n And unlike 35mm, 70mm allows no automated cues. A projectionist must manually work the lights, open the dowser and ride the sound, then babysit the machine for the film\u2019s nearly three-hour runtime. That\u2019s not a job; it\u2019s a vigil.<\/p>\n Preston Barta for Dallas Observer<\/p>\n Texas Theatre: the labyrinth in Oak Cliff<\/strong><\/p>\n Getting to the projection booth at the historic Texas Theatre feels like its own odyssey, a maze of stairs and corridors that culminates at the core of the place. There, we met operator Barak Epstein and projectionist Mike Olpin, keepers of a 35mm setup with a lineage worth bragging about: projectors installed in 2011, a platter system rescued from a Cinemark in 2005 and hot spares from the \u201990s sourced from Studio Movie Grill. The 35mm sound is 5.1 digital, encoded right onto the film, so there\u2019s nothing external to sync. The furnace-hot heat from the bulbs gets routed straight to the roof.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the local detail that should make every North Texan sit up: nearly every \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d film print in the country passes through Richardson, Texas. A company called Film-Tech Cinema Systems receives dozens of copies of individual reels \u2014 \u201c40 copies of reel one, 40 copies of reel two\u201d \u2014 and assembles the nine reels into sequential prints for theaters nationwide. Our backyard is, quietly, the loom where these cinematic tapestries get woven.<\/p>\n Olpin, who cut his teeth at Regal in the early 2000s, is passing the craft forward. <\/p>\n \u201cYesterday, we were showing one of the trainees here how to do a splice,\u201d he told us. \u201cYou need to make a little loop like this to make sure the splice is strong.\u201d <\/p>\n The film arrives in three-reel segments; two splices join them into one continuous ribbon on the platter. The upkeep is a lost art on a slow clock. \u201cBack in the day, that type of service would happen about once a year,\u201d Olpin said of tearing down and lubricating the platter. \u201cNow that it\u2019s seldom used, probably about every five years.\u201d <\/p>\n As for the run itself: \u201cThe platter is pretty hands off\u2026 I\u2019m probably going to check on it, focus and sound, every 10, 15 minutes or so,\u201d Olpin said.<\/p>\n Go be part of the event<\/strong><\/p>\n Both the Angelika in Mockingbird Station<\/a> as well as The Texas Theatre<\/a> are committed to three-week film runs, success permitting. So, go. Buy the ticket, take the seat and when the lights dim, remember there\u2019s a person in the booth keeping this fragile magic alive for three straight hours. Just like the old days.<\/p>\n If you cross paths with that projectionist, shake their hand. They\u2019ve turned a movie into an event in the way Nolan intended, the way Homer would\u2019ve wanted. The screen will disappear. The hush will fall. And for a few hours, you\u2019ll be genuinely, gloriously home.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AFC_70mm_projector.jpg\")
The Angelika\u2019s newly installed 70mm projector brings Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d to life the old-school way.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AFC_70mm_film_reel.jpg\")
A close-up of the 70mm film print of \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d at the Angelika Film Center in Mockingbird Station, where even the reel looks like it knows it\u2019s carrying precious cargo.<\/p>\n