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Flashback Film Fest features old favourites

Remastered classics should be seen on the big screen
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The Flashback Film Fest gives film fans a chance to revisit old favourites. (Cineplex)

A concept first envisioned in Toronto eight years ago has now spread to 27 theatres across the country and, for the first time, will be coming to SilverCity Victoria (on Tillicum Road) Feb. 2 to 8.

The Flashback Film Fest features 15 different films and is designed to give audiences a chance to revisit some old favourites on the big screen, perhaps for the first time in decades.

“The problem has been that there have been these great films, like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that, until recently, were only available in 35 mm format,” said Brad LaDouceur, vice president of Cineplex and one of the organizers of the film festival.

“It meant that if you were lucky enough to find it on the big screen, you’d be seeing a fuzzy, badly imaged picture. All that has changed.”

He explained that studios have begun to re-master a selection of classic films in digital format, allowing audiences the chance to experience their favourite films in a clarity never before seen. “A whole big library has come available, and we’ve taken a wide selection of films for this year’s festival to include something for everyone,” he said.

“For fans of the Coen brothers, we have The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona, and if you’re a Monty Python fan, The Holy Grail is a classic you don’t want to miss. We also have some more obscure films, like Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master, a film that first made its debut 40 years ago.”

LaDouceur acknowledges that some of the films in the festival may, from time to time, become available on other platforms that would allow them to be viewed at home, but is adamant that the experience is never the same.

“Movie going has always been about gathering as a community and seeing the films the way they were meant to be seen – in the dark, on the big screen, surrounded by people who laugh and gasp and cry with you as the film progresses,” he said.

The 2018 Flashback Film Fest lineup includes: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Drunken Master (1978), War Games (1983), Dune (1984), Gremlins (1984), The Terminator (1984), A View to a Kill (1985), Back to the Future (1985), Raising Arizona (1987), Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D (1991/2017), The Big Lebowski (1998), The Iron Giant (1999), as well as the Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Cornetto Trilogy: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World’s End (2013). For more information, visit cineplex.com.


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editor@goldstreamgazette.com