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Chinese Theatre, California

The legendary TCL Chinese Theatre reopens to the public tomorrow following several months of renovation work that's made it into one of the biggest IMAX venues in the world. The 1927 theater's newish owners were careful to preserve the Chinese's beautiful and historic features (it was designed by Raymond Kennedy, with details by art director John G. Beckman) while removing the old orchestra pit to accommodate an enormous 94 by 46-foot screen, adding cushy stadium seating (932 seats), and putting in more efficient LED lighting. The Dissolve has a great piece today explaining the technical updates (and the Chinese's long history of technical updates): for the first time ever, the theater won't have a film projector in its booth. Most movies will be shown in digital IMAX; the latest projectors won't work well with the huge screen, so it'll be masked at the sides until the Chinese gets the next generation (and it should be one of the first to have those new projectors). The Chinese is now the first and only IMAX game in the *neighborhood, but still also the only grand movie place in the US still operating as a first-run theater. Check out a time-lapse video of the renovations below--it's pretty amazing to see the auditorium go from faded icon to pile of dirt to shiny new updated icon

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