TOD
I'm not sure exactly when it opened in Cleveland (BK: I think Michael Coates did a history on this one), but I didn't even know about it at first. A friend did, and said we definitely needed to see it. One evening just after the end of the school year, we saw it at Loew's State in downtown Cleveland, the movie palace configured for Cinerama in those years.
We were mightily blown away and confused and yakked about it for hours, as "everyone" was doing then. A few days later I was ready for my second viewing, and went back by myself. Midway through the second act, I came to terms with what I was seeing and felt at peace with it. Shortly thereafter we were off to the Meadowbrook School of Music. At some point there, my friend and I, and a few others who hadn't seen it, went into town and saw it at the Summit in downtown Detroit, another magnificent movie palace configured for Cinerama.
Back in Cleveland in the fall, I can't swear I returned to Loew's State, but I probably did. When it closed there (and Ice Station Zebra replaced it), it went to the Fox Cedar Center, an absolutely marvelous modern suburban theater. All of this was in the original 70mm. In the next couple of years it began getting around town and I saw it once or twice in 35mm. Went to it again on a Christmas break, on the west side of Cincinnati. Living in L.A., I saw it in "Dimension 150" at the Egyptian, and, over the years, a few times in 70mm at the Cinerama Dome. Last time was in the early 1980s.
I never watched it on TV, with one very special exception. I somehow missed knowing that they were going to do this (and this was during my TV Guide years, go figure), but I was at the Del Amo mall one evening to pick up something, and getting back into my car I heard on KFAC (the classical music station) ... silence. And then breathing. Very quickly I recognized it as '2001'. These were the glory days of TV-and-FM simulcasting, and I quickly figured out that I was indeed hearing the film soundtrack and that KCET (PBS) must be playing it. At home a few minutes later, I was watching on my then-new 25" (wow) Mitsubishi monitor and hearing it in glorious stereo. That was a magical evening. Can you even imagine an FM station broadcasting something like that now? I'll answer that: No.
I never went to it during the re-release in 2001. My next time to jump back in was this very year - 70mm IMAX in NYC, digital IMAX in Danbury, and the most recent time in 70mm IMAX at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk.
