Back in December, I was extremely cranky with Alamo Drafthouse Downtown for discontinuing Dollar Night ticket prices and not updating their Web site to reflect this change, and for being somewhat misleading about the change.
An email from the Alamo mailing list today states that Alamo Downtown is returning to $1 admission on Monday nights (for most movies, with exceptions to be labeled as such). I could not be more pleased. Upcoming Dollar Night movies include Drugstore Cowboy and The Dreamers.
Alamo recently bought the old Fiesta in south Austin and plans to convert it to a multiscreen state-of-the-art theater. According to this Austin Chronicle article, the lease on the downtown theater will end in the next year or so, and that theater may eventually close. If/when it does, the owners plan to reserve a screen in the spiffy new Alamo South location for the kinds of movies shown downtown.
(I am often tempted to email Alamo and suggest that they give the specific room where they’ll show the alternate and indy films a name … they could call it The Basement. Wouldn’t you like to go see films in The Basement of the Alamo? C’mon, I know some of you got that joke.)
I’ll miss the old Alamo Downtown if it closes because I’ve seen a lot of good movies there and have many fond memories associated with the place (my boyfriend and I had what might arguably have been our first date there), plus it’s an easy walk to/from Gingerman. From a dispassionate film geek perspective, however, I won’t be too downhearted to see it move. The old theater doesn’t have very good acoustics, and it’ll be nice to enjoy movies in a higher quality, newly built facility. Also, downtown parking gets more scarce and pricey every week, I swear.
Lately some of the downtown movies have been migrating up to Alamo Village, which isn’t the greatest theater facility either, but it’s near my house and has much better parking than the downtown location. A couple of weeks ago, Alamo Village showed Monty Python and the Holy Grail as a midnight movie. Now I have no excuse to miss groovy midnight movies … except for my lame old-fogey, early-bird hours.
(Hell, they have wireless. I could write about a movie while I was watching it if I wanted to. Y’all shoot me if you ever catch me doing that in a theater.)
And now I can’t use cost as an excuse to miss Monday night movies downtown. Cheap movies, yay!
A theater has wireless?
What for?
(Have I hopelessly relegated myself to the realms of the uncool by even asking such a question?)
I didn’t get the “basement of the Alamo” joke. Do I have to be Texan?
(Have I hopelessly relegated myself to the realms of the uncool by even asking such a question?)
No Ackblom, you don’t really have to be Texan. I’m from Illinois but I would know better than to look for my stolen bicycle in the basement of the Alamo.
Considering the kind of legal problems that have been Xperienced by the star of this referred-to movie, at least some of the films shown in the Basement of the Alamo should be porn.
Here is an explanation of the reference to the basement of the Alamo.
Okay, believe it or not, when we were in London one February and taking a tour of the Tower of London, in a largely European crowd —
At one point the Beefeater suddenly said, “Is there anyone here from Texas?”
Sam and I raised our hands, and a couple on the other side of the crowd did, too. So the Beefeater said, “It has been my experience that whenever Texans leave home, they get homesick. So please everyone join with me in making them feel closer to home.” At which point he sang, “The stars at night, are big and bright…”
And the majority of people in the crowd all clap-clap-clap-clapped and sang, “Deep in the heart of Texas!”
Which reminds me — we actually have this on video, and it would make a really cool download….
(The other great Alamo movie is Viva Max!)