Monday, October 29, 2007

The Alamo Ritz Opening Week!



After four long months of waiting, the Alamo Ritz Theatre will finally open its doors to the public this week. We’ll have brand new seats, brand new screens, and VIP balcony seating for the first time ever. But even though our upstairs isn’t at all the same as the old Ritz upstairs, and even though we’ve never had a theater that combines first run programming with aggressive amounts of Alamo originals and small scale indies, the newest Alamo will be firmly connected to more than 75 years of history.

The Ritz Theatre opened on Sixth Street on October 13, 1929, and was the first theatre in Austin specifically designed for the talkies (that’s movies with sync sound, for those of you who don’t speak ‘20s). Even though Sixth Street had begun its life as a hustle and bustle hot spot for shopping and entertainment due to its proximity to the trains and ease of transportation, the Sixth Street of the 1930s had been eclipsed by Congress Avenue ever since the opening of the Capitol building in 1888. To compete with the Paramount, which was renovated and designed for talkies in 1930, the operators of the Ritz decided to specialize in first-run Westerns, which it supported by bringing in stars of the genre and booking live country music acts before the featured film. Genre stars? Live music in a movie theater? Damn it. We thought we were originators…


Inside the Ritz, 1932


Like so many other movie houses before it, the Ritz Theatre eventually fell to the increased popularity of television, and in 1964 the original theatre was closed. Six years later it re-opened as an “adult theater,” but not in the same way that we’re an adult theater (they served porn instead of alcohol). Sixth Street itself had been a bit of a No-Man’s Land since the 1940s, when the streetcars that used to service it were dismantled and turned to scrap to aid in the war effort, and it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that entrepreneurs decided to take advantage of all of the empty buildings and started developing the area into the entertainment district it would eventually become famous as. The Ritz joined in and became a music venue in October of 1974, initially programming an eclectic mix featuring everything from classical to rock and including live theater and movies. But the real music era for the Ritz began on May 7, 1982, when Black Flag played there, inaugurating the Ritz’s Punk Era. Since that time, the Ritz has been known as a music venue, bar, and pool hall. But all of that is about to change.


Minor Threat plays the Ritz, 1982


Since last April, we’ve been hard at work completely remodeling and renovating the Ritz Theatre to create a fresh two story space for movies, live comedy, interactive events, and just about anything else we can dream up. We’ll have Westerns that point back to the beginning of the theater, we’ll have hints of adult programming every Wednesday, we’ll have punk rock on the screen and in the theater, and we’ll also be doing things that we can guarantee that building has never, ever seen before. The new chapter of the Alamo Ritz Theatre begins as a new chapter in Austin’s history is ramping up as well, with a new downtown that will inevitably give rise to a new Sixth Street, and it all starts this Thursday, November 1, 2007. Check out the theatre's home page on our site, or head to the Ritz calendar page to see everything we've got coming in for the next two months.

Inside Theater 1 at the Alamo Ritz Theatre, October 25, 2007 (one week before opening)

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Halloween at the Alamo!



Holy crud, we love this holiday. It's got something for everyone, you know? Are you a little kid? You get to go around taking candy from strangers! Are you a college student just starting to experiment with alcohol? You get to dress up in those store-bought novelty costumes and actually still think it's HILARIOUS that you're dressed as a plug and your girlfriend is dressed as a socket! Are you a film geek? Then you get to come to the Alamo and melt your brain with delicacies for your eyes, ears, and taste buds!

First up, we've got four more shows of MASTER PANCAKE THEATER's mockery of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN. I know, I know - John Carpenter is a master. That's true. But so is the Pancake crew. With two geniuses like that paired together, you get to laugh and get scared, all at the same time. Your bowels may never recover.

On Halloween night itself, P. Kellach Waddle and his PKW Productions will attack the Alamo South Lamar with an orgy of horrific sounds when they present THE EXORCIST with a live chamber concert featuring performances of that film's score as well as several other pieces too chilling to play in any other month but October.

Or if you've had your appetite whet by Master Pancake's showings of the first HALLOWEEN, maybe you're ready to come out to our second annual Alamo Halloween party hosted by Owen Egerton. Owen is a FIEND for HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS, and if he had his way every day would be Halloween and every night we would show this movie. But because we only let him share it with you one night a year, he's going to make sure you remember it forever. Expect live appearances from monsters along with staple Alamo Halloween party games and a costume contest before the movie, then stick around to have a beer with Owen afterward and tell him how much you appreciate him turning you on to what just may be the greatest horror sequel of all time.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Thursday at Lamar: THE BIRDS FEAST


If Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS has one lesson to teach us, it is this: we are lucky. We're lucky that the birds in our world haven't decided to attack us, because there's no way we'd be able to fend them off. Avian flu? Please. It's kinda scary, but it will only kill MOST of the humans on the planet. Angry avians? They would be unstoppable. Sure, if you were stuck in a room with only one or two of them, you'd probably be able to survive. But birds are like zombies; they travel in flocks and they attack en masse. And even if we did somehow manage to kill them all off, then here in Austin we'd just be overrun by crickets. It's a lose/lose situation.

But again, we're lucky. We have dominion over the birds, and because they allow us that luxury, we are going to take FULL advantage of it on Thursday night. Chef John Bullington has put together an amazing all-avian feast that will let you taste a little bit of all of the fowl on screen and remind you that we live in a world where instead of being constantly pecked to death we are free to indulge in delicacies like the incredible Emuquaipartsantgoo, five different birds all stuffed inside the other and available for you to cut into and feast on. I can't wait.

Tickets to THE BIRDS All-Avian Feast are $60 and include admission to the movie, five courses of fowl, and each course served with a matching wine flight. Grab your tickets here, and we'll see you on Thursday!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Saturday Night: MASTER PANCAKE: HALLOWEEN



A boy risks life and limb to return to the only home he's known... A teenaged girl is looking for something to break her out of her rut and give her the courage she needs to experience life to its fullest... When their paths cross on Halloween night, together they'll learn that sometimes love is the trickiest treat of all.

If you haven't seen HALLOWEEN with the live comedy commentary that only Master Pancake Theater can provide, then you haven't seen the real HALLOWEEN. As always, Kerbey Lane Cafe will be on hand with a pancake flipping contest at the beginning of the show and the Pancake boys will break up the action with a live re-enactment scene. Joining Master Pancake for the mockery will be very special guest MARY JO PEHL, one of the writers and performers from the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 TV show!!!

Grab tickets for this weekend's shows at the Village here.

Tickets for the following weekend's shows at South Lamar are right here.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Now Playing at Lamar: WEIRDSVILLE


The Mondrian mosaic of miscellaneous elements from some of the best films of the past 15 years makes the beginning of WEIRDSVILLE a little strange to watch. Your thought process might go something like this: "Hey! It's the gnome from AMELIE! These druggies probably hang out with the guys from TRAINSPOTTING! I wonder if HAROLD & KUMAR will show up? And seriously, where are the nihilists from THE BIG LEBOWSKI? I know they're right around the next corner..." But as dizzying as some of the similarities can be, by the time you get to the medieval weapon wielding midgets, you're fully immersed in an entirely new world. And when all of those seemingly incongruous "wacky" elements start coming back together and flying into place like a game of Tetris played by this guy? You'll wander out of the theater shaking your head a little bit, putting the pieces back together a few hundred times, and ready to watch and re-watch this soon-to-be cult hit over and over again.

Allan Moyle (PUMP UP THE VOLUME, EMPIRE RECORDS) directs this latest entry into the slacker buddy movie canon, and with this film he appears to be setting himself up as the Quentin Tarantino of stoner comedies, right down to the part where he takes underappreciated actors that haven't had a chance to shine in a while and puts them front and center to show us just how wrong previous casting directors have been. Scott Speedman shows more charm than he had as the guy who started it all in FELICITY, and completely makes up for his turn as Michael Corvin in UNDERWORLD. But the real reason to check out the cast in WEIRDSVILLE this weekend at Lamar is to see Wes Bentley as the stoner buddy. Bentley first came across most of our radars as Ricky Fitts, the drug dealing waiter/videographer of beautiful trash bags in AMERICAN BEAUTY, and thinking of this film as a sequel to that? Completely sublime. Of course, it helps if you're under a little bit of an influence, but that would be wrong, so don't do it.