The Changing Landscape of Austin Movie Theaters

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Gold Class Cinemas"If movie ticket prices are $29, the recession must be over." That was the sentiment I heard on Twitter from several people as announcements about Gold Class Cinema opening theaters in Austin and Dallas hit the news yesterday. I have to say, I blinked at the ticket price myself.

The Gold Class Cinema announcement is just one piece of recent Austin news about local movie theaters. The landscape is changing around here. Is it because of the economy, because we have Alamo Drafthouse theaters, or because the ways in which we watch movies are changing? Probably a little of everything.

First of all, Gold Class Cinemas will open a theater in The Domain on May 7. The theater sounds very swanky, and very much in tune with the rest of The Domain: reclining armchairs (with pillows and blankets available), a menu of upscale appetizers and entrees, intimate theater size ... and tickets ranging from $22 to $29. There's also a bar that looks very nice from the photos we've received. We're hoping to check it out soon in person and will certainly report back.

Would you pay $29 for a movie-theater ticket? It sounds almost shocking at first, but think about it a little bit. First of all, the tickets aren't always $29 -- they're cheaper for matinees, or if you sign up for their free "club" (a mailing list that I hope won't be spammy), and on discount nights. Still, we're talking about higher than average ticket prices.

If you're a frequent Alamo Drafthouse theatergoer, you may have already spent that kind of money on tickets. I think Cinemapocalypse cost me $65 last year -- of course, that was for at least four movies (I lost track somewhere around 4 am). The difference is that Gold Class is showing standard first-run movies, like Iron Man 2 and Sex and the City 2, but the films you pay more than usual to see at Alamo are more obscure -- this may be your only chance to see them in theaters -- and often involve a special guest or interesting gimmick.

Still, it's not fair to compare seeing Iron Man 2 in a small theater where you recline in lounge seats, and where one suspects children and rowdy audience members are not welcome (although this is not stated on the Gold Class website), with a big chain theater that has substandard projection and audio, where 400 people pack it in on a Friday night and you just have to deal with the noise. That can be fun in its way -- Chip and I saw Cloverfield with a rowdy crowd in a Metairie, LA theater that served hard liquor and I feel the experience improved my scant enjoyment of the movie -- but it may not be how you want to spend a date night, or watch a film you've been looking forward to.

Will people shell out this kind of money for movie tickets? We spent something like $50 apiece for several Paramount Theatre events this year that involved having one person chat with us for about an hour. I enjoyed the experience but I've often received more pleasure from a very good film. I'm not sure whether I'm ready to pay $22 for a new-in-theaters movie -- I don't know what the projection quality is like at Gold Class, I don't know how they'll handle rowdy audience members, and quite frankly I live in walking distance of Alamo Village, which has 4K digital projection and is as swanky as I need it to be. Maybe after I see the theater in person, I can better answer the question.

As for "the recession is over," I will only note that those $65 Cinemapocalypse tickets sold out almost immediately, and that every Paramount Theatre event I've attended this year has been full if not sold out. Many people in Austin have money to spend on entertainment, and someone who can afford Paramount season tickets can afford Gold Class movie tickets, if they feel like they're getting their money's worth.

By the end of the year, Austin will have another "boutique" movie option, this time downtown. A non-chain arthouse theater, Violet Crown (great name), is scheduled to open  in the AMLI on Second Street at the end of this year. The Austin-American Statesman reports that Bill Banowsky, who founded Magnolia Pictures and was once CEO of Landmark Theatres, will be the four-screen theater's owner-operator. Each theater will seat 50 people ... so don't think of this as an option for SXSW to get some bigger screens for next year. Damn. No word yet on what the Violet Crown tickets will cost, but I would guess they'll be cheaper than Gold Class -- the theater may be competing directly with Alamo Drafthouse Ritz.

Banowsky also founded the Magnolia Theatre in Dallas, which I visited during AFI Dallas back in 2007. I liked the Magnolia very much -- it has a very nice bar, which Violet Crown will also have. It wasn't a luxury moviegoing experience, but felt more like what the Dobie could be if you moved it somewhere with less crazily-shaped theaters and catered to a more upscale crowd. I wondered in the past if Landmark would open a theater in The Domain, and I imagined it would be like the Magnolia. Depending on the parking options (please, let there be parking options), I'd be more likely to see movies at a new downtown theater like Violet Crown than I would at the Dobie.

Perhaps you're wondering how many arthouse choices we'll have downtown, what with the Ritz, Violet Crown and the Dobie. First of all, Ritz doesn't show a lot of traditional arthouse movies. Right now they tend to have one screen showing first-run movies that draw a college crowd -- Hot Tub Time Machine this week, Kick-Ass next week -- and another screen featuring their very eclectic mix of programming, from sing-alongs and quote-alongs to Music Monday, Terror Tuesday and other unique events like an evening of shorts from local filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner, plus Master Pancake comedy and revivals like next month's four-night run of The Evil Dead.

And regarding Dobie ... well, that's my last bit of film news, if you haven't heard already. Landmark Theatres is abandoning the Dobie Theatre. No dates have been set, but Landmark is trying to help the Dobie find a new tenant and does not intend to renew its lease on the Austin theatre.

Over the past few years, the Dobie has been changing -- my guess is that they decided to try to capture the UT student audience instead of the arthouse crowd in an attempt to boost revenue. I have to wonder how effective that was, since college students strike me as less likely to buy concessions, especially the "gourmet" concessions the theater used to offer. They're also not likely to buy DVDs or CDs, which Landmark theaters had started offering in their lobbies.

Dobie still shows independent and foreign films on two screens, but the other two screens have been first-run films. Right now they're showing Clash of the Titans and Hot Tub Time Machine, as well as The Ghost Writer and (exclusively in Austin) Formosa Betrayed. It hasn't been a SXSW venue for years, nor does it host screenings from local filmmakers. The days when it showed Slacker or Hands on a Hardbody for a year are long gone, although admittedly those events happened before Landmark even bought the theater.

No one knows who's going to buy the Dobie and what they're going to do with it. I'm not sure what I'd want. I loved the idea of the Dobie -- the interestingly decorated theaters, the arthouse fare -- but I hated the theater configurations, which especially suck if you're short. I joked that the theaters had been designed by chiropractors hoping to boost their business. They were also poorly soundproofed and I remember sitting through one screening hearing construction work outside banging regularly the entire time.

Dobie strikes me as a good location for a college-student theater, with lots of midnight screenings of cult movies and special screenings of RTF films and that sort of thing. But I'm thinking of my own college moviegoing experiences. How often do current UT students go out to see movies? Most of the ones I knew when I worked at UT tended either to watch illegal copies online, or to go to free preview screenings of new films. A few frequented Weird Wednesday, but for the most part they didn't want to pay full admission prices for movies.

I'd love to see Dobie reconfigured into two bigger, better screens (I have no idea if that's even possible) and again used as a SXSW venue, whatever else it might be during other times of the year. I believe SXSW should have one film venue that's a little off the beaten path, with good parking, that's a good deal for local festgoers and offers passgoers a venue that they always have a pretty good chance of getting into. And I feel a little sad that UT is losing its closest movie theater, especially since the days when the Texas Union showed arthouse or revival films are long gone -- except for Austin Cinematheque.

In the meantime, although the Dobie may be changing or going away, we'll have two new movie theater venues in town. Which one would you be more likely to visit?

Dobie

I saw Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet at the Dobie during SXSW 2008, and I absolutely loved the whole experience. I definitely would love to see the Dobie saved and re-outfitted to be a SXSW venue. It has potential.

If I only had the money...

The Good Old Days

The description of the Violet Crown reminds me of two of my favorite Houston theaters-- the first of which is the Rivers Oaks Theatre on West Gray.
The second arthouse theater whose name escapes me opened later -- 1986? -- between Bellaire and Rice Village areas, with a bar and nice lounge in the lobby. Sadly it didn't last.

Hmmm...

Cecy: Small business loans for women? I know they're out there!

Seriously, the idea of refitting and programming the Dobie is so cool and tempting (Thirties Screwball Comedy Week! One Screen Devoted to Local Indies!), but I can imagine it involves a lot of work with long hours and no financial reward. Like "The Happy Poet" but with a much grimmer ending. Alamo has food/alcohol sales to carry them, at least.

Short or Tall... Uncomfortable

I like the idea of the Dobie, but it's an uncomfortable experience for any height. You may find it hard to see over anyone else in front of you, I get bruised knees when I go there. Some reconfig of the space is in order for the next incarnation.

I like the idea of the Gold Class as a rare treat, but can't imagine paying those kinds of prices with any regularity.

And if the Dobie doesn't get a new owner, then the Violet Crown theater will fill a gaping hole in Austin's cinema landscape. The Alamo Drafthouse does play some arthouse fare, but we need mroe arthouse options than the Arbor, especially for those of us south of the Capitol.

Arbor etc.

I'm hoping that potential competition from Violet Crown will encourage Regal to spend a little more money keeping the Arbor up. We've encountered audio problems on more than one occasion in the past year. And since some movies play exclusively at the Arbor, either you put up with the glitches or get a refund and wait for DVD.

Not sure about Gold Class

The only reason I think that I'd go there for a first run movie is if I rented out the theater for me and my friends for a luxury night out. (Not that that would be able to happen.) Other than that, there's really no reason to see an "exciting" movie with a smaller crowd.

And what if the movie isn't fabulous? Pillows and a blanket = one expensive nap!

Two Demographics

I think Gold Class is going to get two demographics... the north austin yuppies, who want a more discriminating experience (and all that implies), and people who need a break, and just cannot deal with the crowds at an Alamo every once in a while. Ultimately I think it's the people who don't want a theater experience with their theater.

The Screens They Are A-Changin'

I really wish I could get someone else to pay my tab so that I could experience the bourgeois paradise of Gold Class, whose name makes it sound less like a theater chain than a strip club/escort service that offers discounted group rates. I would never, not even on a millionaire's budget, be a regular patron of that place, but I'll be damned if I don't want to sample it just the once.

I'd be interested to see how Violet Crown's ultra-small theaters could fit in to the SXSW ecosystem, whether it becomes an official venue or the beneficiary of studios wanting to show clutch groups of press & industry different things by renting out a couple of screens throughout and staging stealth shows. I'm a fan of the Magnolia in Dallas, one of the few reasonably decent venues there (I'm from a suburb and know most of them pretty well).

I had a similar first thought to what Jette said above about how it's like the Dobie potential combined with strong execution in a modern venue with a sensible business model. I also like her idea of gutting the Dobie and reconfiguring it as two larger, comfortable-for-humans screens and a fresh lease on life. It would take someone in it for the long haul jumping in and finding a way to do something that wouldn't get eaten alive by the combo of the Ritz and Violet Crown

I'd be remiss to not mention that "Violet Crown" would be a great femme Brit superspy name. Perhaps they could get Roman Coppola's art designer from CQ to sketch up a mascot/logo for them. I'd actually make time in my schedule and budget to get to the opening night of a place like VC, especially if they do a bang-up design job on the place.