Monday, August 1, 2011

Day 24: The Turtles Visit the Alamo Drafthouse

Tonight the wife and I went to one of our favorite places in Austin, The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. If you've never been you're missing out. On the surface it's just a movie theater with tables that serves food and alcohol, but beneath that there are a whole lot of levels of awesome.

Alamo Drafthouse is constantly hosting special events including, but definitely not limited to, movie themed feasts, quote-alongs, sing-alongs, hecklevision (terrible movies where you're texted jokes appear on screen), plus a bunch of rare and indie releases. A few of the notable events we've been to are the Lord of the Rings extended trilogy feast, an Amelie feast, a Titanic Valentine's Day feast (where we ate the actual last meal served on the Titanic), a Moulin Rouge sing-along, a Kill Bill (pts. 1 & 2 feast), a Good Burger feast (with all you can eat burgers) and a whole bunch of midnight screenings (first run and older movies).

At one of the Harry Potter midnight screenings all the theater numbers had been changed to Harry Potter classroom names. We were in Defense Against the Dark Arts and were treated to wizard wrock band The Remus Lupins before the movie started.

I've seen Ghostbusters on the big screen there several times, as well as Three Amigos on Cinco de Mayo and Life of Brian on Easter. We even drove out to Marfa, TX recently to watch free Rolling Roadshow screenings of Giant and No Country For Old Men.

With all of these awesome things happening constantly you can see why we love Alamo so much, but it's also the little things that make a difference. For one thing there are no commercials before any of the movies. Everyone is instead encouraged to show up early so they can enjoy the always hilarious and often nonsensical pre-shows. Usually these are a collection of found videos that have some minor connection to the movie about to be shown.

Another thing I love is that kids are not allowed in the theater. I don't have anything against kids seeing movies in general, but I've have too many bad experiences with movies being ruined because of a group of 13 year-olds who don't care about what's going on in the theater. At Alamo, anyone under 16 needs a parent with them and no one under 6 is allowed except to special Baby Day screenings. Which brings me to another of the things I love about Alamo: their zero tolerance no-talking policy. You may have seen this video on the internet before, but it's really just the most publicly known of their many no talking videos they play before every movie and they are dead serious about it.


Did I smash in all of the things I love about Alamo Drafthouse? Doubtful, but it's time to discuss today's drawing which I actually did in our seats before the movie started. After we ordered our food I realized I hadn't done a drawing so I sketched this one out on an order card. It's all four of the turtles enjoying pizza, popcorn and drinks at the Alamo Drafthouse. The box at the top is obviously the projector booth. If I had to guess I'd say they're probably at the Ninja Turtles Pizza Party, which is a totally real thing that I have never been able to attend.

Thanks to this blog now you know at least two things to do in Austin if you ever visit, and I feel happy for being able to educate you.

2 comments:

  1. Happy those good turtles aren't drinking a "growler of ale". I'm sure it's DP they're drinking.

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  2. I don't believe I ever said what was in their drinks. If Donatello cooks meth it's perfectly within reason that they might be drinking beer. Probably Alamo Amber. It's a well documented fact that turtles love amber beers.

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