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Outdoor movie night in Austin (Credit: Ben Sklar)
Living in Austin sometimes feels like living in an eternal, year long film festival. In addition to Austin Film Society and all the film festivals that happen in this town, we also get the Cinema East summer series.
Every summer Sunday at 9 PM, Cinema East hosts creative, independent films on the lawn of the French Legation in East Austin. This is an excellent way to end the weekend: watching a film, Austin style. [Read more…]
Marquee at The Paramount Theatre
For the past 99 years, Austinites have enjoyed having The Paramount Theatre on Congress Avenue. When it first opened in 1915, it was called The Majestic Theatre.
When I was a kid, The Paramount presented a lot of kid-friendly plays that my parents and elementary school took me to all the time. I had always heard that it “used to” be a movie theater. What I didn’t understand then was that the venue hosted many types of shows, including plays, musical acts, cinema, and even Vaudeville in its early days.
One of the earliest memories I have of the theater was when my dad took me to see the entire Star Wars trilogy in one sitting. Today, The Paramount Theatre continues to show classic cinema favorites through its Paramount Summer Classic Film Series, allowing other Austinites to make memories of their own. [Read more…]
The exterior of Marchesa Hall and Theatre
As a native Austinite, I have a lot of memories of going to the Lincoln Village Theater when I was a kid. The last movie I remember seeing in that theater’s era was Star Trek First Contact in 1997.
Austin has changed in a lot of different ways since then. Within that time, the shopping center has been purchased by private owners and rebranded as The Linc. The movie theater in particular is now called The Marchesa Hall and Theatre.
When you walk into The Marchesa, it’s like walking into a movie museum. The walls are decorated with old film posters, as well as record covers of vintage soundtracks. Partnered with the Austin Film Society, this venue has a 280-seat theater, equipped with Dolby surround sound and projectors for both 35MM and the currently used DCP. While these specs are pretty standard for a multiplex, they’re more unique for [Read more…]
Mondo gallery creates limited edition film posters that sell out online in less than a minute
This guest blog article is by Robert Luke.
Austin is notorious for being a movie town. Any given week, a TV or film production is happening somewhere in town. Additionally, between all of the film festivals, Austin Film Society, and Alamo Drafthouse, there is always a fun movie event to attend, whether you’re a hardcore cinephile or an average moviegoer.
Alamo Drafthouse has had such an impact on the film-watching community that there are multiple people who claim they moved to Austin just because of the Drafthouse and Fantastic Fest. Mondo Gallery is yet another local phenomenon that has spawned from Austin’s love of film.
Originally, back when Alamo Drafthouse was located on Colorado Street (where Haven currently resides), before the move to South Lamar, it had a small t-shirt stand called Mondo Tees. During that time, Mondo Tees began to sell creative, licensed posters to various film screenings, creating a rabid fan base among movie collectors and graphic design enthusiasts. [Read more…]
Tim League is the mind behind Alamo Drafthouse (Photo credit: Wikipedia.org)
People love movies. Just ask them. They love seeing Rocky beat the odds against Apollo Creed. They love seeing an underdog truck driver win an arm wrestling contest and the heart of his son. They love seeing Rambo avenge the woman he loves by taking down a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp and freeing long lost soldiers. They might even love my love of Sylvester Stallone movies. Yet few people love movies as much as Tim and Karrie League.
In the late 1990’s, Tim and Karrie wanted to share their love of movies, food and beer with Austin. With a bolt of inspiration, they opened a small, one-screen theater downtown. Their enthusiasm was infectious and drew the attention of directors like Richard Linklater and Quentin Tarantino. From there, their venture blew up. The Leagues expanded Alamo Drafthouse Cinema with multiple locations around Austin.
Austin Film Festival screening at The Paramount
October is upon us! Fall is in the air and maybe, just maybe, you can comfortably wear a jacket at night. Most of the world looks forward to the end of October because of Halloween. But in Austin, many of us look forward to the Austin Film Festival!
The Austin Film Festival is an annual film festival and conference that occurs at the end of October at different theaters and venues in downtown Austin. Currently in its 20th year, the event specializes in being the festival for screenwriters. Not only does Austin Film Festival feature many different films from around the world, it also hosts extremely memorable panels, as well as pitch competitions. So if you’re a budding screenwriter (like me) or if you happen to have that one script hiding under your seat, this is the festival to go to. [Read more…]
Enjoying The Show! Austin at Spiderhouse Ballroom (Photo credit: Rudy Ximenez Photography)
The Austinot loves supporting local creatives. We have covered film competitions, art museums, and more live entertainment than you can shake a stick at. Learning about The Show! Austin, however, was a special treat. The Show! is an hub for Austin-only entertainment. If you love film, comedy, or anything in between, then The Show! is a must-see.
You may not know this, but Austin, Texas is home to some of the best entertainers in the country. It makes sense if you think about it. Austin is weird. Austin is creative. Austin is educated. And we’ve still got that Texas “Come and Take It!” spirit. Roll all that up with some cameras and a boom mic, and you get our distinct anti-Hollywood entertainment industry. We create things Los Angeles will not. [Read more…]
Fantastic Fest is home to lovers of science fiction, cult and horror films (Photo credit: Jack Plunkett)
This guest blog article is by Robert Luke.
The newest Alamo Drafthouse location lies past the northwest, intersecting highways that precede the Lakeline area. Last week, that theater hosted the infamous Fantastic Fest. For the uninitiated, Fantastic Fest is an annual, ten-day film festival specializing in acclaimed science fiction, cult, and horror films from all over the world.
But the films are only half the fun. When the film geeks, movie stars and film makers are not sitting in a theater, the entire site is one insane, geeky party, featuring debates (with boxing matches), karaoke, and dunking tanks. [Read more…]
This guest blog article is by Lizzy Newsome.
There are few artistic mediums as accessible as animation. The ideas and concepts are born fully illustrated, and the artist’s vision can be shared with viewers of all ages and backgrounds.
On left, Richard Williams the master animator in his studio
This month, the Alamo Drafthouse is bringing Kevin Schreck’s Persistence of Vision to Austin, a documentary centered on the most ambitious animated feature ever created. Or perhaps it should be “never” created. Master animator Richard Williams spent nearly three decades on his animated masterpiece The Thief and the Cobbler, but his dreams for the movie were never realized. The cobbled together film was released in 1993 to little fanfare and resulted in a loss of 24 million dollars. [Read more…]
I arrived on the set of Intramural shortly after 11 PM on their last day of shooting. They were wrapping the film on the football field of Manor New Tech High School, which seemed very quiet that night. I was surprised to hear the breeze and my own footsteps as I walked toward the shoot. A few days earlier, there had been hundreds of extras in the stands along with a booming high school marching band. Despite everyone looking exhausted, each person I spoke with on set told me they were sad this was their last night together. [Read more…]