"Nine"... Regal Arbor Great Hills Auditorium 2, January 31st 2010

"Up In The Air" Alamo Drafthouse South, January10th 2010

"Leap Year" Cinemark Cedar Park, January 9th 2010

"Avatar"... Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek Auditorium 1... December 31st 2009

Evidently the Lake Creek Alamo has decided to follow in its original owners' footsteps and install Sony's 4K projectors for a digital 3D experience. Avatar did not disappoint, though the movie was darker than I remember it... I would prefer it brighter... definitely need to see a 2D screening somewhere to see how bright it can be. The Lake Creek Alamo maintains an inventory of viewing spectacles that is not refreshed with new ones every screening... this undoubtedly saves them money and is better for the environment, as there aren't 150 sets of spectacles getting thrown in the trash every 3 hours. However, it isn't necessarily better for us, because the spectactles aren't new - they're covered in smudges and fingerprints, especially on the lenses!

food = mediocre

different menu to the original venues

non-feature projector was not straight and was off the top of the screen

sound = great

booming from next auditorium

2/3rds full

"Avatar"... Alamo Drafthouse South... Auditorium 1... December 22nd 2009

Different glasses, the Real3D standard type w/ reflections
Light from entryway
popcorn & guinness = good
sound not as dynamic, extension not as deep
picture blurry? this 4K cannot compete w/ IMAX
ending credits were better

"Avatar"... Bob Bullock IMAX... December 18th 2009

The first in a series of viewings I have no doubt.
The IMAX picture didn't fill the screen
film - one scratch at beginning
super-crisp, could read all text
annoying V/O guy at end over music
dialogue during 3D
crowd in movie seemed to be in the auditorium
audio didn't boom or seem like a demo
only one trailer, alice
big red spectacles
3D don't rotate your head
eyes too transfixed to worry about food or restrooms

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" Alamo Drafthouse South... Auditorium 6... December 13th 2009

The Alamo South's dark auditorium was the first thing to impress. No! Their upscale and pretty darn clean restrooms were the first thing to impress. Or maybe... was it the large amount of legroom? No, I think it was the relief I got as I first walked in, and saw how large the room is. The Alamo South's custom-built rooms appear to be larger than the Lake Creek location, which was a real THX-screened cinema before the Alamo took it over. Anyhow by the time the movie started off I was in a pretty good mood. The film trailers looked OK except I immediately noticed a band of picture projecting off the bottom of the screen, onto the black wall! Sacrilege, for such a place as the Alamo. When The Fantastic Mr. Fox started and the problem was continuing in exactly the same way, I wrote this on a piece of paper and allowed a waiter to come and read it. He saw what I was talking about and walked out of the auditorium. I didn't really know what they were going to do about this. It turns out that they didn't do anything - they were mid-way through a transition to 4K Digital in this auditorium, and today happened to be the last day of film projection here. That was a reasonable excuse!

This review would not be complete without mentioning... my favourite new discovery on their menu! On a whim I decided to forego my usual asian chicken salad and get their "Big Fish" Tacos. Wow... talk about a taste explosion! Definitely worth trying.

"An Education"... Arbor At Great Hills Auditorium 6... December 6th 2009

I arrived with trepidation, since this cinema has had pretty disappointing projection for the last few movies I've seen here. The Sprint "please silence your cellphones" image was on screen 'til about 4 minutes past scheduled start. When the motorised curtains widened for cinemascope presentation and the trailers began, the first trailer was for Up In The Air, and it abruptly started half-way into the trailer! Never got to see the first part. But this is a trailer I saw the night before a the Alamo, and I got the feeling it was "zoomed in" ie. the edges of the picture were missing, perhaps, projected off the edge of the screen. A trailer for The End Of Poverty definitely had some picture, including subtitles, off the bottom edge of the screen. An Education finally started, looking pretty sharp around the edges with no black anywhere on the screen, and no visible parts of the film clearly off the edges of the screen.

The sound was adequate, that is to say, this movie could probably do with better sound presentation, but it's no Michael Bay picture. It sounded like it could have been an optical soundtrack, it had that olde-world optical feel noticeable at the beginning (harder to notice once you're used to it by the middle of the story). No artifacts or clicks/pops however.

The biggest problem, one which had me cleaning my glasses, was that the picture was jumping up and down very quickly, and by a very slight amount. This was most noticeable on high-contrast edges, for example the glint in characters' eyes, or static or moving credits. Generally a lack of clarity to the image. This was very disappointing in otherwise what was probably the best image I've seen at this cinema in a while. I very much hope that a twist of the projector's shutter knob is all that is needed to correct this.

"Men Who Stare At Goats" Alamo Village... Auditorium 4... December 5th, 2009

While it is common to have bad lip sync in trailers while cutting quickly from shot to shot and bridging them with dialogue clips, the trailer for the Matt Damon movie Green Zone appeared to have more lip sync errors than most, and the unlikeliest spots... I was worried that it might continue into others, but the rest of the evening's presentation didn't suffer noticeably, however.

We sat too far back this time, in fact one row from the back row. With the auditorium being the longish, narrow shape, the sound seemed uninvolving and somewhat muddied - this principally because nearly all the surround speakers were in front of us, and the front speakers were over 100ft. away. Lesson - don't sit near the back if you need clarity and involvement.

Let this not take away from the Alamo's sound system - it rocks when it needs to and has good response from treble to bass.

Picture was bright and sharp... sitting near the back it did not subtend a large angle at the eye and reminded me of a TV. Lack of jitter & weave contributes to this feeling too.

Overall a commendable presentation from the Alamo. I had a tasty Guinness again. Their popcorn seemed more buttery than it ought to have been, but no major complaints.

"Twilight: New Moon" Regal Gateway... Auditorium 13... November 21st, 2009

I inadvertently ended up in a "small" screen at the Gateway this time, as I wasn't the one who booked the tickets (the movie was on like 6 screens here). No matter, I want to review every auditorium in town, so here goes!

After a protracted session of stops & starts (I could see the projectionist was examining the projector quite a bit), the film material started on-time, more or less. Unfortunately Auditorium 13 at the Gateway is a mess, visually. There is a shadow on the left edge of the screen caused by an "EXIT" sign... the sidewall lights shine dimly onto the screen (tragically reducing contrast) and the EXIT sign is right by the screen, causing the shadow - that's my theory anyway. Movies with vampires have plenty of dark scenes, and the shadow is plainly visible and quite distracting. Next - the duvetine at the top of the screen looks like the headliner in a 15-year old Buick - hanging drearily in multiple places along the top of the screen. It's nowhere near a straight line. Until they fix these things I would avoid Auditorium 13 when possible.

Something I am not sure they will ever fix is the legroom - the seat rows are pretty close together. I don't normally think about this but my knees started to get kinda sore during this movie and there really wasn't much in the way of options for different leg positions -the legroom is so cramped.

The best thing about the presentation was the sound, it didn't seem to have any issues.

"2012" Regal Gateway 16 Auditorium 8 AND Alamo Drafthouse Village Auditorium 1... Saturday November 14th 2009

What's this... a review with TWO cinemas? Yes... the Gateway's presentation was SO bad I had to leave and find another exhibitor... in this case Austin's own Alamo Drafthouse, and they OWNED the Gateway in this event. Where do I begin...

My wife and I showed up at the Gateway 16 and took our seat about 2/3rds of the way from the front row. The auditorium was about a quarter-full so there was plenty of choice and we didn't want to sit too close to the front since it was a 2.35:1 movie with a lot of big shots in it. So we were closer to the back than usual.

The video clips were playing when we sat down. Everything seemed fine. This was auditorium 8, one of the Gateway's larger screens. The film materials started more or less on time, with a trailer for Avatar and I immediately sensed something was wrong - unlike the video materials, the sound coming from the film projector was oscillating, jittering, or some other artifact. Also, I couldn't put my finger on it but the picture quality looked terrible. I have watched the trailer for Avatar many times and knew it could look better than this. The CGI tunnel sequences of matter transfer and the Avatar floating in the tank looked like bad digital projection, almost as if they were projecting a WMV! There was colour banding and other visual blurriness. This was a terrible picture. I rolled my eyes and waited for the next trailer, which seemed fine (though it was because of the particular style of music). Any time music with constant notes or high tones was in the soundtrack, the artifact problem was evident. My wife was unable to notice it :(. Anyhow three or four trailers had gone by, without the problem rectifying itself, and it dawned on me that I might be sitting through two hours of a pretty bad movie, projected terribly. My time is worth more than that, not to mention the ticket money! As I feared, 2012 started and the sound was oscillating and jittering. Just 2 or 3 minutes into the movie, I told my wife I was not going to enjoy this... so she agreed very magnanimously that we should leave and find the movie somewhere else. I went back to the box office and got a refund, telling them that the sound was messed up in Auditorium 8. I got the feeling that they weren't surprised, or knew about it already. Please, Gateway, fix this problem! And thank you for refunding ticket money upon request - something not all cinemas do.

Outside, we checked the Chronicle's web site and saw that the Alamo Drafthouse Village was showing the movie shortly - so we headed over there. I was prepared to tolerate the Village's smaller screen and less proficient sound system, since they have those great digital projectors (and I was still hurt by the Gateway's projection quality and just wanted to see the movie anywhere).

I am ultimately so glad I had this experience, because it allowed me to A-B the two cinemas with the same film. The Alamo wins hands-down on both picture and sound quality. It was totally obvious how much better the Alamo's picture was - crisp, bright and more highly-resolved than the Gateway's. The sound was tight and bass extension was deep and firm... it was actually better than the Gateway's. I am going to have to hang up my hang-ups about the Alamo Village from now on. I know I've griped about a few things in the past, but they showed how things should be done, right when I needed it. Regal ought to pay them a visit.

For the record, the Alamo Village still has the little patch of illuminated screen at the bottom edge, same as when I noticed it during Star Trek months ago. However, I did not notice the problems with the top of the screen as I had seen before, nor the blotchy patch at center-left, so perhaps those have been fixed. The small illuminated patch at the bottom rim is a teeny-tiny-small price to pay for such otherwise great picture and sound, and I wholeheartedly recommend Auditorium 1. Add to that tons of legroom and a decent food menu, and what more could you ask for?

"The Damned United"... Regal Arbor At Great Hills Auditorium 4... Sunday November 8th 2009

The usual presentation standards from the Arbor at great Hills - nothing to write home about, and in fact pretty depressing. The movie is not the kind that tests a sound system like a summer blockbuster. The projection was sharp enough but didn't seem that bright, and had soft edges. The biggest mistake was that the picture was projected too high on the screen - starting with a 6-inch band of black (or naked white screen depending on your POV) across the bottom edge of the screen, and by the end of the film this band was about a foot high. Could this have been fixed by a simple turn of the FRAME knob on the projector? Come on Regal, take a look at the film every once in a while.

"The Informant"... Cinemark Cedar Park Auditorium 1... September 26th 2009

For some reason I did not write this review until today, Wednesday December 30th 2009! I found the ticket during some housecleaning and realised I'd never written the review. So here goes. Cinemark take very seriously their customers' comfort, and this cinema continues that direction, with its plus seats and plentiful legroom. Though it's no Alamo Drafthouse, among regular cinemas these guys have about the most you can get.

The cinema's sound system was not tested strenuously by this film, but did a good job and no artifacting or other particular weakness was noted. The 35mm picture was bright and focussed, with reasonably sharp edges.

This time we were presenting our $7.00 ticket coupons purchased at Costco. The regular ticket price was $9.00.

I should note that we arrived at this cinema several weeks prior to see a different movie, and finding the only seats available to be too close to the screen, we went back to get our money refunded, and Cinemark were only too glad to do so without question. Nice!

"Inglourious Basterds"... Lakeline Starport Auditorium 9... Sunday September 13th 2009

This cinema is "joint-worst-in-Austin" along with the AMC inside Barton Creek Mall. Is it some sort of clue that these companies only have one theater each in Austin? Here is my litany of complaints.

• The layout of the cinema is terrible... on two floors with restrooms only on the lower, and concessions only on the upper. Lots of walking through doors with your food and confusion.
• The projection and cinema construction is weird and unbecoming. A long, narrow auditorium with a medium-sized screen high up on the front wall, there is not much width for stereo imaging. I have to admit that I can't rule out some idiosyncratic mixing technique employed by Quentin Tarantino, but the movie didn't have a lot of width to the soundfield, nor did it hardly ever use the surrounds for anything. The culprit more than likely is the cinema IMO. There was all sorts of boom and reverberation at some frequencies, and a general lack of hi-end to the sound... I am not convinced it was digital sound, though the soundtrack was flawless & no artifacting was detected. Picture was generally well focused but not pin-sharp, and was projected off the left edge of the screen onto the wall. The other oddity about this cinema is that the screens are curved. The only cinema in Austin like it. I assume it's some sort of method of maintaining focus or brightness across the screen, but it is unusual enough to distract.
• Rowdy patrons... Lakeline Mall is filled with teens that have nothing to do, and they frequently vent their frustrations inside this cinema. I didn't seem to sense the same problem with the AMC at Barton Creek Mall. But there were kids here talking during this movie - and I mean talking, not whispering, who evidently had no clue you're supposed to stay quiet when visiting a cinema! Shining their bright cellphones around, too. Bah. I recommend you avoid this cinema if possible.
• Acoustic isolation was not good... Inglourious Basterds has plenty of quieter scenes, and I am certain I could hear dialogue from the adjoining auditorum!
  

Now, I did exit the auditorium to complain to the management about the rowdy patrons, and they definitely responded with obvious effort to eliminate the problem (though by this time the patrons had quietened down... typical) so good marks there.

"District 9"... Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek Auditorium ?... Saturday August 17th 2009

The Alamo's franchise location at Lake Creek continues to try hard to please. When I saw that their web site's ticket purchasing software by Ready Theater Systems (for which they continue to charge us $1 per ticket to use) was not working, I called their box office, and they were delighted to take my credit card information over the phone and put my tickets into Will Call. Win-win for both of us, since I didn't pay $2 in fees for two tickets, and they still got to sell tickets ahead of time.

Genre favorite District 9 was a hit at this cinema, its formerly-THX-certified acoustics helping a lot versus the Alamo's Village location. Despite the movie seeming to be really loud, the room did not interfere with the intelligibility or clarity. The picture was fine, pretty sharp edges with nothing major projected off the edges. I was concerned that the movie was loud... at first I was certain that the staff must have turned up the sound level beyond cinematic standard. Eventually I got used to the volume level and it seemed fine. I've never had that reaction before at an Alamo. (usually it's a bad Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich film at the Gateway that's simply too loud)

Also, these guys know how to pour a Guinness! No inch-thick foamy head to contend with. Check out the picture expertly taken by my wife -

"Julie & Julia"... Gateway Auditorium 9... August 14th 2009

As I settled into my fourth row center seat among a packed house of 90% women, I thought "hmmm... Gateway... what could go wrong?" My question was answered.

After their obligatory video material sponsored by Sony, the film material started about 7 minutes behind schedule. An odd moment of darkness in the theater as the film projector started up was ended when the house lights came up briefly! And when they went back down, to my surprise the Gateway was running this film without any trailers - it went right into Julie & Julia. The film had a few breaks in it during the first few minutes... so I'm thinking they must have had some sort of projection accident with the film and torn it a couple of times.

The film was projected a couple of feet off-center to the right; the left edge was all blurry, and one could see the picture projected onto the right edge of the front wall. Come on Gateway, fix the projector!

The digital sound cut out a couple of times, pretty much in the middle of the film. The Gateway has Dolby Digital readers mounted in the basement position, where the film comes out of the bottom of the projector all hanky-janky before immediately going into the sound reader; not the best situation for getting a reliable data stream. (but hey, it's easy to thread!)

This movie does not tax any sound system, and I have no comments to make on the sound except that it was mediocre.

The rest of the audience enjoyed the film, which was I guess a sort of Ratatouille with real people instead of rats!

Evening ticket cost - $9.00

"Moon"... Arbor Great Hills... Auditorium 7... Sunday August 2nd 2009

Things started off well when, noticing my Austin Film Society t-shirt, the lady behind the ticket counter knocked $1.50 off my ticket cost due to me being a member! I didn't realise Regal did that. Nice.

I got myself some of their fairly decent popcorn and sat down in the auditorium which was about 1/3rd full. This is one of only two screens showing Moon in Austin. I immediately was struck by how bad the trailers looked. A trailer for The Road looked pretty awesome, but not because of the presentation here! It simply looked out of focus to me. I had my glasses on this time so I know what I'm talking about.

The movie started, with a few quiet buzzes from the soundtrack, as the digital sound kicked in. This auditorium has pretty bad picture, I have to say, the picture was outside the screen on three edges. The screen is almost as wide as the auditorium in this room, which there's nothing wrong with, but when the projector is set up so badly that the film is almost on the side wall, you've got problems! The opening credits were off the edge of the screen, projecting onto duvetine. I wouldn't want to be the person whose name was wrecked by this. Furthermore, the focus seemed soft throughout. I do not think this was the film. There were a few shots in the film that felt deliberately softer in focus, and at this location they were really looking kinda blurred.

The print was getting on a bit, as when Reel 1 was coming to and end, there was the occasional splodge on the picture, and the soundtrack broke down to a very plain-sounding optical for a second or two. I didn't notice any other aberrations in the soundtrack, and otherwise the film didn't seem to have too many scratches or other marks. However, the film was shaking from side to side at the top of the picture - visible most clearly during the end credits, where you'd see people's names emerge at the bottom edge in fairly stable fashion only to exhibit and odd vibration by the time they were leaving at the top. And, the fact that the film itself was off the edge of the cinema screen meant I'll have to wait until the blu-ray version to see the entire picture!!! Come on Regal... fix this picture.

Sound was adequate... there were a lot of low-budget indicators in the soundtrack (for example, library sci-fi sound-effects from some very old commercially available libraries), and I'm not sure there was a lot of bass extension in the soundtrack to be conveyed here - so, it's not such a bad thing that we didn't feel much.

Evening ticket cost w/ AFS discount = $8.00.

"The Brothers Bloom"... Metropolitan... Auditorium 4... July 19th 2009

Thankfully, Regal must have moved their print of The Brothers Bloom from the Arbor 8 down to the Metropolitan instead of sending it back to the distributor. Regal are still the only cinema chain showing this movie in Austin right now.

As we walked into the auditorum (a little late), a trailer for The Hurt Locker was showing, and the sound was fantastic. Much better than some trailers get! Really did its part to make you want to see the film.

I guessed the feature presentation would be scratched up, and I was right. The picture was bright enough though, and the sound system was in fantastic form. This is not a loud, blockbuster movie, but the music track in particular was delightful to listen to, and the low noise-floor of this auditorium really turned it into a hi-fi experience. Picture edges were not too blurry or mis-projected. As the credits rolled up I noticed some characters in the credits' typeface were not that easy to see... perhaps a problem of overall brightness & focus.

A corollary of being at the end of the reel on a much-played print, the digital sound gave up a few times at the very end - once during the film and the rest during the credits. The symptom was a very short fold-down to mono played from the center, though seemingly without a large drop in volume. Not too bad a performance.

Matinee Ticket price... $7.00.

"Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince"... Metropolitan... Auditorium 14... July 18th 2009

Some friends of mine who are relatively new to Austin are moving to the South side, and I wanted to introduce them to their new local theater, the Metropolitan (yes they are lucky!). Unfortunately I made the mistake of not planning properly and we did not get to see this new Harry Potter film in auditoriums 7 or 8. This blockbuster being on multiple screens throughout the Metropolitan, we ended up in auditorium 14, which doesn't suck (if you want the short version of this review), but it isn't... the biggest.

We were enthusiastic about seeing the movie on its opening weekend and planned to get there plenty early. It turns out we were over-reacting... the screening was not sold out and we were the first in line. This wasn't bad, the place was sparkly-clean and did not smell bad whatsoever (sometimes that is an issue for theaters). We were let into the auditorium after the last of the previous show's patrons had left, and when we went in, the credits from the previous screening were still showing, so we knew we had a while to wait. The theater's movie trivia slides loop was playing, and as we dutifully paid proper attention to them, we noticed they were looping every two minutes! Folks, that is not very long. Forget predicting the answers to the questions... It got to be a joke to predict the next slide.

Anyhow the video marketing show started up, and as the Sprint "silence your cellphones and pagers" end-frame started to hold, I noticed it was 3:14pm, four minutes after the advertised movie start-time. At this point, the music faded away and the 2/3rds-full theater crowed proceeded to wait in silence for another solid four minutes. My buddy and I were trying to call the box office to tell them to start the movie! Eventually, at 3:18pm, the film trailers started up.

I have no particular complaints about the presentation, except to say that since it was on film it was generally suffering in a couple of normal ways - soft edges to the picture, and it was rather dim. Jitter and weave were minimal, shutter speed was set correctly, and there were no scratches to speak of, though some reel-changes (ironic in these days of horizontal platters) were pretty obvious. The sound was epic - the large room helping to add a nice, and not domineering, reverb to the soundtrack. The room had a low noise floor, though Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince is the kind of movie that will rarely showcase it. I think the sound had a "soft" edge to it, a sort of obscuring, preventing the real soundtrack from coming through. This could be a limitation of Dolby Digital (if indeed that was the presentation format) which stores a 640Kb/s lossy-compressed data stream on the film for 5.1 audio. Digital projection, which uses the original master mix directly from the re-recording stage without any compression, will be a pleasant upgrade.

Next time... auditoriums 7 or 8 !!!

Ticket price... $7 plus a ludicrous $1.50 Fandango ordering fee - bah.

"Terminator: Salvation" Galaxy Highland 10... Auditorium 2... Sunday June 21st 2009

Ah... this is how the movie was supposed to look and sound. Glad I showed up! The terrible presentation at the AMC a while back was still in my mind, but seeing the film again at a proper cinema restored my faith in the T-franchise.

The picture and sound quality in this cinema were up to their usual high standards - bright picture with sharp edges, no scratches or other artifacting, and flawless sound with deep bass and plenty of punch all around. More than enough to give anyone a hearty recommendation to try the Galaxy Highland 10.

There was an interesting development I will have to report on in a future post - a big sign on the outside wall of the cinema stated the Galaxy Highland 10 was offering "D-BOX" bass management in this auditorium (and I think, the only place in Austin to do so).

What is DBOX/How does it work? It's basically a financially-efficient way to add more bass to your sonic experience. The conventional way would be to add larger subwoofers to the array behind the screen. In order to feel the bass at your seating position, the speakers back there need to be really loud, of course, and this requires more powerful amplifiers and a bigger electric bill. Unfortunately this is usually heard in the next auditorium, so you also need thicker walls. Cinema owners don't like to pay for that stuff. DBOX is a new solution that puts a small, but deep subwoofer into each seat! This actually saves on sonic energy since the speaker only needs to vibrate your chair... so it's not felt in the next auditorium, or shaking the place to bits. This is a much more efficient use of energy. There is an installation cost to bear, since regular $50 cinema chairs can't be used.

I asked the ticket counter person about the DBOX process and they responded "its $15 a ticket and assigned seating." That made me wince and I didn't go for it... just got a regular ticket. (In retrospect, I regret this... I'm Mr. Austin CinemaCritic!!!) A kiosk w/ small projection TV was sitting in the foyer next to the Terminator: Salvation doorway, and a few patrons were standing around watching the punters in the demonstration seats. Honestly it sounded pretty darn muddy to me, but I didn't actually sit in the demo seats. Inside the auditorium, the DBOX subwoofers were not in all seats of the theater, just a band of rows in the middle. The cinema was about 1/3rd full, and the DBOX seats were almost all occupied, so the new system was definitely finding a connection with patrons.

I think I noticed my first pixelisation on this 2K digital projector - it was the trailer for Bruno, whose titles were not anti-aliased. The pixels were nice and sharp, indicating, at least, that the projector was correctly focused. All the other titles in this show were anti-aliased so it was impossible to see pixels.

The DBOX seats still had an effect on the screening, IMO. I felt like there was generally a lot more bass and rumble in the auditorium than usual.

I am sure I will try the DBOX experience next time... stay tuned. Kudos to the Galaxy theater chain for trying out this new system. (along with digital projection and great sound!)

Cinemark Installing 4K Digital Projectors

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1156483

"The Taking Of Pelham 123"... Alamo Drafthouse Village... Auditorium 1... Wednesday June 17th 2009

The movie was up to the usual standards of 4K Digital at the Alamo Village. No visual artifacting except for the three abberations I pointed out a few weeks ago during Star Trek (all three are still there), or sound issues, beyond the overall acoustic performance. I am sure this Tony Scott-directed movie has lower bass extension than is evident at the Alamo Village, but nevertheless it's still a screen to be proud of.

I had the Alamo's Asian Chicken Salad, a Guinness, and their Molten Chocolate Cake A La Mode (total bill $20.50) All were quite yummy, and though the freezing, almost fizzy Guiness isn't as authentic as a smooth, mild-temperatured Irish pouring, it's still a pleasure to guide down the gullet.

I used my voucher from a previous visit. I had to sign my name and provide them with a phone number, I suppose this is to catch those creating their own supply of counterfeit vouchers!

"The Hangover"... Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek... Auditorium 5... Sunday June 14th 2009

This was an otherwise normal event at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, with reasonable picture and sound quality, but there was one stand-out issue... after a lot of Alamo Drafthouse company trailers, and then a couple of actual film trailers, the Hangover movie started up proper and about half a second into the Warner Brothers studio logo, the sound cut out completely! Like someone flipped the power switch accidentally. The film proceeded into its opening titles, and more and more patrons at this sold-out screening started to realise there was a problem (no sound whatsoever). Alamo wait staff did not appear to be behaving much differently, though it is hard to believe they were ignorant of the issue. Anyway, the sound came back on with a click about 30 seconds later, and seemed to become stronger about 10 seconds after that. A few minutes later, everyone had forgotten and were enjoying the movie.

I didn't notice anything particularly untoward about the picture or sound after that, no digital artifacting, scratches to speak of or other classic issues, even though the picture was on film.

Matinee ticket cost = $7.25.

"Terminator: Salvation"... AMC Barton Creek 14... Auditorium 11... Sunday June 7th 2009

OMG, we have a new "Worst Cinema In Austin" record-holder. Or rather, the first recordholder... the standard-setter, I suppose. AMC's only theater in Austin, the Barton Creek 14.

We arrived at the cinema inside Barton Creek Mall, which was still open around 5:40pm on a Sunday, and joined the pretty long ticket line, where there were multiple windows, but only one staffer selling tickets. Spotting a credit card machine, my wife smartly stepped past the entire line and bought our tickets. However the cost was $9.69 per ticket! Pretty expensive considering they weren't purchased in advance from some remote location.

Not only does Auditorium 11 have a pretty crummy design specification, during my visit it was not meeting that specification. As far as word-of-mouth goes, it does not help Terminator: Salvation to be presented in this way.

FYI we entered the auditorium too late to see any trailers, unfortunately, and the music over the opening titles was playing. But I knew there was trouble even as we walked in towards the front row to begin our ascent to the seat. The title music sounded terrible - very little bass to speak of, and in fact generally sounding like old technology, old cinema construction. It was muddy and not enthralling whatsoever. I actually still recall how good the opening titles music for Terminator 2: Judgement Day sounded at the Lincoln 6, back in 1991 - and it had a better effect on me than this! (mind you, improving over the opening titles of 1984's mono The Terminator didn't take much)

As I sat down, in pretty much the ideal spot, I realized how small the screen is... it might only be 30' across! This is one of the smallest screens in Austin, about as big as a millionaire's private cinema, or a screening room in the actual movie-making business. The seats were moderately comfortable though, with a good stadium raking to the rows. Sometimes a small screen gets you a more concentrated, less grainy sort of movie, but that didn't outweigh the other problems here. The AMC Barton Creek 14 ran almost the entire gamut of problems.

Taking picture first, the screen is small, sure, but if engineering is carried out correctly you could still enjoy the picture. Unfortunately, the print had several scratches running along what seemed to be its entire length; the picture was not actually shining at the center of the screen, there was at least a foot of Terminator: Salvation being projected onto the dark auditorium wall at the left of it; focusing and edges were relatively sharp actually, not too much complaint there. The picture was not particularly bright, which could be the cinematography but I have a feeling it isn't.

Moving on to sound, as I said this hit me as soon as I walked into the room. It never got any better. At first I thought there was no subwoofer in there or it was simply switched off, but it was clear during the early scene depicting the resistance's mission to infiltrate the cyborg facility that there was plenty of bass in the soundtrack; it manifested itself as a constant boom, unfortunately, without a lot of clarity. Sorta like what you hear outside a car when the owner has the bass turned up too much. It left me longing to hear the movie again, somewhere else. Bass never got any clearer in the movie. It was presented in digital sound, but you'd never know it from the openness and frequency response of the sound. The clue was that digital artifacting grew in seriousness throughout the length of the movie, starting now and again around 1/3rd through, ruining long brass notes in the music track by 2/3rds through, but by the time of the end credits, ending up simply broken-sounding, with the music sounding downright awful. This sound system really chewed up Danny Elfman's music and made it sound terrible. There is very little high-end response here (or it wasn't present in the soundtrack... unlikely), not very open, airy or informative. I felt like I was a person who'd been losing my hearing for many years. Surround sound was evident now and again, but was impulsive and dynamic (to the point of being absent usually), and directionally not very clear.

My wife (who is not an engineer) commented that, even to her, this cinema was so bad she was certain I'd be giving it a bad review herself.

I cannot understate the crappiness of this auditorium, and recommend you avoid it if you are interested in good audio-visual presentation. If you don't really care how good a movie looks and sounds, you won't be that offended.

Ticket cost - $9.69 (bah).

Response From Regal Cinemas, re: Star Trek @ Metropolitan

If you recall, I wrote to Regal Cinemas in regard to what I thought was a busted center loudspeaker in their otherwise splendid Auditorium 7. The response couldn't have turned out better. First I got an email of thanks from Teresa Welsh at Regal's corporate HQ, then I got an email of thanks from Pat Edwards, the manager of the theater! Pat wrote:

"Hello, My name is Pat Edwards and I am the general manager of the Metropolitan 14 Theatres. First of all, I want to apologize for the horrible sound problems that you experienced for Star Trek. We diagnosed the problem as a bad tweeter in the center speaker and replaced the part. I really want to thank you regarding your comment about the quality of the presentations in auditoriums #7 and #8. We are constantly focusing on great presentations so when this happened we too were devastated."

It goes to show, our comments and feedback can make a difference. Both ladies sent me two complimentary tickets, too, so now I have four. :) I don't think it can get any better than that. Great customer service, Regal!