"Seigfried" Alamo Ritz... Large Auditorium... March 29th 2009

Wow, four movies in three days! Must... get... rest...

This was an unusual show that combines a 1924 silent movie with a local rock band for music, Calm Blue Sea. The music sounded great... this is a great auditorium to listen at high volume levels.

The movie, presented in 1:1.33 was not as crisp as the music; it looked like it was on video, or had videotape-like artifacting. I suppose it is too much to ask for a decent film print. (The only copy of Metropolis I've ever seen was also pretty crappy quality... maybe they're hard to come by)

The band had given the Alamo management a supply of earplugs! To give out to customers who asked for them. Seeing that my wife and I were in row two, and the band about 20 feet away from our noses, I dutifully went down to the box office to get some. To my disappointment, the guys in front of me took the last of the earplugs, and I returned to my seat empty-handed. I did mention it to the waitperson though. The music started, and to our horror it was really loud. Fortunately, our Alamo waitstaff came through for us and brought some extra earplugs about 25 minutes into the movie. Nice!

I would say this specific room is the Alamo Drafthouse company's primo auditorium. In addition to its Downtown Austin location, and its elegantly-decorated foyer, stadium seating, sound system and overall dimensions, it beats out the Alamo South Lamar, which was previously the state-of-the-Alamo-art.

"Sunshine Cleaning" Arbor Great Hills... Auditorium 1... March 29th 2009

Hello all -

Sunshine Cleaning isn't the type of movie that will test the sound system of a cinema, but the Arbor @ Great Hills did fine in this regard. In fact when showing some quieter movies you have to be careful not to program loud movies in the next room... I didn't hear anything else except Sunshine Cleaning, so that was good.

The picture was focussed and bright enough.

Unfortunately - there was a large blurry strip along the left edge of the screen... looks like a bad projector gate.

Matinee ticket cost = $7.00.

"Coraline" Tinseltown South... Auditorium 14... March 28th 2009

Hello all -

I had the opportunity to finally catch Coraline yesterday. It was still the 10th movie in the nation last week after 8 weeks. Very nice movie. Gets a little scary towards the end. Anyhow, Cinemark's Tinseltown South is one of Austin's cinemas that IMO is lower down the scale in the technical aspects, though the construction is very nice. Stadium seating and comfortable chairs whose reclining is supported by springs. They do not use THX certification however.

The picture brightness was just about adequate, I reckon it could do with a bit more life considering Coraline is dark and grey in some parts.

The sound was a problem. It's a problem I've heard many times... the digital sound kept crapping out. This was either due to a scratchy print, where the digital sound reader can't see the digital data well enough, or the digital sound reader is not set up correctly and more errors result. (example, being mounted below the projector head, where it is vulnerable to tons of vibrations) Despite Coraline being in release for a while, the print was not particularly scratchy, so it was probably more likely the latter.

The problem was manifested by sudden, periodic drops in sound volume. This is because when the digital sound reader gives up and says it can't read the film any more, the optical soundtrack is used as a backup. Unfortunately it sounds like it's about 10dB quieter (which laymen will recognize as being "quite a noticeable difference"). I do not know why the two formats are set such a large volume difference... it makes it really obvious when the system switches to optical backup. This was enough to erase some words of dialogue from your comprehension, when the drop-outs occurred at the worst moments. I wish the Tinseltown South manager would get this fixed so that the sound would work reliably. This is the kind of issue that causes me to ask for my ticket money back. (concessions tasted fine though!)

The Tinseltown sound systems are not the best in town either - they have amps next to the projector, and run unbalanced speaker wire all the way to the front. You can hear the buzz.

Coraline is not the kind of movie that really tests the sound system, so I've no specific comments on bass, clarity etc..

Matinee ticket price - $7.00

"Monsters Vs. Aliens" in 3D... Alamo Drafthouse Village... Auditorium 4... March 27th 2009

Welcome folks, my very first review!

The Alamo have historically featured consistently excellent picture quality, among the best in Austin and a benchmark to beat. I'm glad Austin's unique and beloved Alamo chain has taken the step of installing digital projectors. All four of their screens are now digital, they have removed their film projectors. They're Sony's 4K projectors (4096 pixels horizontally) and the picture was bright, fantastically rock-steady & glitch-free. We ought to be thankful that the Alamo's Tim League is a picture and sound enthusiast, and keeps his cinemas free of blurry picture edges and dim lamps. Installing four of these projectors was a major financial undertaking, probably over $100,000 and we salute you Tim!

(Tim's very informative blog post - http://blog.originalalamo.com/2009/03/24/alamo-now-rocks-cutting-edge-digital-3d/ )

The sound was fantastic, though I have to say lacking low-end punch, this perhaps being a corollary of the size of the Alamo Village room. Not too loud, either. (a good thing)

The 3D process was effective. If this type of exhibition really takes hold, as exhibitors and film studios hope, it'll be exciting to see how filmmaking techniques will mature. There are some really immature (but still fun) uses of the format in this movie. Example - the radar monitoring station staffer who is batting his ball towards the camera. There's no real need for this in the story, it's just reminding you "hey, don't forget, this is a 3D movie and since you paid extra bucks to see it, here's the effect!" I'm thinking about how character dramas, and first-person perspectives will be changed over the next few years. It has been a long time since filmmakers got a new tool in their arsenal.

Herefollows a list of complaints!

The 3D tickets are higher in cost. The Alamo's ticket price was $11.75 for evenings and $8.75 for matinees. Exhibitors and studios are saying that extra infrastructure is required to present these movies, and that's probably true, but the question is, are ticket prices going to come down once the improvements are paid for? Very likely, not. I'm reminded of the time when $5 vinyl albums were replaced by $15 compact discs... retail prices of CDs never really fell even when they ended up being $0.50 to produce. The retailers and studios simply raked in the extra cash.
Is this a racket? Alamo charges $6.50/$8.50 at the Village for movies that aren't 3D, for example Duplicity. If it's a 3D movie, the prices are $8.75/$11.75. The only difference to the Alamo is that you get a disposable pair of plastic glasses. There's an expensive digital projector in both rooms.

During my visit to see "Monsters Vs. Aliens" it appeared as if picture was leading sound... i.e. they weren't in proper sync. Just one or two frames - but this was enough to ruin the excellent work of the facial animation staff, since dialogue wasn't in sync with lip movement any more. I very much hope this was just a teething problem with their digital and/or 3D system, which won't occur again. Stay tuned.

As we all know, the Alamo arranges for you to be able to consume drinks and food while you're watching a movie. They've already been dealing with a fundamental problem since the start, that being that movies are shown in the dark, and people don't typically eat in the dark, 'cos they can't see what they're eating. The Alamo is a phenomonen in and around Austin, with packed houses, so they're obviously not hurting from this problem. But it actually gets a little worse in 3D movies, since everyone has to wear tinted glasses that are a little like sunglasses. Things are even darker wearing the things. I'm not sure how this will affect eaters at the Alamo in the long term, or how it can actually be solved. (good luck to all concerned, it's great to be able to eat during a movie IMO)

Next... a few years ago, Alamo owners Tim and Karrie allowed some external company to get the rights to franchise the Alamo name all over without having to get any input from them. The Village, Ritz and South Lamar Alamo's are the "Original Alamo's" operated by Tim and Karrie, and while they are consistent with each other, the franchise cinemas have slightly different practices, which can extend to different menus and so on. Here's an example - the menu at Lake Creek states you can order any pizza "calzone-style" without affecting the cost. The Alamo Village menu does not offer this. Calzones rock! Would be nice to see at the Village too.

Next... pasta used to be on their menu, but now there is none! They have the gall to entitle a 4-item section of the menu "Pastas And Entrees" - but there's only one item that has any pasta in it, and it's a weird kind of macaroni and cheese that feels like it was microwaved. Come on Alamo... put proper pasta back on the menu! I yearn for the days when I could feast on their Chicken Pesto Pasta during a movie.

Finally... the Alamo unfortunately places rows of seats way too close to the screen IMO. This hurts your neck when you're sitting in the front row, and you can't move your eyes left & right quickly enough to follow the action (especially in the case of a Michael Bay movie!) They need to suck it up and remove the front row. This has nothing to do with optical versus digital presentation.

I still heartily recommend visiting the Alamo to anyone visiting Austin, and if the things above were addressed it would be truly a great experience.