The coolest movies in town
At my house there’s no air-conditioning, so movie-going takes up more time during the summer than it does at other times of the year: in exchange for paying admission, there’s not only entertainment but chilling going on. There’s no movie theater in town any cooler than the Galaxy Highland 10. Audience members dressed for the outside weather are advised to bring warmer clothes for indoors or else a companionable companion to hold close. Having seen Ricky Bobby, we had to choose one from the other possible prospects (alphabetical listing implies no hierarchy of value): Accepted, Beerfest, How to Eat Fried Worms (filmed here in Austin), Idlewild, or Step Up. Idlewild it was, and I’m glad. This is a feast for the eyes, with wonderful lighting, excellent production and set design, plenty of dancing that fills the screen, and fine costumes that include wonders of custom tailoring and millinery. There are a couple of weak actors, but they don’t include the OutKast duo, and Ben Vereen and Cicely Tyson stand out in smaller roles. A dancer friend recommended this movie. For me, it was worth the entire price of admission for the surprising and very entertaining “fear of clocks” number called Chronomentrophobia, with visuals of imaginative variations on the cuckoo-clock theme. The final credits rolled over a gigantic song-and-dance production number that was annoyingly obscured by those very same credits, which everybody stayed through and peered through trying to ignore in order to see past them to the dancers on the piano and elsewhere.
I have to disagree with you re: the temp inside the Galaxy Highland. When I saw “Cars” there, I had to actually complain to the staff during the film because it felt like there was no air on at all. We were sweltering in that theatre.
But then we saw “Talladega Nights” there a couple weekends ago and the temp was quite cool. Maybe they got the AC fixed or something.
I tend to easily forgive this theatre for quirky problems like that because they usually give me a student rate, and I haven’t been in school for over 6 years now.
The a.c. must have been repaired, or else it was never broken in that particular room. Truly! In the theater where Idlewild was showing on Saturday it was b-r-r-r-r teeth-chatteringly arctic frigid. It was the plan to return yesterday for more super-chilling but the schedule didn’t work out right at all, so it was Quinceanera at the Arbor instead, which movie I highly recommend, but the atmosphere is merely cool not polar.
The other plus in Galaxy Highland’s corner is that they don’t show !@#$!^ commercials and they have digital projection for some films. They gave me the student discount as well at a screening of The Descent a couple of weeks ago. Sweet.
If there’s a film I want to see in the theater, these days a somewhat rare occurrence, I always go for either Galaxy Highland or Alamo before any of the other local theaters.