Gold Class Cinemas
Posted by Austin Cinephile
A few weeks ago, we were contacted by Gold Class Cinemas, the new upscale chain theatre that opened yesterday in the Domain. They asked us to visit and see their facilities. On Monday May 3, Stephen and Daniel were wined and dined by the attentive staff and executive-types while being subjected to another round of Avatar Blues.
The Domain is a maze of high-culture roads, a labyrinthine trek towards nowhere. After following dozens of signs, the unimpressive facade of the Gold Class Cinemas appears like an afterthought in a prefabricated mall-farm. Once easy parking is obtained in the free lot (if there is valet parking, we didn’t see it), a quick walk gets you out of the hot sun and into a fancy lobby.
“The experience,” as the executives prefer to call it, is established from the moment you walk into the door. A good-looking young person will either sell you a ticket (although they strongly urge you to buy in advance) or direct you to the lobby. As there are only 20-40 seats in each theatre, and as a ticket is assigned to a particular seat, online ticketing is probably a must. The lobby itself is luxuriously comfortable, which is not necessarily a compliment; the brown and safe 1970’s-esque color palette reminds us not of good cinema but of unadventurous decorating.
If you need color, you need only look over your shoulder towards the bar, where literally over a million drinks are available. The wine selection is superb and reasonably priced. There are a great variety of cocktails for all tastes. Once you are sitting in the lounge salivating over the drink options, a waiter/waitress will approach you with a fantastic menu.
Most likely, your drinks will be brought to you in the lounge while you wait, and any food orders you make will be brought to you in the theatre. If you want the least amount of distraction, you can order all of the courses you want in the lounge, and they will bring them course-by-course during the film.
Once in the theatre, you will find remarkably comfortable seats with wide armrests. These armrests offer more than enough room for the arms of both people on either side or, if you’ve ordered food, plenty of space to place your dinner plates, which are accordingly rectangular in shape.
We had a meat and cheese plate, artisan pizza, chicken sandwich with spicy wing sauce, and some delicious Rocky Road gourmet popcorn, all of which were outstanding. You’ll likely spend a few dollars more on food here than you would at an Alamo theater, but the higher quality of Gold Class’ food is worth even more than the price difference. For instance, the pepperoni pizza is about $6 more at Gold Class than at the Alamo, but the delectable and subtle mozzarella and pepperoni on flatbread crust is worth at least $15 more than the greasy pie we are used to at the Ritz/Lamar/Village. This is not pub fare, this is the real deal.
Once you’ve filled up on all this food and have a little wine in you, nothing beats pushing the button located on the side of your chair that reclines you almost to a horizontal position. If you request the free pillow and blanket (which smell very good, weirdly enough), either the movie is really good or you will be fast asleep.
If you need anything extra during the film, you can press the green button near your chair and a waiter will be with you shortly; three and a half minutes was the longest wait time we experienced, but they may have been treating us special because we are big shots. This system is a little less obtrusive than the Alamo’s: though you will need to whisper what you need to the waiter, at least there won’t be servers walking back and forth in front of you and everyone else throughout the entire film. They only come when they are needed, and when they do they try to be discreet, crouching down to the side and wearing all black. We were assured that waiters are instructed never to walk in front of anyone.
The projection was very good, much better than most theatres in town and rivaling the Alamo’s. We had a tour of the booth and it was in impeccable condition, the projectors new and state-of-the art, and the staff well trained. Six of their theatres use 35mm, two with NEC 4K digital projectors.
The programming at the theatre is the Gold Class’ biggest weakness. Although we disagree about why it is bad, we agree that the upcoming slate of titles are uninspired and run-of-the-mill: Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2, Sex and the City 2, Shrek 4, Twilight 3, Robin Hood. Are these boringly mainstream films going to contribute anything to the Austin landscape? Absolutely not. Furthermore, are the young-skewing pictures going to capture the moneybags of Austin’s moneybags?
We’ll see (if they are still in business) how they cope with the fall and winter line-ups and whether they choose more mature options or stick with bubblegum, fluff, and garbage. It is summer, after all, so perhaps they can’t be blamed for uninspired new releases. It is a shame, however, that they are not experimenting with alternative programming in any significant way, although the marketing director assured us that this was an option.
So, the theatre is expensive. You know it, you’ve heard about the ticket prices, and maybe it isn’t worth it. But it is awesome. The Gold Class Cinema will spoil you, and seeing movies elsewhere will never be the same. But you’ll have no choice, either because you will have run out of money or you will want to see something other than The A-Team.
It also raises some significant questions of class that may be worth discussing in the future. The cinema has always been great because it was a mass medium available to the working classes and bourgeoisie alike. For poor college students and billionaires, moviegoing has been an inexpensive option for pursuing anything from bathroom-comedies to uplifting art films that can offer upward mobility in leisure activities. The Gold Class has found a way to help wealthy people stay away from poor people. That might be great, but it also might be horrible.
Our last concern is probably a significant one: it is not Austin. This chain theatre looks much like all of the other Gold Class Cinemas across the country (and across Australia, apparently). Although we were told that some of the higher-level staff are Austinites, it seems that no creative executives will be from the city. Just as the mainstream first-run programming choices suggest, Gold Class Cinemas is not something that will be adding to the community or changing the cinema landscape; this is not a competitor for the Alamo in any significant way.
What we have here is an extravagant and wonderful place to see a mall-movie.
