For more than 18 months, that giant pit on South Lamar has been a constant and painful reminder of the lack of joy in our collective lives. No private karaoke rooms, no movies that didn't require driving to Slaughter Lane, no onion rings, no 512 Pecan Porter delivered to your table during a screening of Boyhood. It was a dark time.
To combat our boredom, we made lists of potential karaoke room themes, pored over renderings of the new theater, emailed the public relations firm incessantly and even tweeted about the typo in The Highball's version of "Empire State of Mind" so they would know to fix it. Luckily, none of this was in vain because the Alamo Drafthouse and The Highball announced Tuesday that they are back.
It is official: Lamar will re-open on Saturday, 8/16! Read on for exclusive photos and info on the new theater: https://t.co/dRmAjag6z9
In addition to the opening date, the Drafthouse also announced a series of public, soft-opening training screenings. Those events, open to members of the Drafthouse's Victory rewards program, will begin Wednesday, August 13. Tickets for these screenings are available by signing up for the rewards program here.
The opening screening is Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo on Saturday, August 16 at 12:15 pm.
A sneak peek inside the new South Lamar Drafthouse.
Photo by Nick Simonite
A sneak peek inside the new South Lamar Drafthouse.
Bullseye, Jessie, Atlas, Smarty Pants, and Snappy in Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5.
For fans of Pixar, the idea that it’s been over 30 years since the original Toy Story came out is a little mind-boggling. While the animation studio has had varying degrees of success with their other properties, they’ve always managed to make something special with each installment of their signature franchise. They’re now rolling the dice yet again with Toy Story 5.
The story is mainly focused on cowgirl toy Jessie (Joan Cusack), who — along with Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Forky (Tony Hale), and others — is concerned that new owner Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is falling prey to the scourge of technology in the form of the tablet Lilypad (Greta Lee). They’re worried that the “friends” she makes through games online pale in comparison to those she could play with in person.
Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Peep (Annie Potts), living an on-the-go lifestyle but still in touch with the main group, come to help when Jessie goes missing while trying to help Bonnie. And — just because — a large group of new-and-improved Buzz Lightyears that have fallen out of a shipping container that has crashed on an island go on a mission that puts them on course to meet up with everyone else.
Written and directed by McKenna Harris and Andrew Stanton, the film is a mixed bag, mostly because of the disjointed nature of the story. When the group was separated in previous films, things rarely felt out of sync as everybody was still heading toward the same goal. But the different factions in this film seem to be after something different, especially the wholly superfluous addition of the fancy Buzz Lightyears, whose ultimate purpose doesn’t live up to the time dedicated to them.
There’s no way around it: While Jessie is a good character and has a lot of great moments in this film, the relationship aspect of the series is not as strong this time around. She mostly spends time with her mute horse Bullseye, but even when she interacts with new characters like Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), that ineffable magic is not there. Woody and Buzz have scenes together, but since they’re secondary to the main story, they don’t add as much to this film as they have in others.
However, even if the film can’t live up to the first four movies, it still makes for a fun time. The storyline about technology turning kids (and adults, for that matter) into zombies is a strong one, and the way they incorporate different devices is clever. The large number of characters is unwieldy, but when the filmmakers truly dig down to the personal lives of certain toys or humans, the film is as effective as Pixar has ever been.
Cusack, Hanks, Allen, and other returning voices are so attuned to their respective characters that you know they’ll deliver each line perfectly. People like Lee, O’Brien, and Craig Robinson are welcome additions to the group, but it’s tough to get used to new voices taking over for actors who’ve passed like Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, and Carl Weathers.
The pitch-perfect ending of Toy Story 3 made the idea of Pixar making Toy Story 4 seem strange, but then that film proved the studio knew what it was doing. While Toy Story 5 is not a disaster, it’s not to the standard set by the previous films. It should finally be time to put the franchise to bed, knowing that the toys have given all the joy they can give.
