The Paramount Theatre has been a downtown Austin institution since opening in October 1915. But for more than half of its reign, the 100-year-old Paramount has been missing its crown jewel: a stunning, 48-foot blade featuring its name in bright lights.
It's a mystery that has plagued the Paramount for 52 years. Originally erected in 1930 when Paramount Pictures bought the theater (and its name changed to what we know today), the blade was removed in 1963 for renovations never to be seen again.
In celebration of its 100th anniversary, the Paramount commissioned Wagner Sign Company in Ohio to recreate the blade. The new blade now stands tall with the theater, complete with 1,386 buzzing lights bulbs in all the original colors. Now it's time to plug it in.
The official lighting ceremony for the new blade takes place Wednesday evening during the Paramount's centennial celebration. The celebration kicks off at 6 pm with complimentary drinks and live tunes from New Breed Brass Band. Afterward, Patty Griffin will perform to a sold-out crowd at the legendary theater.
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For more information on Wednesday's relighting ceremony, head over to the Paramount Theatre website.
The iconic Paramount blade was revealed during a celebration on Wednesday.
Paramount Theatre/Facebook
The iconic Paramount blade was revealed during a celebration on Wednesday.
Kaitlyn Santa Juana in Final Destination: Bloodlines.
On the surface, the Final Destination films really shouldn’t work. There is no villain other than the concept of death itself, and nearly every death that occurs is foreshadowed so heavily that it removes the normal suspense that comes in horror films. And yet the franchise was successful enough to spawn five films over 11 years in the early 2000s, and now a reboot, Final Destination: Bloodlines.
A fantastic opening sequence set in the 1960s sets both the tone and the plot of the film, in which Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has a recurring nightmare about a disaster that her grandmother, Iris (Gabrielle Rose), helped to avert. A visit to the reclusive Iris convinces Stefani that she and her family should not exist, and that each one of them is destined to meet a grisly end in the near future.
Met with resistance from her family members, Kaitlyn is unsurprisingly proven right as the film goes along, with different people dying in a variety of bizarre ways. A visit to William Bludworth (the late Tony Todd), a mortician who’s been the one constant in the series, provides a glimmer of hope that they can cheat death. But will they figure it out before it’s too late?
Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, the film does not try to reinvent the wheel for the concept. The entire point is to get as creative as possible with the death scenes, and the filmmakers take that mandate seriously, with each successive death becoming increasingly gruesome. The Rube Goldberg-like manner in which each death occurs makes the scenes come off as entertaining instead of off-putting.
The idea of Death hunting down an entire family line due to the actions of the family elder is a solid twist on the series’ central premise, and that change keeps the film from feeling repetitive. The story also introduces the possibility that the entire series is connected due to Iris’ actions, with the character possessing a scrapbook that references well-known incidents from previous films, a fun Easter egg for longtime fans.
The creativity of the kill sequences does not carry over to the overall story, though. Almost every character in the film only exists in order to meet a horrific end, so anything that they have going on outside of being stalked by Death is purely window dressing. Consequently, it’s hard to really care about anybody, even if they are all related to one another.
Because characters are so easily dispatched in the film, the cast is devoid of well-known actors. This is by far Santa Juana’s biggest role to date, and she does well enough to want to see more of her in the future. Adults like Alex Zahara and Rya Kihlstedt are character actors who bring some history with them, while the younger group is composed of people still trying to make names for themselves.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is a solid return for the franchise, even if it feels more like a one-off film rather than a justification for more stories in the future. But given how easily the concept can be adapted into new circumstances, don’t be surprised if another movie pops up in a couple of years.
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Final Destination: Bloodlines opens in theaters on May 16.