Thoughts about the new Gold Class Cinemas at The Domain? (Austin: appointed, salons)

[XLadylawX]

Originally Posted by jobert

It symbolizes excess.

I guess I don't see the excess. In my personal experience of attending this venue, my conclusion is that I obtained the appropriate value for the amount of money I expended.

I will however, be going to my local Cinemark this next weekend to check out Iron Man 2. Probably have to pay full price though since we will be busy during matinee hours.

[austinnerd]

That's why I said "probably" instead of "will", I knew someone who come up with exceptions (there are always exceptions right?). On the other end of the scale, I think we all know folks in the second scenario (debt up to their ears) who will go ahead and charge the cost of the GCC tickets on their already maxed out credit cards as well.

[AustinGuy]

Well, if we Austinites don't spend that extra $22 burning a hole in our pocket on a Gold Class movie, we'll probably spend it on something else. Don't forget that study released a few months ago that we spend more per household on things excluding our mortgage/rent than any other city in the USA:

Assets : Bundle Report 2010: See the 25 top-spending cities in the U.S. (plus: the bottom five) : Bundle

[llkltk]

It doesn't "look out of place here". Come on, the face of Austin has changed. It's not all tattoos and piercing. Austin has morphed into a different type of city with the same old Keep Austin Weird mantra.

I think that many Austinites need therapy to deal with the changing landscape. Goodness. I've lived her 10 years, and I love all aspects of Austin. I've lived in Hyde Park and done the central Austin lifestyle. I've also lived SW as well. I like all parts of Austin, the new and the old. I enjoy the Domain at times as well as flip flops and Kerbey Lane.

[llkltk]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Well, I, for one, was just trying to "read" the thread and why it might be getting the reaction it does, based on a long history of observing Austin and the changes in it.

And I do know a lot of people who laughed at the idea of the Domain being in Austin, but obviously there is a market for it with some. It would, still, be more "at home" in Dallas, I think. Nothing wrong with that, it just looks out of place here.

By the way, that proverbial family that you describe, austinnerd? That description fits my family at the time we had one in private school and one in college, to a "t" - except that even then we wouldn't think of paying $20 for a single ticket to a movie. We also had a bit of a problem getting a mortgage at one time because we made too much money not to have any debt beyond one other mortgage and a piddling amount on a credit card, and it really threw the mortgage folks - we had to explain that one to them! I learned better than that in my youth at the knee of people with REAL money, the kind that can buy presidents and small countries if they're so inclined. So, we mess up your assumption right off the bat!

Don't you have horses? That eats up a chunk of change.

[homeinatx]

My thoughts: pretentious, middlebrow, and lacking in imagination!

I think you can have a lot more fun for $29 in this town than watching a $9 movie in a recliner. You could have 7 tequila shots almost anywhere (guaranteed HUGE fun - next day not so much), or a bottle of champagne ( ok - prosecco) and a dozen oysters at Parkside on a Wednesday night, or swim at Barton Springs 9 times, or see the same movie plus two others at the Alamo Draft House, or buy half a Longhorns football game ticket, or buy a ticket to many of the live performance shows around town, or get a manicure and pedicure, or get 2 thirds of a day pass at a spa, or buy 3 dozen roses for your sweetie! Or rent two kayaks on Town Lake. The options are endless!

But if people like GCC, more power to them. They have a right to their version of a good time, and I have the right to think it is LAME.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by JayBrown80

But that's the point I am making. WE haven't stepped back from the brink. YOU may have, but I have been doing just fine.

I don't know your personal situation, so I can't comment on that.

What I can comment on is this. Most of the people that are hurting in these economic times are the same people that were barely making it when times were good. I understand that some people have fallen from middle class, but a lot those people were only faux-middle class to begin with. They thought they were middle class because someone hadn't cut up their credit cards yet.

And just where, in your hubris, are you getting THAT idea? I, personally, know people who were doing just fine, living within their means, who were hit hard by this recent economic unpleasantness, and for you to assume the above in order to make yourself feel better is a false assumption, no matter how much better it makes you feel about yourself and your supposed immunity to such kinds of disasters.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by homeinatx

My thoughts: pretentious, middlebrow, and lacking in imagination!

I think you can have a lot more fun for $29 in this town than watching a $9 movie in a recliner. You could have 7 tequila shots almost anywhere (guaranteed HUGE fun - next day not so much), or a bottle of champagne ( ok - prosecco) and a dozen oysters at Parkside on a Wednesday night, or swim at Barton Springs 9 times, or see the same movie plus two others at the Alamo Draft House, or buy half a Longhorns football game ticket, or buy a ticket to many of the live performance shows around town, or get a manicure and pedicure, or get 2 thirds of a day pass at a spa, or buy 3 dozen roses for your sweetie! Or rent two kayaks on Town Lake. The options are endless!

But if people like GCC, more power to them. They have a right to their version of a good time, and I have the right to think it is LAME.

Great post, homeinatx!

[llkltk]

Originally Posted by homeinatx

My thoughts: pretentious, middlebrow, and lacking in imagination!

I think you can have a lot more fun for $29 in this town than watching a $9 movie in a recliner. You could have 7 tequila shots almost anywhere (guaranteed HUGE fun - next day not so much), or a bottle of champagne ( ok - prosecco) and a dozen oysters at Parkside on a Wednesday night, or swim at Barton Springs 9 times, or see the same movie plus two others at the Alamo Draft House, or buy half a Longhorns football game ticket, or buy a ticket to many of the live performance shows around town, or get a manicure and pedicure, or get 2 thirds of a day pass at a spa, or buy 3 dozen roses for your sweetie! Or rent two kayaks on Town Lake. The options are endless!

But if people like GCC, more power to them. They have a right to their version of a good time, and I have the right to think it is LAME.

7 tequila shots, I'd rather drop $22 a ticket instead of being sick from cheap tequila!

Oysters, same as above.

Longhorn tickets, blech!

Manicure and pedicure will run you 125 easily in Austin, movie at the Domain is way cheaper.

Roses? Flowers die!

And your argument is.....

[homeinatx]

Originally Posted by llkltk

7 tequila shots, I'd rather drop $22 a ticket instead of being sick from cheap tequila!

Oysters, same as above.

Longhorn tickets, blech!

Manicure and pedicure will run you 125 easily in Austin, movie at the Domain is way cheaper.

Roses? Flowers die!

And your argument is.....

Princess, you need to get out more! You can get a $4-5 top-shelf tequila shot - Patron or better at any of a dozen bars downtown. We are close to Mexico - no-one needs to drink cheap tequila. The oysters at Parkside are the best oysters I have found in Austin - they are flown in daily from New Brunswick, the Puget Sound and the Gulf. They just happen to be half-price on Wednesdays. Find me better oysters, I'll go there. And I don't know who has been ripping you off on the manicure/pedicure front, but you can get an excellent mani/pedi from the fabulous Vietnamese ladies at UT Nails next to the Fiesta on 35 for $25 Mondays through Wednesdays. That would mean you have to cross to the EAST SIDE, and we all know how you feel about that, but it is barely half a block! Mostly I believe you get what you pay for, but this is very good quality for practically free, though you will have to put your feet in the same footbaths that have recently seen Mexican and Black feet!. You don't like the Longhorns- fine. You could buy 3 tickets for the Texas Roller Derby instead. Flowers indeed die, which only adds to their beauty while they live. Are you the kind of person who likes plastic or silk flowers?

The Domain, with the small exception of The Steeping Room is a monstrous bore - architecturally undistinguished - full of mediocre restaurants with the same schlocky retail you can find at any semi-affluent mall anywhere in the U.S. It is the Highland Mall of the future. If I want anything from last year's Gucci or Prada, I will pick it up in a flea-market next time I am in Milan - much more appealing shopping environs, and an eighth of the price (especially now that the Euro is weak) not at Nordstroms!! Heck you can find much better clothes in the small boutiques of South Austin or if you are feeling cheap at the Last Call off South Lamar!

By all means spend your $22 ( how distinguished it is to be a member of a club that is free!) or $29 at GCC, but don't delude yourself that you are doing anything interesting, that only makes it more tragic. My position is that the best time to be had in Austin is when you do the things that Austin does well or that you can only do here:by this, I mean great margaritas, tex-mex and BBQ, steak at Austin (not Texas) Land & Cattle, great live music any night of the week, some independent cinema, Esther Folly's, Salvage Vanguard, the Vortex, Rude Mechs or any of the uneven local theater, Hippy Hollow, Barton Springs or Creek (not Barton Creek Mall), Longhorn Dam, Red Bud Isle and other close in Hill Country walks, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, etc: an expensive movie while reclining eating average to bad food, not so much! Otherwise you might as well live in Plano - it is equally hot, fewer trees and there are better malls there!