The Texas Theatre was built in 1931 and is probably best known as the place of arrest for Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK's assassin, in 1963. It's undergone countless ownership changes, renovations, burnings, closings, and all sorts of zoning chaos. Thankfully, as a result of recent historical landmark status, its funding is fairly secure.
I was thinking about this because last Tuesday I went to an event there called Tuesday Night Trash which is a free movie they show on Tuesday nights and saw Primal Rage, an insane 80s Italian killer monkey movie and it was so much fun. Seeing it with a full audience was a blast. And they do this stuff all the time. The theater is very involved in the local film scene, often holding film festivals featuring local filmmakers. They don't serve food except for popcorn and candy but they do have a full bar with movie themed drinks. They also host a VHS swap once a month where the locals come out to sell and trade tapes and cool merch.
Just a taste of the upcoming lineup (all movies shown except brand new releases are on film): Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the 50th anniversary, a double feature of Wiseau’s movies The Room and Big Shark and Q&A w/ Greg Sistero star of The Room and author of The Disaster Artist, Lady Snowblood, the original Django, Samurai Showdown, Time Masters (an awesome '82 French animated sci-fi), Cat Video festival, Altered States, Ed Wood with a live drag show afterwords, 50th anniversary showing of Phantom of the Paradise, a tribute to Roger Corman, and Near Dark.
Around Halloween is my favorite time as it's non-stop monster movies, including obscure shot on video stuff and classic B&W features.
Anyways, just wanted to brag a little bit about this local treasure. As I've gotten older, I dread the giant soulless multiplexes more and more, and I know Texas gets a lot of shit, much of it rightfully earned, but this theater it not part of that.
If you have a local treasure I'd love to hear about it.