To quote The Specials, this town is too freaking hot. How hot? It’s so hot even the squirrels are fanning their nuts, and summer has only just arrived. Thank goodness Deep Eddy Pool’s Summer Spash Party Movie Nights have arrived.
Barton Springs is packed daily to the point of chaos, tubing on the Guadalupe River is so not happening, and, oh yeah, we’re about to run out of drinking water. What better way to cool off and chill out than by spending your evening dodging supersoakers and taking in the engagingly clothing deficient sights of Austin’s other famed watering hole, 100-year-old Deep Eddy Pool?
Saturday nights through August 6 Deep Eddy (in conjunction with Carino’s Italian and Blue Moon Cinemas) will be hosting their annual Splash Parties, kicking the series off with unassailable summertime classic Grease. Admittedly, the programming skimps a little (okay, a lot) on actual summer-themed filmmaking — conspicuous in their absence is the Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello vehicle Beach Blanket Bingo or any of American International Pictures offshoots/sequels, and Esther Williams is nowhere to be found — but really, any excuse to strip down and dive in works for us at this point.
All films start at dusk and for the first time ever the Splash Parties are going all out and employing a 24-foot screen and jacked-up sound system that should give the Alamo Drafthouse’s Rolling Roadshow a run for their money. Now go get wet y’all.
This article appears in June 17 • 2011.