Baxter Avenue Filmworks
1250 Bardstown Road,
Louisville,
KY
42024
1250 Bardstown Road,
Louisville,
KY
42024
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Updated website link: http://www.baxter8.com/
September 20th, 1996 grand opening ad in photo section.
This multiplex now operates under the name Baxter Avenue Filmworks. Here is their web site. Apex Entertainment also operates the Village 8 Theatres. Louisville’s discount movie house.
My best memories at Baxter were seeing Ghost World like 7 times for some inexplicable reason, seeing Rocky dressed as the Pope, and seeing this silly local movie that had a scene that took place IN BAXTER THEATRE. So we were watching the movie and the shot went from the parking lot to the lobby to the hall outside where we were. It was like the end of Blazing Saddles.
I don’t really think Baxter had a role in shutting down Showcase on Bardstown. National Amusements wanted a more modern facility (more screens, stadium seating, etc.) and decided it was better to build a new one in a more suburban locale than renovate the old one.
But Showcase’s closing did effect Baxter, as they could legally show any first-runs they wanted now (previously territorial conflicts with Showcase prevented them as I understand it) and also had a larger audience. So Baxter does show fewer foreign and independent films now, to make more money off the Hollywood stuff.
Fond
Fon
Rocky Horror and other midnight movies eventually came back, though many of the foreign and independents went away. If they had started out with a mostly mainstream lineup when they opened in 1996, then our beloved Vogue Theatre might not have shut down. Louisville now shows fewer smart-people movies than Lexington, Indianapolis, and even Columbus, Indiana. A decade ago, it was the other way around. For a cinema lover like me, this is actually something to make me seriously consider moving away.
A great neighborhood movie house, one that is not afraid to show foreign films, Anime, non-mainstream, and just plain kooky. Thanks to the local neighborhood association they had to discontinue showing Rocky Horror but I heard word that they were trying to reach an accord. This theater, love it as I do, was a major factor is shutting down of my two favorite Louisville movie houses, the Vogue and the Showcase Cinemas on Bardstown road. Hopefully they can revive the midnight movies in Louisville. I’d not be the same person I am today without the Vogue & midnight movies…not just Rocky Horror but The Wall, Heavy Metal, The Song Remains the Same, A Clockwork Orange….damned…why do times have to change????