Alamo Draft House Schedule List

Simple information reorganization example

After discovering the Alamo Draft House’s coolness a few months ago, I’ve been trying to watch what they’re playing to make sure I catch anything I might want to see on the big screen. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get a good quick idea of all the movies playing from their calendar because it shows movies per day with showtimes, making the list repetitive and crowded with extra information.

I decided to throw together a real quick PHP script that would parse their data so I could organize it however I wanted. The final result can be viewed here. The code is as follows:

//The list of calendar pages in format TheaterName=>URL
$PagesToGrab=Array(
	'Ritz'=>'http://www.originalalamo.com/Calendar.aspx?l=2',
	'Village'=>'http://www.originalalamo.com/Calendar.aspx?l=3',
	'South Lamar'=>'http://www.originalalamo.com/Calendar.aspx?l=4'
);

foreach($PagesToGrab as $Name => $URL) //Grab the movies for each theater
{
	print "<b>$Name</b><br>"; //Output the theater name
	$TheHTML=file_get_contents($URL); //Grab the HTML
	$ShowList=Array(); //This will contain the final list of shows and what days they are on
	
	preg_match_all('/<td class="day">.*?<\/td>/', $TheHTML, $DayMatches); //Extract all table cells containing a day's info
	foreach($DayMatches[0] as $DayInfo) //Loop over each day's info
	{
		//Determine the day of month
		preg_match('/<a class=\"daynumber\" title=".*?, (.*?),/', $DayInfo, $DayOfMonth);
		$DayOfMonth=$DayOfMonth[1];
		
		//Determine all the shows for the day
		preg_match_all('/<span class="show"><a href=".*?">(.*?)<\/a>/', $DayInfo, $AllShows);
		foreach($AllShows[1] as $Show)
		{
			$Show=preg_replace('/^\s+|\s+$/', '', $Show); //Remove start and end of line whitespace
			if(!isset($ShowList[$Show])) //If show has not yet been added to overall list, add it
				$ShowList[$Show]=Array();
			$ShowList[$Show][]=$DayOfMonth; //Add this day as a time for the show
		}
	}
	
	//Output the shows and their days
	print '<table>';
	foreach($ShowList as $ShowName => $Days)
		print "<tr><td>$ShowName</td><td>".implode(', ', $Days).'</td></tr>';
	print '</table><br><br>';
}	
<? PageFooter(); ?>
</body></html>

Star Trek at The Alamo

Geeking out

First, I want to write a little about the Alamo Draft House, which is a local Austin theater chain (though it has expanded). I really enjoy going there for movies for the atmosphere, which includes:

• No children under 6 (unless otherwise noted)
• Food and drinks
• [Sometimes] themed food and pre-movie entertainment relating to the movie (my friends went there for the Indiana Jones opening and there were snake handlers with rattlesnakes and a cobra ^_^)
• Playings of old good and/or cult classic movies

They also often organize shows, parties, and other events, including organizing the recent Austin branch of the largest [worldwide] Thriller dance event. I have been told they are one of the most profitable theater chains in history.

Anywho, I was there yesterday for the first showing (7pm) of the new Star Trek movie. Since I’m not a movie critic, I won’t say more than the fact that I thought it was absolutely spectacular, and Alamo’s pre-movie Star Trek themed clips were hilarious. I do however want to share their themed food menu.

I think I went a bit overbored on the themed drinks. I had the worst headache afterwards x.x;