Loss of Local Color
on 04/02/2011 at 09:22 AM
We had several movie palace type theaters here in Salt Lake. The most dramatic was the Villa which showed movies in Cinerama. I saw 2001 a space odyssey there when it opened. There were huge domed movie plexes and other large venues too. Also smaller theaters and big drive ins all over the place. They’re gone now except for a few. The whole movie entertainment thing is gone too. You don’t get the effect with a small screen or a computer, but there are things you do get. You get to watch when you want to. You get to watch without noisy teenagers and babies. If you need to go pee you can without missing anything, and your choice of snacks is endless and cheap. People have become rude sacks of shit and who wants to tolerate that on a Saturday night? It used to be fun to go out to the movies. Now it’s just expensive and inconvenient. I haven’t been to a theater for years because of those things and I don’t miss it at all. It’s sad to see it go, but it’s gone.
Same here Grayjohn ...
I remember several theaters all in downtown Hartford, two were almost next door to each other. The Lowes Palace was just that. A big beautiful sweeping staircase and in my day we had ushers. And a newsreel. And usually 2 movies. There had to have been five theaters all within walking distance of the dwntown center. There were darn few noisy teens because in those far away days, they hardly existed. At least in our local. A few unruly were warned once and tossed if they continued. We also had a theater that showed nothing but newsreels.
The Star theater featured live shows ... gee. What memories.You can just imagine what Times Square and Broadway in N.Y was like then. Theater after theater all right on top of each other or so it seemed. The Camel sign with smoke rings. Radio that was worth listening to.
Oh yeah, with regard to loud teens. Back then, they didn’t know they had “Rights.” That was long before the libtards taught ppl how badly they were denied their ‘entitlements’ the most important being rights without any responsibilities.
Something else about the olde days. Going to the movies was an event. You even dressed up for it.
What Grayjohn and Peiper said. I stopped going to movie theaters around 2001/2002, right about when mobile devices started becoming truly ubiquitous.
I did try again a couple of times after 2002, but both times the experience was an utter disappointment. I have better technology at home, and a better environment as well.
Last film we saw in the theater was LOTR ROTK. Nothing for years before or after that seemed worth going and paying the small king’s ransom that a ticket goes for these days.
I actually mourn the loss of the DRIVE-IN theatre. The last one here in weird-Town[portland or]closed up over a decade ago. But not before my buds and I took a case of beer or 3 along to enjoy the “Terminator”. AAAHHH, what memories, and the glorious hangover that followed. Good Times,,Good times.
But I do like the Netflix streaming gag. Ive watched more movies in the last month than I had in my entire 55 years on planet stupid.At least it seems that way according to the level of bloodshot in my eyeballs.
BTW, Rent or stream the ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattooo’ and the two follow up films in that trilogy.Best work I have seen in decades.
A twisted thriller called “Surveillance” is great too.Ditto Rich K!
I also mourn the loss of the drive-in. If the movie sucked, you could still entertain each other…
Having said that, the indoor theaters have priced themselves out of my range. I used to like them for ‘special’ movies. The last three movies my wife and I saw in a theatre were:
The Mambo Kings (special? Yes. Both of us are former dance teachers.)
LotR 1 Fellowship (I spoiled it because I knew all the lines. Pi...er, ticked my wife off by quoting the lines...)
Lion, Witch, Wardrobe: Narnia 1 (’fraid I spoiled that too, for the same reason.)But hell, even the two surviving drive-ins charge too much. When I was a kid, drive-ins were cheap enough that my parents could take themselves and three children almost weekly. Now? I’d be hard-pressed to afford just me and the wife once a month.
I might also add that the movies really suck. Why pay for them? Just wait a few months and you can check them out of your local library, which you’ve already paid for via property taxes.
Something I forgot about in my comments above.
Very LOUD sound in theaters and especially the damn commercials. Last time I went to a movie back in Palm Desert, (99 cents in the afternoon and now it’s $1.99 7 yrs later). Theater half empty and freezing but the volume was worse.I guess at the price they need the commercials, which were pretty bad. What bothered me lots way back then was that even in higher priced theaters they had ads. Hated that.
Can’t add much to those comments - other than maybe 1 out of a hundred movies is worth anything any more. My daughter and I went to a Blockbuster that is closing (the one up the street closed without us even noticing it) - intending to pick up some oldie/obscure movies for the cheap - Wow - perhaps one in twenty I even recognized the title (mostly the horror - wow what does that say) and the others are what I call the C movies that hardly lasted a weekend in the theaters.
There are so many stories and books out there - and Hollweird seems hellbent on re-doing remakes that are cheesy and stupid.
Another industry destroyed by librals intent on making sure that America is dumbed down to Idiocracy level (horrible movie but the point is frighteningly true).
Oh god… now I’m wanting to see ‘That Darn Cat’ again. Thanks Drew. (he said with tongue seriously in cheek.) Next thing you know, it’ll be ‘The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes.’
Omigod! Where does it end?
Want to hear real sad Chris? Hollywood did a remake of ‘That Darn Cat’ just a few years ago. Same story, but with today’s crop of “actors”. What’s the point of that? None. But they did it anyway.
04/02/2011 at 03:48 PM
04/02/2011 at 05:44 PM
