Over the weekend, I went to see The Dark Knight with a couple of friends at a movie theater that used to be one of the most popular ones in town. That's not the case anymore. It's aging. The popcorn is always stale. And you can walk down the corridors without ever seeing another person.
When I was growing up, the theater was one of the first theaters in town that could probably have been considered a mega-plex, so I guess that made it the "in" thing. At the time, it was located on what was considered the west site of town. Now, it's close to being mid-town.
But like I said, nobody goes there much anymore. Reasons abound--beyond the bad popcorn. The city has much nicer theaters now, located all over the city. And I imagine that all of the competition led to the recent announcement that the theater would close it's doors either late this year or early next.
I mentioned that to my friends as we were walking in and it caused all of us to reminisce about the many hours all of us spent in the place as we were growing up.
The funny thing is, I don't have many specific memories of movies I've seen there. My memories focus more on the layout of the place itself. It's the theater I see in my mind every time I read a novel and a character walks into a theater.
I can be in another theater as the advertisement for that particular brand of theater starts up to convince the movie-going public that it has created the best movie-going experience because because their pop fizzes more than any other theater and because their sound system is superior, and my mind automatically goes back to the theater that is about to close.
It has sort of become the reference point in my mind for all movie theaters. And that won't change once they close the place and/or tear it down.
