For anyone under 20 maybe it’s hard to remember a time when movies weren’t seen in massive, monster-sized megaplexes. I’m just barely old enough to remember drive-in theaters, and more than old enough to remember being forced to watch movies in the dingy, five screen theater which was our only option in my area. I even worked there, for a time, until I became so disgusted by everything about it (especially the hot dogs, don’t eat the hot dogs!) that I chose unemployment over spending another second wading through all the grease built up behind the theater’s candy counter.
So while some still bemoan the loss of the mom and pop movie theater, I’m here to tell you it’s not such a bad thing. I still remember going in my first megaplex, a shiny new Cinemark Tinseltown build on the north side of Austin. It was an hour drive to get to it, but from the moment it opened in the mid-90s my friends and I never went to that dingy hellhole which had served as our movie theater for so long again. It was like seeing movies in heaven.
But now the megaplex is commonplace and perhaps the loss of one, bloated, movie palace is not to be mourned. Still I was saddened to learn that the nation’s first ever megaplex is shutting its doors. The theater in question is the AMC Grand, a 24 screen theater in Dallas, Texas. A megaplex is defined as any theater with more than 14 screens. The surprising thing here isn’t so much that it’s going out of business, but that it was only built in 1995. The megaplex is, despite it’s familiarity, still a fairly recent national phenomenon. The LA Times says AMC has decided not to renew its lease on the building where the 24 screens of The Grand are housed.
I’ve been to The Grand and I can understand why it’s being closed. The area where it’s housed has gone into steady decline, it’s gotten dingier even in just the ten years since I first moved to the area. The theater itself still seems modern. Actually it is. It was only built in 1995 and it’s far from the worst place to see a movie in what is, admittedly, a pretty dingy city. But the neighborhood isn’t the swinging place it once was, it’s long since been overtaken by porn purveyors and surprisingly upscale strip clubs. It’s easy to understand why a movie theater no longer makes sense there.
