When I was younger I remember that there were at least 4 movie theaters within walking distance. Slowly, each of them became replaced by another silly store such as a clothes or dollar store. Even 5 or 10 years ago, there seemed to be way more movie theaters than there are today.
Moreover, today's theaters have strange tactics like assigned seats, which are a bit odd. When my friend had an extra ticket for the Tupac movie, we got in trouble for having a ticket that was on a different day, which is weird.
It seems that movie theaters are either disappearing or consolidating. The tickets are now almost unaffordable. Back in the day my mother used to bring roast chicken into the theater and walk from room to room all day to catch all the movies on one ticket. This is strange, because it seems like movie fandom has really risen and it's so much more of a "thing" than it used to be.
When I was younger, people still listened to music that was age appropriate. Today I don't think young people are even music fans, outside of the 10 year olds I heard singing about percocet inside Checkers. I actually saw people wearing matching Avengers T shirts to go see the Avengers, like fans going to a rock concert. People started buying dolls of this stuff like they're 12 years old or something.
This is the Ward Theater. It has now become "Rainbow", which is a mildly expensive clothing store combined with street vendors that sell Native American wristbands and purses. My friend saw every kung fu movie in that theater in the 70s.
An interesting observation, and I can agree to a point. Of course the advent of things like Netflix and even RedBox rentals have clearly affected the theater industry, and made home-watching much easier and more accessible.
There's always been something "magical" about going to the movies. Since I was a kid, I've loved the theater. There was always something exciting about sitting in front of that huge screen when the lights go down, and you don't know what's going to happen (especially when you'd "get to" go see an "R-rated" movie when you were under-age!! Whooo!! ;))
I don't go nearly as often as I used to. One reason is cost. I am very frugal with my movie-going dollars. Nowadays, they mainly only come out of the wallet for something I really want to see. For example, the last film I saw in the theater was Blade Runner 2049. For the third time. (I probably could have done without the last one so soon, but hey). Now that was definitely worth it. Amazing film.
Basically, I can say it all sort of started going "downhill" after around.. it was either the second Transformers movie, or one of the Iron Man's (I liked the first one...), but, I decided, I am not giving away my movie dollars to anymore of these bullshit, churned-out, "comic" movies. They're just fan-fare suck-vacuums. Uh uh.
(p.s., may I suggest, @acorngrove, adding a few more "tags" to your post? Maybe even some "more frequented" tags, like "writing," "blog," so on.. It may help gain you a bit more exposure, which I think you could benefit from!
They say there is a growing convergence between movie theaters and home living rooms. Theaters are trying to become more like living rooms and living rooms are becoming like theaters.
Long ago, movie theaters were locally owned and were even the pride of a community. Today's theaters are owned by the distribution companies and seem to becoming irrelevant to the community.
Totally agree here, in those golden ages past, going to the theatres was a wonderful affordable experience for the whole family. Now it comes down to, would we rather pay ridiculous seat prices or be entertained by other means.
In my childhood, we would enter at any time, then wait through the next showing until “This is where we came in”. No lines, no fuss.