posted 11-16-2008 11:40 PM                    

quote: Edwin Graf Diemer

---

Loeks Theaters has announced that they will be closing their 20-plex Studio 28 in Wyoming, MI on 11/24.

---

posted 12-01-2008 06:13 PM                    

quote: Chris Slycord

---

The Redmond Town Center 8 in Redmond, WA (formerly an AMC/Loews Cineplex/Cineplex Odeon) is now reopened by Gold Class Cinemas & Village Roadshow Cinemas (the Aussie company).

For a mere $35 you can see a movie in digital (no mention if its 2k or 4k) and then as well you can get some expensive, fancy food for a premium price.

---

posted 01-15-2009 10:29 PM                    

quote:

---

Maya Cinemas to purchase downtown theater
By Andrew Edwards on December 15, 2008 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | ShareThis

By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer

SAN BERNARDINO - There's a sequel planned for the downtown movie theater.
Los Angeles-based Maya Cinemas is now poised to do business at the Fourth Street theater that until recently housed CinemaStar.

The City Council -acting as the commission that oversees redevelopment - approved the $4.6 million sale of the theater property Monday night by unanimous vote.

The theater building has been vacant since late September when CinemaStar's operators shut down. It was something of a surprise ending for San Bernardino movie goers.

Maya Cinemas plans to renovate the entire theater, which may reopen as early as Feb. 27.

---

posted 01-19-2009 03:30 PM                       

quote:

---

Gerry Greeno worked at Cinema Center the night it opened, Dec. 22, 1967. He was still working there early this morning when it closed for good.

The movie theater on 82nd Avenue just south of West Center Road was one of Omaha's first and longest-running multiscreen venues, expanding from one auditorium to eight by 1984. But it became a victim of megaplex trends, rapidly changing technology and benign neglect.

For Greeno, what started 51 years ago as a moonlighting job while he was stationed at Lincoln Air Force Base became a career. He had been city manager of all Douglas Theatres in Omaha, including Cinema Center, for more than three decades.

"I don't classify this as a job," Greeno said with a chuckle earlier this week in his cluttered projection booth office at Cinema Center.

"It's kind of a way of life."

He routinely stays up until 4 or 5 in the morning, puttering with theater tasks or his photography hobby. Most days he's back at the theater by 10 a.m. Over the years his wife, Sue, and both their daughters worked at Cinema Center.

Douglas sold its theater chain in Omaha and Lincoln last April to Marcus Theatres of Milwaukee. Marcus didn't want Cinema Center, so it was sold in September for redevelopment into offices.

Greeno, 70, is philosophical about it.

"It's probably time," he said. "It's been a long run."

Greeno's movie run began in 1957. His Air Force buddies worked at Lincoln's West O Drive-In when off duty, so he did, too. He moved up from the concession stand to managing the drive-in. After the Air Force, he worked at Douglas' first theater, the 84th & Center Drive-In, from 1961-64. He signed on with Douglas for good in fall 1967, just in time for Cinema Center to open.

Greeno has seen a world of change over five decades in the movie theater business.

He once saw highly flammable nitrate film go up in a puff of smoke when a projectionist at the West O was careless with a soldering iron. Now acetate film melts before it catches fire. Soon, with digital, there will be no film at all.

Projectors once illuminated by fiery carbon-arc rods now are lighted by bulbs that cost nearly $1,000 apiece. Screening a movie required two projectors, since each film reel lasted only 18 minutes. The projectionist was kept hopping as he switched from one projector to the other, rewound each reel for the next showing and replaced those carbon rods as they burned up like sparklers.

Now entire movies are spooled on huge platters that rewind them automatically. One projectionist can run 20 movies simultaneously. Soon digital movies will download in minutes with the click of a computer mouse.

For Greeno, the most interesting change has been sound equipment.

"In 1967 we used two 35-watt amplifiers," he recalled. "Now 35-watt would power nothing more than the booth monitor."

Each auditorium now has two 250- to 400-watt amps and four or more separate tracks of surround sound.

Audiences have changed, too, Greeno said. Although cell-phone texters have replaced talkers as a main complaint, he remembers a dirtier secret.

"In the early days, they never threw away their trash. They left everything on the floor. Theaters didn't clean between shows, and by the end of the day it could be a real mess."

Single-screen theaters once competed for movie titles, booking them months ahead for a guaranteed number of weeks. Now the same titles play all across town but don't stay as long. Greeno recalls showing "Dances With Wolves" for 35 weeks, "Star Wars" for 26.

As closing day neared, memories crowded in on Greeno: The day in 1968 that a live buffalo roamed the lobby, promoting the movie "Born to Buck"; the day the 1975 tornado missed Cinema Center but destroyed his nearby home; the way Sensurround made the building shake in 1975 for "Earthquake"; the night rock star Prince requested, and got, a private post-concert screening for him and his entourage.

Greeno expressed gratitude for years of "wonderful employees and loyal customers."

Raymond and Diane Janiak's family provided both. The Janiaks, who have lived nearby since 1975, go to Cinema Center an average of once a week. Their three daughters each began working there at age 15. Their youngest, Stephanie, a senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, pulled one last tour of duty at the theater over Christmas break.

"It's our favorite place to see a movie," said Raymond Janiak, 55, an architect for the Omaha Public Power District. "They have the best seats in the city, and I've been going there since I was a kid. The first drive-in movie I saw was at the 84th and Center Drive-In back in the '60s."

Janiak called Cinema Center's closing a real loss for central Omaha, a place for neighborhood kids to work and friends to connect.

Greeno has heard regrets from a number of longtime customers.

"But things change. Good, bad or indifferent, there will always be change. We just won't be moving on with time.

"We'll be putting it to rest."

---