Worldwide Catastrophe

On Feb.15, when the Loews Cineplex Entertainment movie theater chain announced that they were filing for bankruptcy and would be closing 22 theaters nationwide, I shrugged my shoulders and experienced only the quietest of melancholy pangs.

I grew up in movie theaters, loved the whole experience?the smells, the anticipation, the pre-film murmuring of the crowd, the slight flutter in the guts whenever the lights began to dim?but given various physical shortcomings, despite repeated attempts over the past years, going out to the movies was rarely anything more than a frustrating ordeal. Having a few hundred screens shut down wouldn't make me miss the experience much more than I already did.

Besides, there was never any great love in my heart for the Loews chain of googolplexes?I know people with televisions bigger than some of the screens you end up finding in those places. (It's true!)

Last weekend, however, when my girlfriend, on a whim, called the cheapie theater (as we had come to know it) to see what was playing, she received a prerecorded message informing her that it had closed down permanently. That news upset me.

The Cineplex Odeon Encore Worldwide Cinema (as it was officially known) at 340 W. 50th St., just off 8th, was not only New York's last dollar theater?where you could see second-run Hollywood features for, at the end, $4 a pop?it was one of the very last vestiges of Times Square's glory days to have held on after the Disney Annihilation. Not so much in what it was, exactly, but in what it represented.

Even though it was a multiplex and wasn't much to look at, it still at least approximated the old days, where you could drop a buck or two at the box office, then spend the duration of a miserable summer afternoon moving from theater to theater in air-conditioned comfort, watching movie after movie, carrying a damn picnic basket with you if you so pleased. The crowds were usually sparse, but always enthusiastic. And the movies? Who gave a rat's ass if everyone had seen them already? Those people were fools?paying $9.50 per, when all you had to do was wait a few weeks and you'd get the same experience?without the crowds and without the attitude?for less than it cost to rent a videotape.

Even if I couldn't see what was happening on the screen, I loved going to the Worldwide.

Loews cites the same reason for the closing as they do for jacking ticket prices at their remaining Manhattan theaters up to the $10 mark?increased real estate prices and labor costs, decreased revenues, etc. And while yes, all that makes sense and is understandable, it's still a shame that among their nationwide closings, they had to target the one movie house in New York that was still, well, cheap.

Granted, the Worldwide wasn't the Selwyn, or any of the other great old Times Square grindhouses, but dammit, it was all we had left. Now what'll all those film-loving bums do come summertime?