Father Geek here with a different kind of OBIT. Its not for the passing of a great star, or a famous Director, or Screenwriter. No... this time it is for a place... an institution... a type of entertainment. I received a handful of E-mails about this today, but this one moved me... reminded me of all the theaters and drive-ins of my own youth that have vanished from the cinema landscape forever.

But this was no ordinary out-of-date movie theater... this is a Buffalo of cine palaces, or more aptly the Dodo because you can count the existing Cinerama houses in the WORLD on one hand. We've written about this problem a couple of times in the past. First, in our 1021st story Just click here to visit that one. Then awhile later in the 5241st report on the site. See it by Clicking right Here.

Now to the current story... a goodbye to The Indian Hills Cinerama... from A FAN...

News has just emerged that the owners of the Indian Hills Cinerama theater have filed Chapter 11, and Indian Hills is closing effective immediately.

I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. Each time I've gone there the theater has been in a progressively worse state of disrepair. I mentioned it to my mother a year or so ago, she shrugged and said, "oh, they're going to close the place." I suppose deep down I knew it would happen. But that doesn't lessen the shock.

Another landmark from our child hood is destined to become another strip mall, and they wonder why our generation is so jaded..

When I stop and think about it, I want to get weepy. I know its just a place, but it is a place where so much of the magic of my childhood happened. I could list all of the movies I've seen there, from The Hindenburg, to Star Wars, to Lawrence of Arabia. All of the summer afternoons as a grade schooler watching kid flicks. Taking my son Conrad to those same kid flicks years later. Grease and Goonies. Star Trek 2, Aliens. My mother crying when Spock died. Dreaming of the day when I'd accept an Oscar for my first film...Wanting to kiss Harrison Ford.

Stadium seating before anyone knew what that was..Being 8 years old and not having to worry if a grown-up sat in front of me. The smell of popcorn, the funky bubble patterns on the carpet. The soft, plush purple seats. Dimming lights, the faint hiss of the curtains opening..

The bass rattle of a Star Destroyer passing over my head, the sand storm from Close Encounters, the flutter of my heart upon seeing a young Peter O'Toole for the first time in glorious cinemascope. The attack of the white blood cells in Fantastic Voyage...

The Indian Hills is one of only four Cinerama theaters left IN THE WORLD...

So, what is a building worth? What are memories worth? What is the value of dreams...I'm afraid those things aren't worth much to the world at large, at least not as much as another useful strip mall...

A FAN