I’ve long had this crazy dream of buying a small, older movie theater and running it. We’d show mainstream stuff, but try to mix it up by finding classic movies and indie fare as well. The key to it all I think, is getting a liquor license. Paul Walker movies seem a lot better when you’re loaded. So does the theater’s sticky floor. There’s actually a great little closed down movie theater in the town where I live. A couple of years ago it was a dollar movie, but it’s since gone under and ended up being rented out by Church groups. When it was open, it was a great theater to hang out it, and if I ever ran into a gigantic wad of excess cash I have this horrible suspicion that I’d probably be tempted to buy it, re-open it, and then drive myself to bankruptcy as I ran it into the ground. I have absolutely no business sense.

Well, the days of great little mom & pop theaters like that are long gone. Can they even survive in today’s megaplex environment? You just don’t see them anymore, and things are only getting tougher. The little guy was long ago swallowed up and now the big monster movie chains are feasting on each other. Fully 50% of the theaters here in Dallas are either AMC’s or Loews, the other 50% being comprised mainly of Cinemarks. So the news that AMC and Loews are merging comes as something of a surprise to me, since well those are the only places around that I regularly frequent.

So, the mega-companies are getting even more mega. AMC Entertainment today announced their merge with Loews, giving the new super-company over 450 theaters in their combined corporate grip and an even greater say in what you’ll be viewing. The good news for me personally is that maybe the merge will mean AMC spending the money to either upgrade or shut down some of the Loews here in Dallas. While all our AMC theaters are put together like movie-going palaces, the Loews are run down piles of crap, noteworthy only for their tendency to server suspicious looking shrimp from their concession stand. I’m sorry, but I’m a little picky about where I buy seafood. A counter run by a grimy high school teenager who can’t keep from burning the popcorn is not on my list of approved seafood eating locations.