Did you have a local cinema growing up?

[Nr1Humanoid]

The kind they set up in a gym or other local building when there's no theater in town?

We had one in a gym. It was long ago but I clearly remember going to see Little Lord Fountleroy by mistake. Guess I should have got a clue when no kids showed up. Can't for the life of me remember what I wanted to go see.

[GuyOfOwnage]

Not the kind you're referring to, but as a kid, we had one small local theater. It opened in the 1930s, but they never changed the decor, which was all gold railings, red carpets, and chandeliers. It had a really classy, dignified look that made going to a movie feel special. Sadly, it died out around 99/2000, and I'm pretty sure it's a furniture store now.

[StuntGranny®]

We have/had a small local theater that's not remotely fancy, but it's amazing. $5 matinee prices and $7 for regular showings.

[Ultimo Gallos]

As a kid we had 2 two screeners in the next town over.One of them was downtown and I loved it. Saw so many films there. The other was in the same parking lot as K-mart and the only good thing about it was during the summer once a week they would have a kids movie for a buck.

The good one closed when I was 5 or so,so late 70s. The other was still open last time I was in that part of Pascagoula. It has closed a few times. One time got converted into a coffee shop. Then got reopened as a second run cinema. Then switched back over to showing first run stuff.

Closest I can remember to what the OP is talking about was once a year at school they would show us a film. Pretty sure they were projecting 16mm. They would take us all into the cafeteria,a screen would come down from the front of the stage and we would get to see a movie and a cartoon.About a year after I left that school they stopped doing it and would instead just wheel in a 20 inch tv with a vcr.

[Powerline]

There is a building in the downtown section of my small little hometown that's now an antique store. But if you go in, you can clearly see the building was made to be a theater (or at some point was remodeled to be one). There's a large white wall on the back end of the building, the front of the store still looks similar to a ticket station (the windows are now just display windows that can't open, but they're the same long shape), and there is an upstairs "room" that is only on one side of the building and a window that looks out onto the floor of the store that would've been where the projector was. And the staircase to get there is in an out-of-sight room that you can quickly get to from the ticket station but is pretty well out of the way if you were coming in from the front door to the show.

But no, we never had any makeshift theaters. We had a plentiful amount of AMC theaters and a couple malls that had multiplexes. Now though, there's only two real movie theaters close to us. There's an AMC "Odyssey" mega-theater with, like, 30 screens that charges out the ass no matter what you see or when you see it. There's also a smaller, 12-screen theater that also charges out the ass for regular showings but matinee prices are SO much better than the AMC place. They honestly are able to stay open just off matinee showings on weekends because they're so much cheaper. But their regular showing prices are almost equal to AMC so the AMC place becomes packed for premieres and stuff since it is a newer, more high-tech theater.

We also have an Alamo Drafthouse theater in downtown KC that's actually in a theater building that's 95 years old. It was going to be torn down despite its "National Register of Historic Places" claim because of renovations to the downtown area thanks to the new Sprint Center arena. But instead they renovated the hell out of it, and now it's a really neat movie theater and due to how Alamo Drafthouse operates, it's an incredible date-night destination (and this coming from someone who thinks movies are typically an awful date night idea).

[Cyno]

I live down the street from a former 2 movie theater to a 4 movie theater. I think it's technically a part of a small chain, but it was originally independent.

Prices are what you'd expect from a typical movie theater though, unfortunately.

[The Unconquered Sun]

Where I grew up we had a local theater. All those classic 80's movies, that's where I saw them, right until the original Robocop, it closed down shortly after that one.

[Duke Cameron]

My hometown had two, but one closed in 2007 and the other in 2010.

[Jessica Cadavre]

No, but when I ride through Baltimore city with my parents they always point out the small local theaters they used to attend when they were kids. Most of them are closed down now.

[Bob Schlapowitz]

Yes. The Wollaston theater. It was a real old theater built in the 1930s or so. Monday and Tuesday nights were Buck Night, and it would be packed no matter what they were showing. They would usually get a movie well after it had left other theaters. It closed about 15 years ago and just sat rotting after the owner passed away. It was torn down a month or so ago, and I went and got a brick.

[Amazing Kitsune]

We have an old theater that--by its design--was at least around during segregation. I'm not sure it's original date. We also have a drive in theater.

[crash1984]

Not like you are talking about. That being said there used to be this family run theater I used to go to. There was just one screen and the movies they had were second run movies that had not gotten out on video yet. Movies were $1 and small cokes and popcorn was also the same price. It closed in 2001 but toward the end it got to where they never had anything. Most of the movies were those no one had heard of or kiddie movies.

[Deleted]

The cinema the OP talks about, we show movies in the park during the summer like that.

Small theaters, they're all gone. The place I saw my first movie in 1980 became a pizza place.
The 2 screen by where Venture was (is a KMart now) still sits empty after almost 20 years.
The one by WiseWay/Zayre (now a Menards/Ultra) was torn down.

The neighboring town has one that they plan to refurbish (been closed 25 years at least) back to how it was in the 1940s. Roof needs replaced, gonna cost a lot of money.
I'd build a new. Only people who care about it are the old farts who remember it then, yet haven't been in town since 1962.

[twiggy101]

We have one big one but then it converted into a twin theatre bu putting a curtain in the middle. That place is shady as hell. Just recently one of the employees who had a key kidnapped someone with his buddies and used the basement as a torture chamber.

[DSR]

We had a family owned drive-in, but it closed down a couple of years ago. It was too costly to convert from reel projectors to the digital ones, so they just closed up shop.

Closer to what the OP was talking about, when I was in college one night they put up a projector and a big screen on the lawn outside our dorm building. They played the second Matrix movie.