🚀 go-pugleaf

It's now a little after 3:00am and I am going to have trouble waking up in the 
morning to go to work.  But, as a dreamer, I felt a need to pay my respects 
this evening to an old friend.  I also felt it was important to leave this 
post for those to read, to at least take a moment to reflect on a passing era. 

I just came home from watching the very last movie showing of the Cine' Capri 
theater.  It is now closed for good.  They are going to tear it down for more 
parking space for a mall expansion.  Efforts to try to save it by Harkin's 
(who only leased the property), a city appointed committee, and thousands upon 
thousands of petition signers failed.    The Cine' Capri was the last of the 
great ones.  The Kachina and the rest are long gone.  There are still a few 
single theaters like the Valley Arts in Tempe still operating, but the Cine' 
Capri was the biggest in the Valley.  Smaller multiplexes are more economical 
to run.  But it was the Cine' Capri that all the major movie production 
companies wanted to premiere at.  It was always THE place to go.  The lone 
building with its large lobby, drapes, 22 speakers placed around the theater, 
always centered on one great movie for lot of people.  

It seems somewhat appropriate that it's last showing was "Titanic."  

I remember arriving too late, once, and having to sit up front and on the edge 
to see a distorted view of "Alien" on that curved screen.  I remember sitting 
through 11-1/2 hours of the Star Trek Marathon.  I remember showing up to a 
3-D movie called "Coming at Ya" using a special silver nitrate screen only the 
Cine' Capri had.  Others will have their own memories.  

You may not remember for long, but take a moment to think about the Cine' 
Capri and the other large single theaters now past.