It's fun to reminisce about growing up in this town. I've covered all the great fun we used to have when there was snow on the ground. (And it occurred to me, after writing all those stories, how infrequently I've had that particular opportunity, since we hadn't had snowfall like that in so long.)

But I'm seizing one now because I got into a discussion, the other day, about how I hadn't been inside a movie theater in a year--not since just before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. And because all these great new movies have been coming to us via streaming platforms (you HAVE to watch Nomadland), I haven't taken the time to realize that, oddly enough, I didn't miss it.

It's not that I don't enjoy the movie theater experience. Not at all; I love it. It just is what it is. And I WILL be watching Godzilla vs. Kong on the big screen.

The conversation turned toward the theaters we USED to have in Owensboro and the last movies I saw in each one. And, I have to say, they run the gamut.

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The Plaza Twin

The Plaza Twin theater in Wesleyan Park Plaza was my favorite of the "Big Three." And that HAS to be because of 1978's Superman. That blockbuster was the first movie that really, for me, was the whole package, in terms of the movie-going experience. It's the kind of movie that offers a perfectly fine explanation as to WHY you'd go to a movie theater in the first place.

It was 19 years after that viewing that I saw my final film at the Plaza Twin and, what do you know, it ended up being my all-time favorite movie. And in the past 24 years, no other film has come close to 1997's L.A. Confidential, a crime drama/murder mystery set in 1953 Los Angeles about corrupt cops, gangsters, and movie star look-alikes. It's absolutely perfect. I saw it again just a few weeks ago, and it hasn't lost anything, thankfully.

The Malco

On the other hand, I wish the last movie I saw at the old Malco downtown where Theater Workshop is now had GAINED something since its release in 1985. But, alas, St. Elmo's Fire is still just a half-baked brat pack movie about spoiled Georgetown students that plays like a high school drama class project (only much, much worse). At least its chart-topping theme song still rocks my world. And at least Malco had that popcorn machine which STILL makes the best popcorn in town.

The Mall Twin

Growing up on Sunrise Drive, we lived right down the street from Lincoln Mall and, consequently, the Mall Twin Theater. So I saw a lot of movies there. Good ones, too, like Star Wars and On Golden Pond. The LAST one, however? It was The Crow in 1994. Some friends and I saw it mainly because its star Brandon Lee (son of the late, legendary Bruce Lee) had died in the middle of filming and the filmmakers commenced with production nonetheless. As far as the plot is concerned, in The Crow, a man and his fiancee are murdered and he comes back from the dead to exact revenge. It just wasn't very memorable at all. But, again, we were just going out of curiosity.

It's an interesting phenomenon when you look back remember the "last things" you did in certain circumstances. I had no idea those three movies were the last ones I'd see in those respective theaters. I'm glad that at least one of them was/is a keeper.