REEL LIFE : Cinema ‘Megaplex’ Is Wave of the Future : AMC Theaters is building a 24-screen site. ‘Entertainment destinations,’ the latest buzzword, will include recreation and food.

This has truly been the century of progress. Physicists split the atom, chemists discovered DNA and astronauts went to the moon. Now those in charge of movie theater design have overcome the barrier that previously limited multiplex theaters to a paltry 20 movie screens.

AMC Theaters is building a 24-screen “megaplex” which, when completed next year, will be the largest theater in the United States. Naturally, they are building it in Dallas.

So what have the movie-going masses in Dallas got to do with us? It’s a trend, of course. Daily Variety reports that the multiplex revolution is now complete and the introduction of the megaplex has sent entertainment panderers gazing at new horizons, which surely will include Ventura County one of these days.

The latest buzzword is “entertainment destination,” a term coined for a cinema megaplex combined with miniature golf courses, virtual reality batting cages, video games, etc.

Entertainment destinations will have food courts too: faux Mexican fast food, denatured pizza and frozen yogurt in every permutation imaginable. Whereas people go to today’s mall for shopping and an incidental movie, the entertainment destination will be its own attraction.

Some say that entertainment malls will actually promote diversity, and since Hollywood and independent producers are releasing more than 100 films this fall, more screens are needed. It’s nice to think that more screens and more movies equal more variety, but the more likely scenario is one blockbuster playing on seven screens with show times spaced 15 minutes apart. That way moviegoers won’t have to call for show times.

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Silent movie nostalgia was the inspiration behind four pieces that Ojai artist Kenny Schneider installed outside the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in North Hollywood.

“They’re whirligigs, a toy that’s wind-operated like a pinwheel,” Schneider said. “The first one is based on the Buster Keaton film ‘The General.’ Keaton is sitting on the crossbar of a locomotive wheel. He’s reading a love letter from his girlfriend when the train pulls out, and he keeps reading while the crossbar is going up and down.”

Schneider also depicted Charlie Chaplin in his movie “Work.” The Little Tramp spins around in the wind, smacking his boss alternately in the face and in the butt with a paintbrush. The two other installations show a man operating a hand-crank camera and a runaway wagon with hero in pursuit.

“Instead of having the damsel in distress sitting in the runaway wagon, I turned it around, putting the man in the wagon and the woman chasing him on horseback,” Schneider said.

All four pieces are mounted on 14-foot towers designed to represent movie tripods. Schneider said public response seems to be good.

“I’ve seen homeless guys walking and talking to themselves. They will stop and consider the whirligigs for 15 minutes before they walk on down the street.”

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If you didn’t see the Academy Award-winning “Belle Epoque,” or you want to see this wonderful movie again, the Ojai Film Society is showing it this Sunday.

This Spanish sex comedy is set during the brief period of democracy before Spain fell into civil war in the 1930s. Fernando Trueba directed the story about a young army deserter in an earnest search for faith. What he finds instead is four beautiful women, the daughters of an aging but liberal-minded artist who adopts the young deserter into his household.

Hilarious situations result as the young man tries to reconcile the conflict between his romantic and spiritual ideals while pursuing the four amorous women.

The movie plays at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Ojai Playhouse, 145 E. Ojai Avenue.