EDITORIAL

It’s Friday night. You’d like to see a movie. Maybe that new Julia

Roberts flick or the latest from De Palma.

But you’re not really looking forward to driving around for half an hour

in search of a parking space. And then there’s the line to get tickets,

the chance that the movie you want will be sold out and the rush to find

two seats together so you and your movie-going partner don’t have to sit

on opposite sides of the theater.

No problem. You’ll just go to your small, uncrowded, comfortable

neighborhood theater.

Except you can’t. There aren’t any more.

They’ve all been demolished or taken offline because they can’t compete

with the larger, state-of-the-art multi-theater complexes.

First there was the old Mesa Theater on Newport Boulevard -- torn down

and replaced with Borders Books & Music. Then there was the Port Theater,

which still stands vacant. Mothballed.

The latest victim of movie megaplex mania is the little Edwards Cinema on

Adams Avenue and Harbor Boulevard. One of the oldest Edwards theaters

around, it will close April 1 and be converted into a beauty college.

The lovable movie house -- with its 1960s-style architecture and

comfortable, well-worn interior -- is from an era that is vanishing from

our community landscape.

The demand for everything to be bigger, newer and better is

understandable -- especially in Orange County.

Still, it’s sad, isn’t it? You wonder if, with a little more imagination

and a little less attention to the bottom line, the funky old movie

houses could be turned into something special. Maybe the hippest foreign

film theaters in Orange County.

But that’s not the case. So it’s back to driving in circles around the

giant parking garage.