{"id":51,"date":"2009-01-09T13:34:09","date_gmt":"2009-01-09T13:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=51"},"modified":"2009-01-09T13:42:53","modified_gmt":"2009-01-09T13:42:53","slug":"2008-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2009\/01\/09\/2008-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"2008 In Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
With the arrival of a new year, it’s time to look back\u00a0on the year that was in Orange County cinema:<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/span><\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
New Arrival<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
The Movie Experience at the Anaheim Garden Walk\/Cinema Fusion – Veteran Southern California chain,\u00a0Sanborn\/SoCal\/The Movie Experience, returned to the Orange County market with an equally branding challenged cinema, across from the Disneyland resort. Offering an IMAX screen and “adults only” theatre option, along with retro “Googie” decor, the Movie Experience at the Anaheim Garden Walk\/Cinema Fusion holds a great deal of promise as an alternative to standard megaplex faire. However, rather typical of this chain, the theatre also suffers from a host of logistical issues. Time will tell if this cinema\u00a0finds it’s niche or suffers the same fate as\u00a0the “here today,\u00a0gone tomorrow” Cinemaland.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
Changing Hands<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Rancho Niguel 8 – Back in February, the eternally mismanaged Niguel 8 quietly changed operators from Mann to Regency. Over the years, Laguna Niguel’s under appreciated cinematic gem has rotated between Mann and Edwards, never quite\u00a0managing to\u00a0capture area movie goers for any significant length of time. Here is hoping Regency finally takes full advantage of this excellent site.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Fond Farewell<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Pierside Pavillion 6 – After some two decades of struggling under three different operators, Huntington Beach’s Pierside Pavilion was closed. Left in\u00a0turn key condition, the cinema could easily be reopened on short notice, but no suitors have stepped up to take on the challenge of this unique location yet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
South Coast Plaza Theatres –\u00a0March saw a low point in Orange County cinema, with the demolition of the South Coast Plaza theatres. Once standing as an area landmark and the cornerstone of the “Westwood of Orange County”, these cinemas were an area favorite for over thirty years. After having been shuttered, following Edwards’ bankruptcy,\u00a0many held out the hope\u00a0that at least one of the buildings would be saved for use as a theatre. Unfortunately, after a decade of languishing in obscurity, the complex was razed to make way for yet another Costa Mesa office building.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Mann Theatres – With Regency Theatre taking over the Niguel 8, Mann has officially exited the Orange County market, after a thirty-five year run in the\u00a0county. Once having, somewhat notoriously, taken over the classic palaces of Fox West Coast\/National General and having built four venues of their own, Mann was, for a time, a county heavyweight.\u00a0However, much like their overall chain, the company has drifted out of significance over the ensuing years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Back From The Brink<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Port Theatre – After sitting vacant for a decade and facing an announced meeting with the wrecking ball,\u00a0Corona Del Mar’s\u00a0Port theatre was saved at the last minute. While no concrete opening date has been\u00a0made public, renovation is currently underway to convert the Port in to an upscale lounge style cinema.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Four Star Cinema – In 2008, Garden Grove’s small, independently operated,\u00a0Four Star Cinema received a much needed remodel and upgrade to digital projection. Under new ownership and\u00a0re christened the “Family Four”,\u00a0this theatre has made a valiant attempt\u00a0to reinvent itself as a viable cinema destination.\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Fountain Valley Twin – While not finding new life as a cinema, the long abandoned Fountain Valley Twin was remodeled in to an Asian performing arts center this past Summer.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Strange Days<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Fullerton 20 stabbing – Literally, like a scene right out of a horror movie, two Fullerton 20 patrons were stabbed by a deranged man, while watching the horror film “The Signal”. In August,\u00a0a suspect, twenty four year old Steven Robinson Jr., was taken in to custody and charged with the crime.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Krikorian Buena Park robbery – Covered in an earlier post, Krikorian’s Buena Park location fell victim to a creative criminal, who managed to clean out the theatre’s safe through posing as a Buena Park police detective. Unlike\u00a0standard theatre robberies, which usually involve a degree of force, this criminal not only talked his way in to the office, but actually convinced the theatre’s manager to open the safe and reveal facility security equipment. To date, no suspect has been named in the robbery.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Changes<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Newspaper print adds – A sign of the times, Cinemark\/Century theatres dropped their daily block advertisements in the Orange County Register and scaled back the Los Angeles Times to a small “see city listings” note. Other major operators have significantly downsized from their once full page adds and Regal Entertainment Group has announced plans to drop print advertising in the near future.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Digital projection – To date, only four Orange County theatres currently offer all digital projection, but, with the\u00a0development of a digital cooperative between the industry’s “big three” (covered in an earlier post), there are promises that we’ll be seeing far more digital screens in the near future.\u00a0Additionally, studios are beginning to pick up on the latest cinematic gimmick, digital 3-D, with Dreamworks announcing that all of their animated releases will be made available in the format this year. Whether any of this will live up to the “digital revolution” or industry “turning point” hype remains to be seen.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
And, there you have Orange County’s 2008 cinema scene in a nutshell. There have certainly been more eventful years, and those that were far less. Personally, I view the year as the beginning\u00a0of a transition period for both the industry and county scene. Much like the country at large, cinema is looking to find it’s place in a rapidly changing world.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the arrival of a new year, it’s time to look back\u00a0on the year that was in Orange County cinema: \u00a0. . New Arrival \u00a0 The Movie Experience at the Anaheim Garden Walk\/Cinema Fusion – Veteran Southern California chain,\u00a0Sanborn\/SoCal\/The Movie Experience, returned to the Orange County market with an equally branding challenged cinema, across from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema-memories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}