I'm sure everyone knows the news now that the AMC Pittsburg 8 has permanently closed. For this cinephile, it was a gut punch to the proverbial stomach. Another third space lost into the ether for good. It took me back to the day I found out my beloved Hastings Entertainment days were numbered.

It's the irony of May 2026 being the biggest month for movies since before the pandemic and being led by very young YouTube creators that our college town theater shutters. I had this fear during the lockdown as many live entertainment spaces were closing down.

But, six years later, I was gobsmacked by the Pittsburg theater shutting down with no warning except for two good friends texting me the Facebook messages. I thought it wasn't real and that it was AI. It didn't take much fact checking that this news was the real deal.

All day, I stewed about it, went down Reddit rabbit holes, I even emailed and called AMC Leawood to try to find the clues to this mystery.

There are many theories and some conspiracy theories, too. I finally decided to accept that this is our present moment and embrace and enjoy all the memories I made there basically since I was in middle school.

My first memory of watching a film at the mall theater was with my best friend of over fourty years. We watched the classic dramedy "Steel Maganiala" and watched a young star in Julia Roberts be born before our eyes. We quoted the movie for weeks...and it will occasionally pop up now.

Fast forward to the year 2003, when the hubster woke me up on a school night to go see the midnight showing of the epic ending of "The Lord of the Rings." In the 2000s and even early 2010s, midnight movie releases were quite the events. People dressed up as characters and it had a Comic Con vibe. We had a wonderful time..even though I took a long nap after school the next day.

My friend from Neodesha and I have watched probably hundreds of movies since 1996 since we became friends. Matinee and evening shows always followed with an analysis of the film over dinner or drinks. Or both! Talking about the movies we watched after was just as much fun as the movie itself.

This week, we became film refugees and traveled to another town to watch a film we had already planned to see in Pittsburg until the plug was pulled. When we went to the other theater, we shopped in that town and also ate at their restaurants which we would have done that here if the Pittsburg 8 was not shut down. So, not only is there a cultural impact but a financial community impact.

In the Depression, people went to the movies to escape reality for a few hours. I know we have many more distractions now, but we keep losing more and more third spaces which contributes to the loneliness epidemic.

I'm hoping that another movie company or a private individual might take over the theater in some capacity. 100 years is a long time to have a movie theater and then to just disappear in one day.

Will you miss the movie theater? Do you have any fond memories of attending there?

See you on the flip side