I can’t think of another commercial theatre that I like more than the Aero. The fact that it’s a tastefully programmed rep house with first-rate projection standards is only the half of of it. The other half is that it’s a living, commercially solvent remnant of what theatres in every small and mid-sized town in this country used to be. It’s what John Travolta said of Jackrabbit Slims in Pulp Fiction — “a museum with a pulse.”

Except movies look and sound a lot better at the heavily refurbished Aero than they ever did in single-screen houses in the ’60s and ’70s.

Plus the Aero is on a nice quiet street (Santa Monica’s Montana Avenue) with two yogurt shops nearby and nice, settled-down people walking around and no coarse, squealing low-lifes laughing too loudly over glasses of wine. Everybody who hangs out on Montana “gets it.” Okay, it may feel a little too sedate at times. I’ll admit to having said to myself once or twice, “This has to be one of whitest streets in Los Angeles.” I prefer a bit more uptown hurly burly, but it’s awfully nice to hang on Montana Ave. and know that representatives of the devolution of American culture will not appear.