Happy 89th, TCL Chinese Theatre

Score 10-cent bags of popcorn and wish the landmark well.

It isn't all that uncommon for the kids living along a particular suburban street to all be about the same age, give or take a few years.

But this age-same theory can extend to some of the most famous landmarks in California, too, thanks to a spate of ambitious construction springing up in certain promising places around certain times.

Look to Hollywood Boulevard, where many a prominent building and business is turning 90, or will quite soon. The Egyptian Theatre marked its 90th in 2012, and Musso and Frank Grill, a block further east, became a nonagenarian in 2009. 

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel will celebrate nine decades in 2017, as will its handprint-y, premiere-laden, kitty-corner neighbor, the TCL Chinese Theatre.

But the world's best-known cinema isn't waiting another year to start the party; the Sid Grauman-made, star-in-its-own-right structure plans to give a warm nod to its 89th birthday, which will fall on Wednesday, May 18.

What's a "warm nod" in movie lingo? Think cheapo bags of popcorn. If you're at the 7 p.m. screening of "Captain America: Civil War" you can score the quintessential film food at its 1927 price: 10 cents.

It's hard to find anything for a dime these days, much less a bag of buttery kernel goodness. Snack upon your ten-center, enjoy your Cap, Iron Man, and the gang as they scuffle, and ponder how many pieces of popcorn have been consumed over 89 years inside the vast, IMAX'd theater.

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By the by, did you know the TCL Chinese Theatre has another "world's only" to brag about? Beyond all those handprints/footprints out front, of course. It's the world's only IMAX screen with a curtain, which is pretty nifty indeed. Like the future -- IMAX, natch -- meeting the past -- a screen curtain -- halfway.

Cool stuff for an landmark-lovely 89th birthday.

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