For true cinema wonks, the answer is always “Yes!” (unless the goat has neglected to bring along some chevre to share, or the boat is loaded with people who talk during movies and have come equipped with crying infants and jangling cell phones.)
Funny how much the physical setting we’re in affects our impression of a film. Recently my husband and I found ourselves in a makeshift drive-in in Medicine Park, Oklahoma while we were on vacation. There we were, minding our own goat cheese, ambling down the main drag in the soft evening air, when a big parking lot across the street sprang to life with an episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies”, projected onto a screen just slightly too big for someone’s living room. So husband and I found an open park bench and passed a pleasant 20+ minutes in the company of Jed Clampett and kin, along with dozens of fellow Okies watching from lawn chairs and the beds of pickups.
Turns out this was only the beginning: as soon as the final notes of Flatt and Scruggs died away, “The Flying Tigers” blazed onto the screen. Husband is a lifelong fan of the Duke, and I’ll watch just about anything, especially if it’s older than I am and in black-and-white. So we watched as long as we could, til the park bench became too hard and we weren’t sure we could find our way in the dark back to our charming cottage if we waited any longer. Next morning, the drive-in was gone like Brigadoon (although the coffee and outstanding baked goods at Mrs. Chadwick’s were wonderfully real).
This got me thinking about the different environments I’ve watched movies in, aside from the usual living room/auditorium/theater settings. Actual drive-in theaters (not the DIY Medicine Park kind) were a little past their peak by the time I came along. Neither of my parents was that interested in trying to watch a movie with squirmy or drowsy kids from inside a car using a tinny sound system, surrounded by others trying to do the same (or not). So I have only one very hazy memory of being at a drive-in as a youngster, as well as a couple of visits as an adult to the Admiral Twin in Tulsa, Oklahoma with husband. (The films we saw at the Admiral Twin were “Desperado” and “Waterworld”. The drive-in setting wasn’t particularly kind to either one.)
Here are a couple of other offbeat settings I’ve encountered, and the movies I saw there:
- The restored Orpheum Theater in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, for “Lilo and Stitch”. This is the only two-story movie theater I’ve ever been in. (I think our showing was upstairs.) Kinda cramped, but the caged bird in the lobby added to its charm.
- The dining hall of a nursing home in midtown Tulsa, for “Boys Town”, “White Christmas”, and several other old flicks. At one time, my church did kind of a “movie ministry” at one of the local nursing homes. No big agenda, just a way to spend a couple of hours one Sunday afternoon a month with older folks who didn’t get many visitors. Showing movies that they might remember from their younger days seemed like something we could manage without requiring too much time or expense. We did get a few audience members each time, most of whom shuffled in and out, or dozed through whatever VHS tape we were able to coax the home’s balky VCR to play.
What are some unusual settings that you’ve watched movies in? (And would you recommend these environments to others, or not?) Share your experiences in the Comments, won’tcha?
Cinema Wonk 