New Laredo drive-in rolls along

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Now this is the kind of news that I enjoy sharing. The Sunset Drive-In Cinema opened in Laredo TX last September, but I just now noticed it. As reported by the Laredo Morning Times, the Sunset is the culmination of Martin and Priscilla Resendez’s dream, inspired by drive-ins they visited during trips to Central Texas.

The Sunset lot is so new it doesn’t really show up on Google Maps, and its location on Francisco Guerra Jr. Blvd. is so remote that there’s no decent Google Street View yet. But the drive-in has been showing movies at a steady pace. According to its web site, tonight’s double feature will be “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club.” Tomorrow night brings two showings of “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.”

If you’re anywhere near Laredo, be sure to drop in and help support this great throwback to the drive-ins of old.

Shankweiler’s showing saved by shovelers

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Mark Fischbach, a YouTuber and filmmaker also known as Markiplier, came to the rescue last week for the premiere of his movie, “Iron Lung.” He put out the call to his internet followers to descend on Shankweilers Drive-In Theatre and shovel away the snow so the drive-in could play the movie as scheduled.

As reported by WFMZ, the Lehigh Valley’s News Leader, Shankweiler’s owner Matthew McClanahan was surprised to see the response on the drive-in’s Facebook page. As WFMZ’s video showed, a couple dozen shovelers, a snowblower, and a couple of pickup truck plows cleared the way for the show to go on.

Even AI loves the Fort Union

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The Fort Union’s old speaker poles were all along the fence in this photo I took in 2023.

Last week, something called DailyWise published a glowing tribute to one of my favorite drive-ins, the Fort Union Drive In Movie Theatre in Las Vegas NM. (Here’s the Internet Archive permalink version of that story, minus the photos, all from Google Maps.)

As I read the lengthy article, I started to notice that it was getting fuzzy, and not in good ways. It described the available snacks as “all the classics you crave, from buttery popcorn and candy to hot dogs and sodas” without mentioning its signature pizza. The admission price “is typically charged per car or per person” which didn’t really say anything. And I was sure something was wrong when the article described “the rows of speaker posts” for patrons. As you can see in my photo from 2023 (above) or a Google Street View from 2014, the Fort Union’s speaker poles haven’t been available for a very long time.

I asked Google about that publisher, and its AI told me, “Dailywise is an AI-powered app designed to improve personal productivity, health, and skill-building through habit tracking and coaching.” (Yes, I can see the irony here.) The Dailywise home page looks like AI-generated click bait.

So the result was a fake article about a very real place to visit. I highly recommend the Fort Union, which was also nice enough to let me use it on the cover of Drive-Ins of New Mexico. But I think I’ll skip future articles from Dailywise. I don’t think I can trust them.