http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1lwzgl83yI

I just realized that I haven’t shared this great short film with you. It’s called Projector: The Last Outdoor Cinemas of Colorado, and it looks like a labor of love for director Mike Liguori and his Thousand Foot Pictures.

Liguori hopes to expand the short into a feature-length documentary, which would be a great thing, of course. For the latest information, you can sign up for his email list or check his Facebook page.

Projector was filmed in 2010, before the digital conversion crisis reached its peak. Although it doesn’t point it out, the short interviews the two owners of the two unrelated Colorado theaters named Star Drive-In, one in Monte Vista and one in Montrose. Keep watching for glimpses of the playground still available in Monte Vista, the abandoned Frontier sign near Center CO, and the neon signs of the 88 of Commerce City. Check it out!

According to the Monte Vista (CO) Journal, the Best Western Movie Manor there was nominated a few weeks ago for the “Most Unique Hotel” award as chosen by Best Western International Facebook fans. Of course, that’s because every room at the Movie Manor faces the Star Drive-In‘s main screen. (You can also see the second screen from at least some of the rooms, but it’s a lot more awkward to watch.)

Unfortunately for us drive-in fans, the winner, announced this week, was the Best Western Studley Castle Hotel in Studley, England. That announcement is where I saw that the official award was for “Most Unique Hotel,” a phrase that the Journal article didn’t repeat. As an old newspaper guy, I hope that was because you can’t have anything that is “most unique”. Unique means one of a kind. Nothing can be “more” one of a kind; it is or isn’t. But I digress.

The good news from the Journal article is when it simply states that “The (Star) drive-in will go digital soon.” Glad to hear of one more drive-in that plans to persevere through the conversion process.

The bad news is that the Holiday Twin Drive-In (Fort Collins CO) is already closed for the season. The good news is that it’s pushing forward with digital conversion and even sees the cool stuff it could do once it’s freed from needing those huge cans of film to show a movie, the Rocky Mountain Collegian reports.