Two MINI notes equals one post

Posted on May 29, 2013 by mrdrivein

Definitely not MINIs, but it is the Warwick Drive-In. Photo by Craige Moore.

Hope you enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend. Here at Carload world headquarters, we ran into two short drive-in notes with an unusual common thread – the MINI line of cars. Please note that Carload is not sponsored by MINI or any other car company, but if you’re a MINI executive reading this, we’re always open to new advertisers.

First off is a MINI-sponsored slide show on Salon.com. The headline and first sentence of this one had been coming up in my searches for weeks, but Salon had hidden it until Monday. The 10 drive-in photos are worth the visit, and it’s nice to read someone else who recognizes that “the only thing cooler than an air-conditioned auditorium is watching ‘Back to the Future’ from your own time machine on wheels.”

The second note comes from InventorSpot.com, of all places. It’s a puff piece about the Prestige MINI dealership in Ramsey NJ and its annual MINI Movie Night across the border at the Warwick Drive-In in Warwick NY. This year’s event will be Wednesday, June 5. Maybe I should have labeled that as another great idea for drive-in operators – partner with a nearby dealership to take over an underproductive weeknight. Sounds like fun!

Shortest double feature ever?

Posted on May 24, 2013 by mrdrivein

Here’s a tiny anecdote that doesn’t really mean anything. I noticed that over at the Redwood Drive-In (West Valley City UT), they’re showing Epic followed by 42 as one of their double features. That’s six characters. Has there ever been an actual drive-in movie double feature with fewer than six characters in the titles?

(And another thing, why does the Redwood 6’s web site show just four screens active without mentioning the number 6? Google’s aerial view clearly shows six screens, and its Street View shows six double features on its understated sign as of August 2011. Did the Redwood take down a couple of screens? Will it ramp back up to six shows later in the summer? But I digress.)

Now don’t just send me any two titles or speculate that somebody somewhere showed Mud with 42. (For some reason, Mud didn’t show up on a lot of drive-in screens I keep track of.) Earlier this year, we had Argo and Mama at drive-ins but no one-character movies to go with them. If you want to research some old newspapers or some old page at the Internet Archive, you might try to find something to go with:

Pi (released July 1998), not last year’s Life of Pi, this was an oddball film about a math genius.
54 (released August 1998), the disco-era retrospective with Ryan Phillippe.
O (released August 2001), the modernized version of Shakespeare’s Othello with Julia Styles.
P (released February 2005), an art-house horror movie directed by Paul Spurrier.
R (released June 2011), an art-house prison drama starring Pilou Asbaek.

Were there any three-character titles in the summer of 1998? Did some drive-in show a short-titled film with O or one of those art-house movies with ozone-friendly themes? If you find a shorter double feature, leave a comment here with a link to the proof. Start digging!

Peoria drive-in returns for second season

Posted on May 23, 2013 by mrdrivein

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If you remember way back in September, we talked about the Landmark Cinemas in Peoria IL. It’s an unremarkable indoor movie house, but it had the great idea to add a seasonal drive-in to its overflow parking lot. (Which means that even during its busiest times of the week, it needs something better to do with that lot. But I digress.) Now comes the good news from the Peoria Journal Star that this permanently makeshift drive-in will reopen this weekend for the summer season.

I can call it permanent because it gained a permanent permit from the city of Peoria last fall after operating for a little while with a temporary permit. I call it makeshift because, well look at the Google Street View photo from September 2011; it was just a parking lot. I doubt that it looks a whole lot better now, but feel free to take a photo of the Landmark and add it to the Carload Flickr pool so we’ll all know.

Anyway, the drive-in is starting with just weekends, but “Landmark Recreation Center general manager Bill Lanzotti said they will consider adding weekday screenings if attendance is robust.” For a couple of photos, a map, and a few more details, you really ought to read the article.