Laura Tate
The sublime days of drive-in movies
Arnold’s busy again-not the Sacramento one, our Arnold, publisher of The Malibu Times and Malibu Times Magazine. So he asked me to find something to put in his editorial space. I looked through my files, but Malibu residents-the letter/opinion writing ones-seem to be quiet this week. My assistant editor, Jonathan Friedman, is busy working away at multiple stories, so here I am.
First, an update on movies in Malibu.
The City of Malibu, along with sponsorship by this paper and Steve Soboroff, owner of the Malibu Creek Shopping Plaza, is putting on a series of outdoor summer movies at Bluffs Park beginning in two weeks. The unfortunate Cross Creek fire in April caused the closure of Malibu’s sole movie theater, leaving Malibu’s youth (as well as its grownups) one less option of things to do during the evenings. City Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich spearheaded the effort behind CineMalibu because, as she told our reporter Kevin Connelly, of Malibu student Jerry Wolf Duff Sellers who wrote in a local paper about the lack of things to do in Malibu after the sun goes down, especially for those between the ages of 14 and 20.
“I am happy to say that the City of Malibu has listened to Mr. Jerry Wolf Duff Sellers,” Conley Ulich said. “The city has purchased outdoor film equipment and is in the process of trying to give kids and families a safe place to gather after the sun goes down.”
The idea of big-screen outdoor movies is a great one-reminiscent of drive-in movies that I used to go to as an adolescent.
I spent my teenage years in Santa Cruz, a small beach/mountain town up north where, like Malibu, when the sun went down there wasn’t much to do. There was the drive-in, though. We paid only $5 per car to see a double billing. Of course, we packed as many people as we could into one car. The movies shown were always the latest releases, too. In Los Angeles, when my brothers and I (elementary school age) went with my mom to the drive-in, the first thing we would do is rush to the swing sets located just below the big screen to play before the movie started. We did the same as teenagers in Santa Cruz, although we did it in a “cool” way. We were so cool that playing in the swing set didn’t make us nerds (or so we believed).
The next thing was the food-popcorn, sodas, candy bars, hot dogs-we had it all. Then we’d settle down, either in the car or in chairs we brought along, sometimes with blankets (which I recommend for Malibu) because the fog would roll in and make it cold, and watch the movie. Or not.
Later, as a parent, when the Chatsworth drive-in was still around before they demolished it to make way for a gigantic movie-plex, I took my then one- and two-year-old son and daughter to the drive-in movies. This was more for my benefit. As a young single mom, with no available night babysitter, there were not many places to go to with young children and not go crazy, as well as drive other people nuts.
The drive-in was perfect-I let the children out of their car seats and they climbed everywhere, while I watched at least one movie (two movies are hard to sit through with babies, even when my ever-energetic children had the run of the car). It was a sad day when that drive-in closed.
I would still go to drive-in movies if there were any around. It’s preferable to being squeezed in between people, at ten bucks per person, listening to them chomp on popcorn and talk, loudly, giving away plot points.
The one in Santa Cruz is still around-every time I visit my mother with my children, who are now much older, I practically beg them to go with me. They haven’t yet gone-I guess they don’t remember the days when the drive-in granted them a certain freedom.
The movies at the park begin July 29, which is a Friday and then continue on Saturday evenings in August. See our story on CineMalibu, page B1, for more information.