By John Duarte
Ever since the pandemic hit across the USA, a ton of places and businesses had to be shut down. One of those many places were movie theaters. For someone like myself, I love going to a movie theater and getting lost in whatever I’m watching. For the first one or two months, all I had was my blu rays and streaming services to keep me entertained. Around May, I noticed Drive-Ins were slowly opening back up as the only type of theater-going entertainment there is nowadays. I thought that’s a perfect idea, mainly because you can watch a movie on the big screen without leaving your car and keeping a social distance from everyone. Also, it makes for a perfect family night out.
From July 1st-Aug 26th Amazon Studios and actor Michael B. Jordan (Fruitville Station, Creed) teamed up to curate free...That’s right...FREE screenings all over the country, including 2 LA Drive-Ins: Vineland Drive-In & Paramount Drive-In. Each week has been a different theme. Unfortunately, they decided on screening both movies at the same time instead of doing it as an actual double feature. I’ll be talking about the week I went which was July 29th and the theme of the night was “Movies that inspired your inner child”. The two movies for that night were “Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse” & “Hook”. Even though I love Spiderverse, I haven’t seen ‘Hook” in 10 years. Not only that, but it would also be cool to see it on the big screen again and it’s a brand new 4K DCP of the Speilberg epic. When I got to the Drive-In, I was greeted by the lovely people from Amazon and Outlier Society (Michael B. Jordan's production company) as they gave me a box of goodies and snacks to munch on while enjoying the movie. It came with Truffle popcorn from Pipcorn, Path Water reusable water bottle, and some vegan birthday cookies. Once we’re all parked, we had some time to chill before the festivities began.
Once the sun went down at 8:30, the program began. First off, Michael B. Jordan gave a pre-recorded introduction and explained why he chose “Hook” as part of his program. Then right after that, the audience got a surprise pre-recorded introduction from Rufio himself Dante Basco and I’ll tell you this,...he pretty much looks the same as he did back in 1991. Then finally, off to Never Never Land we went. Now, I enjoyed the screening but I only have one negative thing to say about that night and that’s the screen we were given. There was an industrial building with their bright lights on right in the back of our screen. It kind of annoyed me for the first 10 mins but I was over it after that. I just wish they could’ve moved the screen to another one but unfortunately, that’s the only screen that had those bright lights blasting in front of us.
All in all, I had a great night and the people working the event were very helpful and nice as well. The movie itself was fun of course and the new 4K DCP looked amazing. If you want to have a fun family night, a date night with your loved one, or a “Me” party like myself, make sure you attend one of these screenings. As of this article, here are the remaining screenings you can attend:
Aug 12th Movies to make you open your eyes: Do The Right Thing (Universal) Get Out (Universal)
Aug 26th Movies to make you laugh: Coming to America (Paramount Pictures) Girls Trip (Universal)
To snag tickets, just go to AmazonScreenings.com/ANightATheDriveIn