Virginia Living: The Big Picture... online!

Honk your horns with glee!  

Virginia Living Magazine has posted my cover feature on Virginia's surviving drive-in theaters.

The story begins:

A short row of cars is lined up at the entrance to Hull’s Drive-In Theatre, which sits just off Route 11 in Lexington, not far from a fireworks vendor and a truck stop. The warm late-April Sunday is turning brisk as the sun lowers and longtime Hull’s ticket taker Sam Newcomer stands outside the rickety ticket booth nursing a cough. 

“Fridays and Saturdays are busier. Sundays are usually the slow night,” he tells me after he collects $7 for admission from a man and his Shih Tzu in a late model truck.

The sounds of “At The Hop” are echoing off the mostly empty drive-in movie lot, and the smell of popcorn is in the air. Hull’s opened in 1950 as the Lee Drive-In Theatre and, unlike many open-air cinemas constructed during that time, is still doing business today. When longtime owner Sebert W. Hull passed away 15 years ago, a group of Lexingtonians formed the Hull’s Angels and rallied to save it, boxy metal speakers and all. Today, Hull’s is the only community-owned, nonprofit drive-in theater in the U.S.

 Click here to read "The Big Picture."

Photo by the mighty Cade Martin!

The Washington Post: Now Showing at Drive-Ins

It looks like I'm the designated "drive-in guy" this Summer.

Take a gander at my Sunday feature in today's Washington Post. The article is about the Family Drive-In (near Winchester) and the state of the outdoor movie experience.

In a few hours, cars will roll into the Family Drive-In Theatre and settle into neat lines next to row upon row of waist-high speaker poles. For tonight at least, that is just as it was during the first show in 1956.

“These speakers and posts are getting harder to deal with because there’s only one manufacturer that still makes the parts,” says James Kopp, manager of the Stephens City, Va., theater. “It’s in Kansas City.”

Click here and read, "Now Showing..." 

And don't forget to read the sidebar, about the history of the drive-in.

Virginia Living: The Big Picture

"Let's All Go to the Movies!" 

Pick up the July/Aug. issue of Virginia Living Magazine and read "The Big Picture," my cover feature on the surviving drive-in theaters of Virginia. You'll also learn why many drive-ins across the country may go dark next year, even as the popularity of outdoor viewing would appear to be on the rise.

The article is not online but you should get the printed edition anyway as the VL art department did its usual superlative job in presenting the piece. Speaking of which, I'd like to extend a special thanks to the folks at the Goochland Drive-In for helping out with the special period-style photo shoot. For more on that, the fine folks at Virginia Living have a special slideshow available that showcases the many vintage autos that were used "on location." The photos are by the mighty Meredith West, who did an excellent job. Check that out right here! 

To whet your appetite for the article, listen to this Open Source RVA podcast and hear my interview with Goochland Drive-in owner John Heidel.

And, again, the management would like to thank you for replacing the speaker on the post before exiting the theater. You drove off with the dang thing last time and those poles are near-impossible to replace.

Take the Virginia Drive-In Tour

Summer may be winding down but there's still time to indulge in one of the time-honored hot month activities - watching a movie at a drive-in movie theater (even if you have to drive a little bit to get there).

While there are no drive-ins left in the eastern part of the commonwealth -- none in Richmond (boo hoo) -- the Central and Western Virginia areas can boast of several outdoor cinemas. Some of these big screens are picturesque survivors of the drive-in's original golden era (the '50's) and some are newer constructions. Yes, that's right, at a time when drive-ins have all but disappeared nationally, Virginia still builds new ones.

I've been fascinated with drive-ins since I was a kid, and over the years I've written articles for various publications about this cool but disappearing experience. For The Roanoker magazine, I wrote a piece on the Hull Drive-In in Lexington. The Hull, a great place to see a flick,  is still flourishing, overseen by an organization of preservationists called "Hull's Angels."

Frank Kulesza stands perfectly calm while ribbons of thick celluloid travel precarious pathways around his head.

“I’m having trouble right now,” the manager of Lexington’s Hull Drive-In Theatre says matter-of-factly, showing me the destination of tonight’s first feature as it travels into a lighted metal shutter.

“Right now I’ve got a paper clip holding it all together.”

“Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” unfurls through various wobbly spindles and around corners, twisting and re-spooling onto a large dish that looks like a yo-yo turned on its side.

This is occurring in a cramped projection booth no bigger than your Aunt Deborah’s old storage closet. The Hull’s monstrous Brenkart-RCA movie projector, which has been with the theater since it first opened in 1950, takes up a large portion of the space; the flickering beast seems more like something out of “Forbidden Planet” – Robby the Robot’s older brother – than the sleek and sophisticated digital equipment we’re used to fiddling with at home.

The nation’s only nonprofit drive-in, the legendary Hull still does it the old-fashioned way, with a paper clip if necessary; keeping alive that peculiar American small-town phenomenon – watching movies in the car.

Click here to read the rest of "See You at the Movies."

Also for The Roanoker, I put together a Western Virginia "drive-in tour," compiling all of the surviving screens and documenting their stories. Since the article was published, alas, the Hiland Drive-in in Rural Retreat has closed, and so has the Fork Union Drive-in outside of Charlottesville (a place that was practically a hangout for me at one time). But we've also seen the opening of a new drive-in just outside of Hadensville and it looks like it is thriving. I profiled the Goochland Drive-in and its hopeful owners in a Style Weekly piece called "Screen it and They Will Come."

Take the "Western Virginia Drive-In Tour" by clicking here.

And read "Screen it and They Will Come" right here.

... and please remember to replace the speaker on the post when you exit. The management thanks you.