ELECTRIC DUSK & SECRET MOVIE CLUB present PARKING LOT CINEMA!
Part of our JOHN HUGHES TO THE RESCUE DOUBLE FEATURE series. Saturday, August 8, 2020. 8:15pm NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION (1983. written by John Hughes directed by Harold Ramis, Warner Brothers, 98mns, Digital) & 10:20pm WEIRD SCIENCE (1985, written & directed by John Hughes, Universal, 94mns, Digital)
PARKING LOT: Sears Parking Lot across the street from 211 West California Avenue, Glendale, California 91203. The actual entrance to the parking lot is on West California Avenue between North Central Avenue and North Orange Street.
HOW TO: While we all work to be socially responsible during the age of coronavirus, Electric Dusk & Secret Movie Club are partnering to put on a Parking Lot Cinema series. Each week, we will be screening movies on a great inflatable screen in a great parking lot location in Los Angeles.
Make sure when you purchase your ticket(s), you do the following:
1)PURCHASE THE MAIN TICKET ($37) which is includes a $25 car fee and the first ticket at $12 per person.
2)GO TO ADD ONS: Purchase additional $12 per person tickets for however many other people after the first person will be in the car. We will be doing a count at the gate.
3)PRE-ORDER ANY CONCESSIONS & POSTERS you would like from the additional Add-Ons. We will have everything waiting for you at the gate.
To attend, you need a car with an FM radio. We will space out cars to make sure folks can always maintain 6 feet of distance. We ask that folks stay in their cars unless they need to use the portable restroom. Whenever you are out of your car, you are required to wear a mask.
We will have hand sanitizer, masks, and gloves for sale for folks who need them. WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU BRING ALL THESE THINGS ON YOUR OWN.
For the foreseeable future, we will be screening our movies at the great spacious Sears Parking Lot in Glendale, California. Please read through the Frequently Asked Questions for more thorough instructions after our description.
We kick off our partnership with Electric Dusk (a wonderful home grown Los Angeles pop-up street cinema organization: https://www.electricduskdrivein.com/) with a weekend we’re calling JOHN HUGHES TO THE RESCUE. Friday night we’re screening FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF & THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Saturday night we’re screening NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION & WEIRD SCIENCE.
For our Saturday night tribute to John Hughes, we screen one of John Hughes’ most purely enjoyable summer movies AND one of his most hilarious, unhinged cult classics.
National Lampoon’s Vacation directed by Caddyshack and Groundhog’s Day’s Harold Ramis, is based on Hughes’ famous Lampoon magazine short story Vacation ’58.
The Griswold family-father Clark, mother Ellen, daughter Audrey, and son Russ-go on the most comedic, catastrophic cross country family road trip of all time as they drive to go to Wally World in California. They have run ins with weird family members, drive a grumpy Aunt and her Dog to disastrous consequence for both, break down in Monument Valley, meet supermodels on the highway.
In a weird way, Hughes’ first filmed screenplay plays like The Grapes of Wrath as a comedy about suburban families.
Of course what waits for them at Wally World is one of comedy’s great third acts. In this movie, we already see the trademarks of what would make a John Hughes movie sing: the entire movie is a series of hilarious episodes (much like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) before eventually focusing in on a heartfelt assessment of what it means to be a family.
The second movie on tonight’s double feature bill is John Hughes at his most wild and unhinged. It’s also one of his funniest and most enjoyable.
Named after the EC comics of the same name, Weird Science follows good hearted but nerdy misfits Gary and Wyatt who somehow discover the ability to create Lisa, the perfect supermodel woman using their computers, a Barbie doll, and some very suspect science.
The cinematic secret of the movie is that it’s clearly Mary Poppins as a kind of unhinged teen sex comedy. Lisa has to teach the two insecure, geeky boys how to have more confidence in themselves to get girlfriends, face the bullies, and stand up to Wyatt’s jerk of an older brother, Chet (played hilariously by Bill Paxton).
Along the way we get mutant bikers, a very young Robert Downy Junior, and a totally dominant, wonderful performance by Kelly LeBrock.
It proves yet again that Hughes was at his best when he would take what would seem like the nuttiest of ideas and then riff on it with scene after scene of hilarious complications.
NOTE: This movie is definitely a time capsule of the 1980’s with some definite worldview thinking that doesn’t hold up thirty five years later. But at its heart, it really is about an assertive, totally in control woman teaching two teenage boys how to be considerate, assertive men without being jerks.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
35mm Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
“HOW TO” AND FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FOR OUR PARKING LOT CINEMA SERIES
HOW TO:
For now, our Parking Lot Cinema events will be held at the Sears Parking Lot across the street from 211 West California Avenue, Glendale, California 91203. The actual entrance to the parking lot is on West California Avenue between North Central Avenue and North Orange Street.
You will need a car with FM radio to attend. Gate will open at 6:45pm so folks have plenty of time to find the lot, get a good space. We will begin our pre-show/introduction at 8pm and the first movie will start promptly at 8:15pm.
We will be pre-selling concessions and posters here on Eventbrite to start so everything is as easy as possible. We will hand you your poster and all your concessions AT THE GATE when you enter.
For now, you pay a single car fee ($25) and then a single ticket fee ($12 per person) which gets you admission into BOTH movies. So for instance, if you had a car with two people, the total charge would be $49.00 for the entire double feature/evening.
PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GONE TO THE "ADD ONS" section in EVENTBRITE to purchase your ADDITIONAL PERSON(S) IN CAR tickets. We will be doing a count when we check you in at the gate.
We do offer a VIP package for $100.00 which gets your car a first row space for the entire double feature. You can have up to 4 people total in the car at no additional charge. And you get a CONCESSIONS package of 4 sodas/waters/iced teas, 2 popcorns packets, & 2 regular sized candies. If you PURCHASE the VIP TICKET there is no need to purchase any additional per person add-ons.
We may eventually be moving to a model where you can purchase a ticket for just ONE movie. But for now, to keep everything simple/streamlined, and make sure the experience is great, please know you are purchasing a ticket for the entire night and both movies.
We can offer refunds for requests made MORE than 24 hours before showtime through Eventbrite. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
As we fine tune these screenings, we will be bringing food trucks, speakers, more variety. But for this first weekend, we JUST want to focus on quality and having a great time.
We highly recommend that you bring a sweater, jacket, or a few layers of clothes just in case it gets a little chilly and you don’t want to run your car.
We will also have portable restrooms which are cleaned daily AND in between movies.
TICKETS & REFUNDS: Because of the special nature of these screenings, we can not offer discounted series passes. We can offer refunds for requests made through Evenbrite more than 24 HOURS before screening time.
After that, no refunds. Sorry. But we can offer you complimentary tickets to a future Secret Movie Club screening as long as it hasn’t sold out and isn’t a special screening with a different pricing structure.
WHAT IF I HAD TICKET(S) TO A SECRET MOVIE CLUB SCREENING THAT GOT POSTPONED DUE TO COVID AND WANT TO USE IT HERE? We will be reserving 10 spaces per screening for folks who want to transfer their tickets to one of our Parking Lot Cinema events. We will still need to charge you for the car ($25) but we won’t charge for the tickets.
Please email us at: community@secretmovieclub.com as soon as you can if you want to attend so we can reserve you one of these spaces. Once these 10 spaces fill up, you will have to either pay full price or request a different event.
WHAT IF I HAVE A SECRET MOVIE CLUB LIFETIME, SPRING OR SUMMER 2020 SEASON, OR SERIES PASS? Lifetime Pass holders do get automatic admission to all our events so that includes our Parking Lot Cinema events. Please just email us at community@secretmovieclub.com to let us know you will be attending.
For Spring and Summer 2020 Season and Series Pass holders who had their events delayed due to our COVID postponements, we can’t transfer those passes to the Parking Lot Cinema series because of the special nature and different pricing structure of this series.
HOWEVER, if you write us at community@secretmovieclub.com, we will do our best to get you entrance into at least a few of these screenings as a thank you for your patience. We will have to charge the $25 car fee but we will waive the per person ticket fee. And your Season or Series pass will STILL BE GOOD once we return to theatrical screenings.
WHAT PRECAUTIONS AND MEASURES ARE YOU TAKING SO THESE EVENTS ARE SAFE DURING THE COVID PANDEMIC?
All our staff will have gloves, masks, and work to maintain 6 feet of distance.
We are working to make these events as touch-less as possible. Therefore we ask that you purchase your tickets and all concessions, movie posters, etc THROUGH Eventbrite prior to the event. That way we can just check you off our list, hand you your concessions/posters, and guide you to your parking space.
We will work to have masks, gloves, hand sanitizer for sale at our events.
BUT WE DO HIGHLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO BRING ALL THESE THINGS YOURSELVES.
We will have portable restrooms which are routinely cleaned BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER EACH AND EVERY SCREENING.
HOW WILL THESE MOVIES BE SCREENED: For the time being all movies will be screened digitally. While our first love is 35mm, to make these events happen in parking lots, we do need to screen movies digitally. However, we have taken every step to make sure the image and sound are of the highest quality so you have a great cinematic experience. We will also be doing LIVE IN PERSON INTRODUCTIONS as we did for our theatrical screenings.
WILL THERE BE SINGLE FEATURES AND/OR FAMILY FEATURES? Yes! We will occasionally be screening single features of longer length and single family features. Pleasencheck our website (secretmovieclub.com), our Social Media (@secretmovieclub35mm @secretmovieclub), and our Eventbrite page: http://secretmovieclub.eventbrite.com each Monday at 1pm for newly announced events.
HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, thoughts, recommendations.