ELECTRIC DUSK DRIVE IN & SECRET MOVIE CLUB present PARKING LOT CINEMA!
Part of our GREATER LOS ANGELES COMEDIES DOUBLE FEATURE series. Friday, August 14, 2020. 8:15pm THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998. written & directed by The Coen Brothers, Universal, 118mns, Digital) & 11pm PUNCH DRUNK LOVE (2002, written & directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Revolution Studios, 95mns, Digital)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Gates will open for our First Movie at 6:45pm. If you are just attending the second movie, please arrive no earlier than 10:15pm so we can allow all FIRST FEATURE only attendees to leave and get you in quickly!
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 Drive In & 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 EITHER THE DOUBLE FEATURE MAIN TICKET ($37) which includes a $25 car fee and the first ticket at $12 per person. This gets you into BOTH Features.
OR PURCHASE A SINGLE FEATURE EARLY BIRD TICKET ($23) which includes a $15 car fee and the first ticket at $8 per person. This gets you into the single FEATURE you select by title.
2) GO TO ADD ONS: Purchase either an additional $12 per person ticket (for BOTH Features) or an additional $8 per person ticket (for a SINGLE FEATURE) for however many other people after the first person will be in the car. We will be doing a count at the gate.
PLEASE NOTE TICKETS THE DAY OF AND AT THE GATE WILL BE $20 per car + $8 per ticket for a single screening.
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.
Our partnership with Electric Dusk Drive In (a wonderful home grown Los Angeles pop-up street cinema organization: https://www.electricduskdrivein.com/) continues this weekend with two great double feature bills. Friday night, 8/14/20, we host a GREATER LOS ANGELES COMEDIES double feature of THE BIG LEBOWSKI and PUNCH DRUNK LOVE. Then Saturday night, 8/15/20, we time travel across HIGH SCHOOL DECADES with DAZED AND CONFUSED (1970’s) and FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1980’s).
Friday night, we kick off our GREATER LOS ANGELES COMEDIES series with the Coen Brothers’ beloved immortal stoner noir comedy masterpiece THE BIG LEBOWKSI which starts at 8:15pm sharp!
When aging hippie and moderately committed bowler Jeffrey Lebowski gets mistaken for Korean war-vet rich Pasadena business giant Jeffrey Lebowski, the “Dude” as he prefers gets thrown into the role of private detective trying to figure our a rich trophy wife’s kidnapping, gangs of Nihilist musicians, all the while trying to make it to the semi-finals.
Along the way, his friend, Vietnam war vet Walter Sobchak, invites himself along to help the situation and chaos results.
THE BIG LEBOWSKI, like so many movies that eventually gain all-time great status, wasn’t really discovered for the masterpiece it is until several years into its home screening afterlife. Then, after folks had watched the movie three times or more (remember the magic number is three times before you get it), an ever growing group of movielovers realized that this very well might be the Coens’ best, most warm-hearted, most wise, most hilarious feature of all time.
It’s also a surprisingly tender love letter to the City of Angels we all love and the genre that this city does better than any other city: noir. Riffing on the Raymond Chandler Phillip Marlowe novels as well as Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE, the Coens take us from Pasadena to Malibu, from downtown bowling alleys to the San Fernando Valley. . .and of course. ..to In N Out Burger.
Next up at 11pm is Paul Thomas Anderson’s hilarious Adam Sandler comedy Punch Drunk Love. Director Anderson has come to be known for his hugely ambitious historical examinations of character in movies like There Will Be Blood, The Master, and The Phantom Thread. But like many great moviemakers, he loves Adam Sandler comedies as well.
Punch Drunk Love really marks the transition of Paul Thomas Anderson from being under the influence of his heroes (Scorsese, Robert Altman) to fully coming into his own with this hilariously strange tale of nervous bathroom supply specialist Barry Egan (Adam Sandler). Barry doesn’t have much confidence, is hounded by his seven sisters, and gets into a huge blackmailing danger when he calls a phone sex operator on a lonely night.
But then, just as Barry’s world seems to be headed for a violent collision with underworld thugs (including a hilarious Philip Seymour Hoffman), he meets Lena, an equally unique and strange soul. They promptly fall in love. Barry decides to take action and find his inner strength.
This movie, almost more than Boogie Nights or Magnolia, is a love letter to the San Fernando Valley that Paul Thomas Anderson grew up in (and in which this programmer was born). Like The Big Lebowski, Punch Drunk Love gains in enjoyment every year because the movie makes the location as much a character as anyone else.
So to all our fellow Los Angelinos, we say come join us this Friday night for two of the greatest comedies about Los Angeles ever made.
In this age of COVID, we gotta laugh.
Each successive week, we aim to surprise you with a diverse slate of all-time great movies and give all of us the 2020 movie summer you deserve!
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.
IMPORTANT: If you are only attending the second feature, please arrive no earlier than 10:15pm so we can get everyone attending the first feature out of the lot, so we can get you in and start the movie!
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.
PURCHASE EITHER THE DOUBLE FEATURE MAIN TICKET ($37) which includes a $25 car fee and the first ticket at $12 per person. This gets you into BOTH Features.
OR PURCHASE A SINGLE FEATURE EARLY BIRD TICKET ($23) which includes a $15 car fee and the first ticket at $8 per person. This gets you into the single FEATURE you select by title.
GO TO ADD ONS: Purchase either an additional $12 per person ticket (for BOTH Features) or an additional $8 per person ticket (for a SINGLE FEATURE) for however many other people after the first person will be in the car. We will be doing a count at the gate.
PLEASE NOTE TICKETS THE DAY OF AND AT THE GATE WILL BE $20 per car + $8 per ticket for a single screening.
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 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.