MOVIES AND MUSIC WEEKEND FROM CHICHESTER CINEMA AT NEW PARK AND CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE

Chichester Cinema at New Park and Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT) are working together to produce a Drive-In Cinema in Northgate car park over the August Bank Holiday weekend (28 – 31 August), alongside other outdoor events in Oaklands Park.

The plans are subject to government guidelines permitting large gatherings outdoors, at a social distance, in three months’ time. Arrangements will be put in place for the necessary social distancing, and all rules and guidelines prevalent at the time will be strictly adhered to throughout the event. The event is being planned with the co-operation and support of Chichester District Council.

The 'Movies and Music Weekend' will screen a programme of popular and classic movies to appeal to family and general audiences, who will watch them from their vehicles with the sound coming through their car radios (provision will also be made for bicycles and motorcycles).

All being well, tickets will go on sale from 30 July at www.chichestercinema.org and www.cft.org.uk when the full programme for the weekend will be available.

Those of you who were lucky enough to come to our original drive-in screening in 2016 (pic above), will know what a great event this will be. We, along with the CFT, are looking forward to this opportunity as two local arts organizations, to provide some much needed joy to the city of Chichester.

DRIVE-IN:

This energetic musical with infectiously catchy songs and an ode to young love that never gets old is the perfect drive-in film to launch the Chichester Drive-In.

1950s teens Danny (John Travolta) and Australian transfer Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) spend their "Summer Nights" falling in love, but once fall comes, it's back to Rydell High and its cliques. As one of the bad-boy T-Birds, Danny has to act cool for best pal Kenickie (Jeff Conaway) and their leather-clad mates Sonny (Michael Tucci) and Doody (Barry Pearl, in the role Travolta played on-stage). Despite befriending Frenchy (Didi Conn), one of the rebel Pink Ladies, virginal Sandy is "too pure to be Pink," as the Ladies' leader, Rizzo (Stockard Channing), acidly observes. Declaring their devotion in such ballads as "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "Sandy," Sandy and Danny split, reconcile, and split again amidst a pep rally, dances, drive-ins, and a drag race, before deciding "You're the One That I Want" at the climactic carnival.  What makes the film work is its youthful vitality, the tremendous energy and imagination expended on its virtually wall-to-wall song and dance number.

USA 1978 Randal Kleiser 110m

DRIVE-IN:
Few pinnacles of creativity are as outrageously enjoyable as this Technicolor love song to Hollywood, co-directed by Stanley Donen and lead actor Gene Kelly.

Silent movie idol Don Lockwood (Kelly) is in love with chorus girl Kathy (Debbie Reynolds), at war with leading lady Lina (Jean Hagen) and desperate to save his career when the arrival of the talkies threatens disaster. The film easily qualifies as one of the best film comedies too helium-voiced Lina’s attempts to cope with the new-fangled sound technology are belly-laugh funny. And then there are the songs! Not only the timeless title song, which would make anyone want to get up and dance, but the dreamily romantic ‘You Were Meant for Me’ and ‘Broadway Melody’ with its erotic tension between Kelly and Cyd Charisse. The esteemed Observer film critic, the late Philip French, once said, of his favourite film: I doubt if I could love anyone who didn't wish to see ‘Singin' in the Rain’ again and again and again.
USA 1952 Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen 103m

DRIVE-IN:

This cult classic/cultural institution follows the misadventures of Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) inside a strange mansion they come across on a rainy night after their car breaks down.

Greeting them at the door is a ghoulish butler named Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien), who introduces them to a bacchanalian collection of partygoers dressed in outfits from some sort of interplanetary thrift shop. The host of this gathering is a transvestite clad in lingerie, Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry). With assistants Columbia (Nell Campbell) and Magenta (Patricia Quinn) looking on, Frank unveils his latest creation - a figure wrapped in gauze and submerged in a tank full of liquid. Just when Brad and Janet think things couldn't get any stranger, a biker (Meat Loaf) bursts onto the scene to reclaim Columbia, his ex-girlfriend. When Frank kills the biker, it's clear that Brad and Janet will be guests for the night, and that they may be next on Frank's list - whether for murder or carnal delights is uncertain. And just what is that mystery meat they're eating for dinner, anyway? In addition to playing Riff Raff, O'Brien wrote the catchy songs, with John Barry and Richard Hartley composing the score.

USA 1975 Jim Sharman 100m

DRIVE-IN:

Underneath the fantasy misadventures of Pixar’s most recent family comedy (replete with puzzles, curses and booby traps), is a powerful tale of catching up on lost time, brotherly bonding and conflicts, believing in oneself, and facing fears.

Teenage elf brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot (voices of Tom Holland and Chris Pratt) get an unexpected opportunity to spend one more day with their late dad, embarking on an extraordinary quest aboard Barley's epic van Guinevere. Like any good quest, their journey is filled with magic spells, cryptic maps, impossible obstacles and unimaginable discoveries. But when the boys' fearless mom Laurel (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus) realizes her sons are missing, she teams up with a part-lion, part-bat, part-scorpion, former warrior - aka The Manticore (voice of Octavia Spencer) - and heads off to find them. Perilous curses aside, this one magical day could mean more than any of them ever dreamed.

USA 2020 Dan Scanlon 102m

DRIVE-IN:
Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis keep this joyous Billy Wilder comedy fizzing from start to finish.

Two Struggling musicians witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and are now on the run from the Mob. Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and Joe (Tony Curtis) cross-dress into an all-female band. In addition to hiding, each has his own problems; One falls for another band member (Sugar Kane - voluptuously played by Monroe), but can't tell her his gender, and the other has a rich suitor who will not take "No," for an answer. ‘Some Like It Hot’ is effortlessly fluent, joyous and buoyant: a high-concept comedy that stays as high as a kite, while other comedies flag. "Nobody's perfect" is the last line. Wilder, Lemmon, Curtis and Monroe come pretty close.
USA 1959 Billy Wider 116m

DRIVE-IN:

Inspired by the imagination of P.T. Barnum, this is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.

Although Phineas Taylor Barnum ventured into politics, newspapers, and the lottery business, among many other more or less salubrious professions, during the course of his highly coloured career, he unabashedly declared himself “a showman by profession”, adding that “all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.” For director Michael Gracey, the force behind the giant-hearted vision of ‘The Greatest Showman’, “Barnum was the Steve Jobs or the Jay Z of his time, the original impresario, the original showman.” So, who better to portray this force of nature than the absurdly charismatic Hugh Jackman? This recent cult hit also stars Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson and Zac Effron.

USA 2017 Michael Gracey 105m