Going out to a movie

ROSY smudges of sunset warm the sky as a dry, gentle wind tickles more than six acres of grassy farmland that everyone around here just calls “the drive-in.”

Officially, it’s called Crossroads Drive-in, not because it lies in the middle of a large intersection (it doesn’t) but because owner Steve Rodman was at a personal crossroads when he laid down $20,000 for the 6-acre lot.

He was tired of life on the road as a service technician for projection equipment and didn’t want to miss his family anymore. People thought he was crazy to open a theater in the country 125 miles west of Houston where Brangus cattle outnumber people, but he proved them wrong.

“This is our best year yet,” Rodman says as a smile sends the sunburned skin around his lime-green eyes into small crinkles. “I think it’s an enjoyable experience. You’re not sitting 6 inches away from someone you don’t know. Your kids can run around in little packs.”

At a time when Hollywood is struggling to get viewers to leave their Netflix and Blockbuster films at home for a cinematic outing, the Lone Star State is experiencing a boom in drive-in theaters.

Seven such theaters have been reopened or built in Texas since 2000, including the Crossroads Drive-in. The down-home environment is a far cry from the overstimulating, purple-carpeted cineplex where attendance this summer has been off by 10% over last year, causing studio executives to watch each release with increasing anxiety.

“We’re going through a retro phase,” says Linda Voorhees, professor at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. “You can enjoy a movie as a family, be in your self-contained pod, make all the noise you want, eat the food you want and be festive. Or, if you have children who are a little older, you can let them run around and not feel like they’re endangered.”

The National Assn. of Theater Owners does not collect data on drive-in theaters, but fans of the outdoor format say statistics wouldn’t be able to quantify their affection for an outdoor movie experience.

“People get sick of being indoors,” says Beverly Ward, 73, as she works a toothpick in her mouth. “This is wide-open spaces out here. There’s natural air conditioning with the breeze.”

No alcohol is allowed, although a few viewers discretely cradle beers in plastic foam cozies. And while cuddling seems to be the objective for many viewers, Rodman abdicates any role in monitoring more serious sexual endeavors at Crossroads. “I don’t go looking in people’s cars,” he said, visibly embarrassed. “I don’t want to see that.”

Rodman charges adults $5 for a double feature ($4 for kids and retirees), and he sells about 400 tickets a week. He doesn’t accept credit cards, though, just cash or personal check. The concession stand offers free refills on soda and popcorn, and a small crock pot keeps cheese in a warm goo state for chili dogs.

“Every night’s not a blockbuster. If just these two ladies show up,” Rodman says pointing at Ward and her friend Karen Schreiber, “then we play a movie for these nice ladies.”

But this Wednesday night ends up being fairly typical, with about a dozen cars pulling into the lot and unloading about 50 viewers who set up portable chairs, futon mattresses and blankets in the back of their flatbed trucks.

On weekend nights, Rodman usually draws more than 50 cars.

“I went to a cineplex the other day, but it was boring and so, so, so cold,” says Tiffany Patek, 17. “And everyone was all smushed together.”

The Patek family meets at Crossroads once a week, and since most of the kids can now drive, they all come in separate cars. “But we meet here,” says the matriarch, Marsha Patek, 46, as she spread a futon mattress out in the back of her white-and-aqua Dodge pickup. “It’s a great thing to do as a family.”

Success with family fare

RODMAN shows only one or two R-rated features a year, and this summer has lured viewers with movies like “Herbie: Fully Loaded” and “Madagascar.”

“Any cartoon that’s rated G or PG we’ll run,” he says. “We can’t get enough. I think their problem in Hollywood is that they need to put out more family fare. It’s my bread and butter.”

Rodman sprays repellent on the grass to keep the mosquitoes down, but he also sells many boxes of OFF! single-use towelettes. The summer night sky is beautiful, especially in a rural area like Shiner, where there are few two-story buildings. One glance at the sky, and the Milky Way arm is visible along with, it seems, every star.

Rodman is so confident that viewers want an alternative to the big movie theater experience that by the end of the year, he and his family will relocate to Porter, Texas, just outside Houston, where he’ll open Starlite Drive-in. He’s learned a bit about upkeep by running Crossroads, and he intends to leave Starlite’s gravel and asphalt surface just as it is.

“Grass is hard to maintain,” he says.

Starlite will be equipped with an 80-foot-wide screen and will bring the state’s drive-in number to 19. Rodman is already looking beyond the five-year lease he signed on the land.

The outside experience

BUT many customers say the movie isn’t as important as the outing. For David and Amy Machicek, nearby ranchers who dropped their children off with a grandparent for the evening, Crossroads is a perfect romantic evening.

“I don’t even know what they’re playing tonight. What are we seeing?” he asks her as he tips back playfully in his portable chair. She starts to answer, but he shrugs. “Ah, who cares?”

On this evening, viewers get “War of the Worlds,” followed by the rare R-rated film “The Wedding Crashers.” As a courtesy to parents, Rodman always plays the lowest-rated film first.

This week, he’ll premiere “The Dukes of Hazzard,” just out in all the major indoor theaters.

The only movies Rodman refuses to show are those with an NC-17 rating. Some PG-13-rated films, like last summer’s “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” starring Will Ferrell, he found “pretty raunchy.”

And foreign films that require subtitles are not feasible, he says, because most of his customers are not close enough to the screen to read them.

In the 1950s, when Texas sported hundreds of drive-ins, the film’s sound was beamed out of speakers attached to vertical poles that drivers parked next to. Now, the soundtracks emanate from large speakers in front of the projection booth as well as on 95.3-FM, a low-power radio station run by Rodman that viewers tune to in their cars for crystal-clear reception.

For Shiner-area teens who duck out early to make curfew, 95.3-FM offers some lingering magic as they head home along winding farm roads.

For nearly a mile they can still listen to the Hollywood dialogue before it starts to crackle and, finally, fade to black.