#and some of the post-filming effects probably turned out cooler than they were expecting

[sluttywonwoo]

pretend || j.ww x reader

Summary: reading thirst tweets with your co-star/boyfriend’s best friend makes things a little tense

Warnings: swearing, smut mentions (18+)

Word Count: 1.8k

a/n:  originally posted on my tom holland fic account ( @wazzupmrstark )

Masterlist

The sound of Mingyu cracking his knuckles next to you sent a shiver down your spine, making you cringe instinctively. You turned to glare at him and leaned away from the noise.

“I hate when you do that!” you groaned.

He smirked. “I know, that’s why I like doing it.”

You looked over at Wonwoo, who was sitting across the room with the crew, and pointed to Gyu. 

“Can you tell your best friend to stop being annoying?”

“Can you tell your girlfriend to stop being dramatic?” Mingyu retaliated.

“I’m not picking sides!” Wonwoo shouted back and held up his hands in surrender.

You let your jaw drop. “I’ll remember that, Jeon.”

“Baby, I-” Wonwoo started to defend himself, but fell silent when the producer got up from her chair and approached you and Mingyu who were sitting behind the camera. 

“Which one of you wants to take this?” she asked, holding up a large insulated jug full of paper strips. 

“I’ll take it,” Mingyu offered and set the cup in his lap. 

“What a gentleman,” you said, fighting the urge to roll your eyes. 

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” he muttered, “because you’re so fucking annoying.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

The producer gave you both a sideways look. “Are you guys alright? Should we take a minute before starting?”

“No, we’re fine,” you assured her.

“We don’t actually hate each other,” Mingyu added, “this is just how... we are.”

She didn’t look any less concerned, but nodded anyway. “Okay, well remember what your director said about playing up your chemistry to promote the show. And when we call action just give a quick slate and start reading the tweets.”

She walked back over to her spot next to the cameraman and took a seat before looking over a checklist that had been handed to her and writing some notes on it.

“Nervous?” Mingyu whispered to you as you both waited for your cue.

“A little,” you admitted. “You?”

“I’m a bit on edge,” he concurred. “Mostly because your boyfriend is about to watch me read filthy comments about you on-camera.”

You glanced over at Wonwoo who gave you an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up. “He’ll be fine. How bad can they be?”

From a distance, the producer you had just spoken to called for everyone to be quiet on set and signaled the cameras to start rolling. You perked up and straightened your dress, waiting for Mingyu to take the lead. 

“Hi guys, I’m Kim Mingyu.”

“And I’m y/n y/l/n.”

“You might recognize us from our new Netflix series, Breaking Curfew, where we play opposite each other in what you might call a... complicated romantic relationship.”

“We’re enemies with benefits,” you summarized. “And today we’re here with Buzzfeed to read thirst tweets about each other.”

“Ladies first,” Mingyu said and held the cup out to you.

You closed your eyes and sifted through the strips of paper with one hand, selecting one at random. 

“Okay, this one’s about you. ‘Kim Mingyu has the prettiest eyes’.” You grinned as you watched your co-star’s cheeks turn pink. “He’s totally blushing right now! We haven’t even gotten to the good stuff!”

“Thank you very much to whoever tweeted that,” Mingyu said and cleared his throat. 

“I agree with this person,” you continued, “you do have really pretty eyes.”

“Aw, thank you, y/n.”

“You’re welcome.”

“My turn.” Mingyu closed his eyes and rummaged around the cup before picking one. “‘Someone tell y/n y/l/n that I’m single and I get a discount at Olive Garden if she ever wants to let me take her out on a date’.”

You chuckled. “I do like Olive Garden.”

“She’ll get back to you on that one, mate,” Mingyu said quickly and let the crumpled piece of paper fall to the floor. 

You took that as a sign to move on so you reached into the jug and pulled out another tweet.

“Oh, this one’s about me again. ‘Y/n y/l/n scissor me challenge’.” You clapped a hand over your mouth in shock and thrust the slip of paper towards Mingyu.

“You know what, props for being so bold. What do you think, y/n? Are you going to take them up on the offer?”

“I’ll think about it,” you managed to choke out, sending Mingyu into a laughing fit. You fanned yourself with your hand as you tried to recover and motioned for your co-star to read another one. “Your turn.”

“‘Kim Mingyu and y/n y/l/n are my dream celebrity threesome,’” he read. “What a compliment, don’t you think?”

“Oh, for sure,” you agreed and winked as you held your hand to your ear in a call me motion. 

“These are just getting more and more vulgar, aren’t they?” Mingyu asked. 

“I don’t know that anything can beat the scissoring one,” you pointed out as you fished another tweet from the bucket. “Another one about Mingyu, okay. ��I wanna suck Kim Mingyu’s soul through his dick then spit it back in his face’.” You blinked at the piece of paper in front of you in shock, scanning back over it to make sure you had read it right the first time. “Jesus... christ.”

Mingyu smirked and nudged your shoulder with his. 

You ignored him and pointed a finger at the camera in disgust. “I cannot believe you made me read this with my own two eyes. I could have lived my entire life without seeing those words in a sentence together!”

“I think that’s the best compliment I’ve ever received,” Mingyu countered, running a thumb along his jawline cockily. 

“No, I have beef with whoever tweeted that now.”

“You’re just jealous that I like this tweet better than the threesome one.”

You sighed. “This interview was a bad idea. Your head is already so god damn big.”

Mingyu opened his mouth to retaliate, but paused like he had thought better of it and took a deep breath to compose himself. 

“Anyway, moving on.”

You watched as he sifted through the tweets and chose one from the bottom, reading it to himself and grinning slightly before reading it aloud. 

“‘Petition for y/n y/l/n to start an OnlyFans because I just know her tits are incredible. I can feel it in my bones’.”

You brought your hands up to your boobs self-consciously and laughed. “I don’t know about that, but thank you.”

“I’ve seen them,” Mingyu added nonchalantly, “and I can confirm that twitter user ‘geminisuns’ is correct.”

“Mingyu!” 

“What? Do you know how many sex scenes we had to shoot? We’ve seen each other naked plenty of times.”

You looked back over to the crew and made eye contact with the producer. “Do you see what I have to deal with?”

“Maybe we should take a quick break,” she suggested and motioned for the cameras to stop rolling. “Get a drink, freshen up and be back here in five.”

“Do you think they’re going to use that part?” Mingyu asked as he followed you over to the water cooler. 

“I don’t know, dude,” you sighed in annoyance, “but great fucking job. The whole world already thinks we’re boning.”

“I don’t know about the whole world.” You glared at him. “Wonwoo knows we’re not.”

Wonwoo. You had nearly forgotten that your boyfriend was there on set with you. You looked around for him, and saw him still sitting in his designated guest chair looking at his phone. You could only imagine what he must be thinking of all of this. You should probably say something to him. 

You told Mingyu that you’d be back and made your way across the room to Wonwoo. Even from a distance you could tell that he was upset. 

His knuckles were pale and his jaw was tight. He didn’t look up at you when you approached him. 

“Sorry this is taking longer than expected,” you said, brushing a stray curl out of his eyes. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he murmured in response, still not looking at you. 

You sighed and draped yourself across him, slinging your arms loosely across his shoulders as you leaned down to see what he was doing on his phone. He was scrolling aimlessly on Instagram, not even liking any of the posts. 

“If you’re bored you can leave,” you said curtly and stood back up. 

“I’m not bored.”

“You’re not even paying attention to the shoot.”

“Trust me, it’s impossible not to. I’ve been trying to tune it out for the past ten minutes with no luck.”

“Why would you not want to pay attention?” you demanded even though the answer was sitting right in front of you. “This is a big deal for me.”

Wonwoo swallowed and finally looked up at you. “I know, baby. It’s just- do you know how hard it is to listen to my best friend talk about doing all of these dirty things to you-”

“He’s my best friend too,” you pointed out in a quiet hiss. “The only reason we’re together is because of him.”

Sometimes you felt the need to remind Wonwoo that you had known Mingyu longer than you had known him. If Gyu hadn’t brought him to set all those times back when you were filming in the fall, you wouldn’t even know about each other’s existence. 

“I know that.”

“You’ve done interviews like this before,” you argued. 

“I know,” he repeated.

“Then why are you being like this?” He didn’t answer, so you kept going. “You know my bare ass has been on tv, right-”

“Don’t,” Wonwoo warned and grabbed your wrist.

You gasped and flexed your fingers gingerly in his grasp, challenging him. “Don’t what?” 

“Y/n,”

“Don’t... act like I want to fuck your best friend?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “You’re enjoying this.” It wasn’t a question.

“Don’t pretend like I’d rather fulfill those tweets with him instead of you? Give the people what they want?”

You had to bite your tongue before you went any further and said something you might regret. Your words had already had the desired effect. You didn’t even have to look at Wonwoo’s lap to know that he was struggling not to get hard. 

You could see it in his eyes. The arousal that had turned the warm brown into black. The way he was looking at you told you everything you needed to know. You wondered if you would even make it back home before he’d break, if he would pull the car over on the side of the road and take you then and there. 

Your knees were weak at the mere thought of what you were in for later that night. Making Wonwoo jealous was admittedly one of your favorite pastimes, purely for selfish reasons. Possessive sex was arguably the best sex. The teasing, the hair-pulling, the choking, the face-fucking, all hit different when Wonwoo was reminding you who you belonged to. 

Wonwoo released your wrist from his grip and raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Are you finished?”

You shook your head and grinned. “Just getting started.”

lmk what you thought; i always appreciate feedback!!

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[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Notes from Robert McKee’s “Story” 13: Premise, Theme, and How to Discover Both

Heads up: we’re in for a long but absolutely essential post for any writer or creator anywhere. This post summarizes a section of Robert McKee’s book Story, specifically the section that tells you how to determine the core message of your story. Not the plot, but what you want the plot to mean to your audience.

All stories need a premise and a controlling idea to guide them. Without one or the other, you will have a meandering mess that will leave readers asking themselves afterwards, “What did I just read and why did I bother to read it?”

Premise

Simply put, “premise” is whatever inspired you to create your story. 

Quite often we start writing a story based on a “what if...?” premise. When I was in junior high, my parents went to a Marilyn Manson concert (Why are they cooler than me?) and I thought to myself, “What if they never came back? How would my life change?” Not that I wanted them not to come back lol. But that was the impetus for the first novel I ever wrote and finished. 

Premise doesn’t only have to come from “What if” questions. It can come from anything. An intriguing commercial, a daydream, a nightmare, something that happened to you or a friend, a line in a poem. Doesn’t matter. Whatever creates that initial spark--that’s your Premise. 

Once you have your Premise, you can begin writing. But realize that whatever inspired you to write in the first place does not have to be kept in the final product. A Premise is not precious. It is the kindling that starts the fire, and if the path of the story veers away from the Premise, then so be it. 

“The problem is not to start writing, but to keep writing and renewing inspiration. We rarely know where were going; writing is discovery.”

☝ Probably one of my favorite quotes from this book so far.

In the example of that horrid novel I wrote in junior high, the story started out with the protagonist’s parents going out for dinner and passing away in an accident on the way home. But upon their death she learned that she was actually a government experiment and there’s a big magical phenomenon her secret government agent parents were trying to solve and now the task has fallen to her.... Ugh I was 13 and at the height of my 3edgy5me phase so please don’t judge me lol. What I’m trying to say is that the premise of “What would happen if my parents never came home?” quickly evolved into something else, and that was okay. 

Structure as Rhetoric

“Make no mistake: While a story’s inspiration may be a dream and its final effect aesthetic emotion, a work moves from an open premise to a fulfilling climax only when the writer is possessed by serious thought. For an artist must have not only ideas to express, but ideas to prove. Expressing an idea, in the sense of exposing it, is never enough. The audience must not just understand; it must believe. 

Storytelling is the creative demonstration of truth. A story is the living proof of an idea, the conversion of idea to action. A story’s event structure is the means by which you first express, then prove your idea...without explanation.”

Honestly, McKee says things so well sometimes I feel that i have no choice but to simply quote him. My apologies. 

McKee believes that master storytellers never rely on cheap exposition or dialogue that explicitly explains their idea. If you need to have a paragraph of prose explaining how good always triumphs over evil, or if you need to bad guy to say, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you nosy kids!” then you need to refine your storytelling. 

The reader should be able to feel your idea being built brick by brick, act by act, until it all becomes crystallized in the emotional climax. 

Controlling Idea (a.k.a. “Theme”)

McKee dislikes the word “theme,” as the so-called themes of “war,” “love,”  “poverty,” etc. are too vague. Instead he likes to use the term “controlling idea,” and defines it thus:

“ A Controlling Idea may be expressed in a single sentence describing how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end.

A true theme is not a word but a sentence--one clear, coherent sentence that expresses a story’s irreducible meaning. The Controlling Idea shapes the writer’s strategic choices. It will serve as a tool to guide your aesthetic choices toward what is appropriate or inappropriate in your story, toward what is expressive of your Controlling Idea and may be kept versus what is irrelevant to it and must be cut. 

The more beautifully you shape your work around one clear idea, the more meanings audiences will discover in your film as they take your idea and follow its implications into every aspect of their lives. Conversely, the more ideas you try to pack into a story, the more they implode upon themselves, until the work collapses into a rubble of tangential notions, saying nothing.”

So what is the “equation” of the Controlling Idea?

Value + Cause

To recap, values are the universal qualities of human experience that may shift from positive to negative, or negative to positive, from one moment to the next. Some examples of values are justice/injustice, alive/dead, happy/sad, courage/cowardice, etc.

Cause is what makes that value shift from one pole to the other. It is the primary reason that the life or world of the protagonist has changed to its positive or negative value. 

McKee shows the Controlling Idea for various famous films and I will write them out here.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (an up-ending Crime Story) Value: Justice is restored... Cause: ...because a perceptive black outsider sees the truth of white perversion.

MISSING (a down-ending Political Thriller) Value: Tyranny prevails... Cause: ...because it’s supported by a corrupt CIA.

GROUNDHOG DAY (a positive-ending Education Plot) Value: Happiness fills our lives... Cause: ...when we learn to love unconditionally.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS (a negative-ending Love Story) Value: Hatred destroys... Cause: ...us when we fear the opposite sex.

How to Find Your Work’s Controlling Idea

I’m going to preface this by saying that i have some personal misgivings on McKee’s statements, but I’ll voice my opinion after I’ve summarized his.

McKee tells us that we find the controlling idea by doing the following:

“Looking at your ending, ask: As a result of this climatic action, what value, positively or negatively charged, is brought into the world of my protagonist? 

Next, tracing backward from this climax, digging to the bedrock, ask: What is the chief cause, force, or means by which this value is brought into his world? 

The sentence you compose from the answers to those two questions becomes your Controlling Idea. 

In other words, the story tells you its meaning; you do not dictate meaning to the story. You do not draw action from idea, rather idea from action. For no matter your inspiration, ultimately the story embeds its Controlling Idea within the final climax, and when this event speaks its meaning, you will experience one of the most powerful moments in the writing life--Self-Recognition: The Story Climax mirrors your inner self, and if your story is from the very best sources within you, more often than not you’ll be shocked by what you see reflected in it.”

I have mixed feelings about McKee’s opinion here. It feels like he’s telling us to leave the Controlling Idea up to our subconscious, that it is wrong to start out knowing the Controlling Idea and plotting out a story that aligns with it. But is it bad to do so? 

For example, Neil Gaiman has stated that when he set out to write Coraline, he did so with the specific intention to tell children that “When you’re scared but you still do it anyways, that’s brave.” In other words, he had the Controlling Idea in place from the start. And it’s a great work. 

On the other hand, a couple years ago I wrote a fanfiction on a whim. It was something that came into my head and I churned out all 200,000 words in about two months with no particular Controlling Idea. But later on, when I re-read it, I realized that the whole thing had been me working through the duality I feel as a white foreigner living in Japan who is fluent in Japanese and has adopted Japanese culture, as well as the frustration and isolation at the xenophobia/othering I encounter on a daily basis. Judging by the climax of the story, the Controlling Idea was, “You will be accepted...when you learn to show each persona (Japanese and American) at the right time every time.” 

This Controlling Idea does match my true feelings on the matter. However, I really wrote this story with absolutely zero direction, and i feel that perhaps I could have turned this story into something better if I had had an awareness of the Controlling Idea as I wrote it. 

McKee adds one more important note to discovering the Controlling Idea:

“If a plot works out exactly as you first planned, you’re not working loosely enough to give room to your imagination and instincts. Your story should surprise you again and again. Beautiful story design is a combination of the subject found, the imagination at work, and the mind loosely but wisely executing the craft.”

So, in other words...

Your Controlling Idea is like the Pirate Code. It exists and it is honored, but not always in the ways that you expect/intend. 

Source: McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. York: Methuen, 1998. Print

[citizenscreen]

Special guest post by Jeff Lundenberger @jlundenberger

I Found It at the Drive-In

My host, Aurora, recently shared a piece on this blog celebrating the 84th anniversary of the birth of the drive-in. In it, she mentioned a history.com statistic that there are less than 500 functioning drive-in theatres in the U.S. today. This bit of information sent me directly to the website of the Lynn Drive-In in Strasburg, Ohio, the local drive-in of my youth, and I was relieved to discover that it is still open. The website proudly proclaims its status as “Ohio’s Oldest Drive-In Theatre Since 1937.” It now has two screens – I think a summertime trip to Ohio for an investigation into that development is in order – both with double features every night of the week. “Come as you are in the Family Car,” the home page invites, and I’m happy for the Ohio families that are still able to patronize this fading American institution. Hopefully they are creating future memories like the fond, but dim, memories I have of going to the movies in the twilight outdoors of my earlier days.

How the West Was Won might have been the first movie I saw at the drive-in. It was released in February of 1963 and I probably saw it that summer. I have a distinct memory of seeing the film, but my parents don’t remember any of it, or any of the other films I recall seeing with them. That was the only time I’ve seen How the West Was Won from start to finish, at that trip to the drive-in, whatever year it was. At least I assume I saw the whole thing. I have little memory of the actual movie. I’ve seen parts of it since, catching it randomly on TCM now and then, and there are sparks of recognition, like waking in the morning and trying to piece together a hazy dream. The only thing I’m sure of is the song A Home in the Meadow, sung by Debbie Reynolds in the film. I was pleasantly haunted by that tune for days afterward. It seemed like a song I had known since before I was born. Later, I was happy, if a bit confused, when the same tune turned up with different words in the Christmas Carol What Child is This?

My aunt, uncle and six cousins accompanied us to at least one movie – this might have been it. I remember the two station wagons, Ford Country Sedans, parked side by side, both filled to the brim with children making faces at one another through steamy windows. This wasn’t the only outing we had with my mother’s sister and her family. Somewhere there is a picture of us at the Cleveland Zoo, looking more like a class trip than two families on a local vacation.

We weren’t poor, but with so many of us mom economized by popping batches of corn that filled a big brown grocery store bag, the outside speckled with patches of grease. There was pop (aka soda) in a cooler, but how I longed to get something from the concession stand (goaded, no doubt, by the on-screen prodding of the preview) that tempted from the little building that also housed the film projector. We were only permitted to go there to use the restroom, accompanied, of course, by a parent. I stared down the rows of candy as I waited for my mom and sisters to finish their business – surely mom would relent and buy me something. We returned to the car empty-handed.

As I look up the release dates for other films I saw as a child, I see that 1964 must have been a big year for me and the movies. I don’t remember going to see Mary Poppins, at the drive-in or otherwise, but I received the soundtrack record for my birthday, and I do remember being completely mystified by the Sister Suffragette scene and song. I remember standing in line outside a theatre for A Hard Days Night, taken there by a friend’s mother. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was released in November, 1963, and so it must have been the summer of 1964 when my uncle, as a birthday gift, took two cousins and myself to see it. The three of us were all born in the same year, one each in June, July and August. I was the oldest of the bunch, if only by a matter of weeks, and I wasn’t happy that I had to sit in the back seat. Chalk it up to the early diva in me.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, too, is a movie I’ve seen in its entirety only as a child and, again, my few memories of seeing it then are interwoven with the several times I’ve seen parts of it over the years since. I do remember Jimmy Durante, before dying on the side of the road, telling a group of people about some money buried underneath a big W. I remember Phil Silvers in a convertible in a river. I remember the palm trees that create the big W, men atop impossibly tall fire truck ladders, and Ethel Merman slipping on a banana peel. I think.

  Who would take their eight year old child (and his younger siblings) to see Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie? Take a guess. My parents have never been review-readers and I’m sure they must have thought it was just another Hitchcock suspense film with an ambiguous ending. Were they surprised when they discovered that the film included sexual repression and violence? I asked – they don’t remember. I remember a yellow purse, black hair, the entire screen turning red, and a little girl killing a man with a poker under very peculiar circumstances. Like Marnie Edgar, I’ve had hidden memories jogged to life, not by the hysterics of my mother but by later viewings of this film. Fortunately, my hidden memories don’t carry with them a debilitating psychosis. Or do they? I admit, I have something of an obsession with Sir Alfred and his films. I blame – and thank – mom and dad.

I saw Woman of Straw at the drive-in. It, too, was released in 1964 and I’m guessing it was the first film of a double feature with Marnie. It would make sense, since both star Sean Connery. An online plot synopsis mentions Ralph Richardson in a wheelchair, and that revived my only recollection of that film: a wheelchair.

I think my parents took us to the drive-in to see the animated Disney version of The Jungle Book in 1967 and The Odd Couple in 1968. Funny, my memories of those two more recent films are less certain than those of the earlier ones. I watched The Odd Couple a few months ago and it provoked those recognizable flashes of familiarity. That must have been when I saw the trailer for Rosemary’s Baby, which left more of an impression than the feature. Mom answered with a firm “no” when I asked if we could return to see it. That also could have been the night we took to the open air to watch a film. It was a balmy summer night and we put a blanket on the hump of ground that raised the car to an optimum viewing angle. It was perfect for an outdoor sofa and it was bliss, watching a movie under the stars while the sounds from the tinny speakers echoed across the field.

The Ray Harryhausen films The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), their thin stories made palatable by their charming, almost tactile stop-motion special effects, were perfect drive-in material. I saw both of them in the years of their release, with two different friends. My Golden friend shocked me when he took apart the speaker and unhooked its wires, a much easier operation than I would have guessed, making of it a bulky, metal souvenir. I was sure we were going to be arrested and couldn’t relax until we had left the lot and were on our way home. Tiger was much less stressful.

A double feature of Friday the 13th Part 2 and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre drew two friends and myself to an unfamiliar Ohio drive-in one summer night in 1981. This time out I was content sitting in the back seat, it being a hot and humid night. We laughed and talked throughout Friday – it didn’t take us long to figure out that most of the high and horny teens were going to get it, one way or another. Chainsaw was another story. Before the credits had finished I had crawled into the front seat. There we were, three sweaty, screaming adults, car windows closed because everyone knows that chainsaws can’t penetrate glass. It might be the most disturbing movie I’ve ever seen. Part of me would like to see it again, to see if it still as terrifying as I remember. Most of me says just let sleeping Leatherfaces lie.

I went to the Lynn for a XXX double feature with a couple of friends one year. Late at night, on weekends, cars lined up for a mile or so down the road for the after midnight porn. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I saw Blade Runner, in 1982, at yet another local Ohio drive-in. I loved the film and its evocation of a film noir future, and this was my second time seeing it. My cousin took us in his pickup truck, me and another cousin who he was dating… from the opposite side of my family. Ohio isn’t THAT bad. How was I to know that this would be my last trip to the drive-in? We enjoyed the movie, I visited the concession stand several times for snacks, he drove us home, and that was that.

Home and theatre collide at the drive-in. We face the big screen, surrounded by others, the extent of the public experience limited to the family and friends seated with us in the safety of our vehicular capsules, a communal isolation. It’s the best of both worlds. The images are larger than life. You can trek to the concession stand for snacks – or bring your own. The kids can wear pajamas. I guess you can too, if your sartorial concerns are less stringent than mine. And, if you have to shush someone, take comfort in the fact that you’ll be shushing someone you know. I had great fun at the drive-in and would happily go again if there were one nearby. Not for a film I was genuinely interested in, mind you. As much as I enjoyed the experience, it’s not the ideal atmosphere for watching a film with serious intent. But I would have appreciated Alien: Covenant, which I saw recently at the mall, much more if I had seen it with that spoonful of sugar that is the lowered expectation of the drive-in.

The magical appeal of that union of movie and night persists. A local hotel here in Asbury Park is now showing open-air movies on the roof, the rescued sign from Asbury’s old Baronet Theatre glowing proudly above the screen, and the last few summers have featured movies on the beach (Jaws being a big hit). Who knows? Maybe the architects who created movie palaces with ceilings of sky, stars and drifting clouds were anticipating a theatrical future that included the classic drive-in.

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About the author: Jeff Lundenberger is an avid classic film fan, was a TCMFF Social Producer and is active across social media sharing his love of movies. You can follow Jeff on Twitter and Instagram @jlundenberger.

I Found It at the Drive-In Special guest post by Jeff Lundenberger @jlundenberger I Found It at the Drive-In My host, Aurora, recently shared a piece on this blog celebrating the 84th anniversary of the…