Drive Movie

Albert Brooks offers a certain kind of eloquence when asked how his role as a brutal gangster in the new dark thriller "Drive" differs from his past parts. "I've played a few nasty guys over the years," he said. "But never one with ... of steel. " Actually, the actor-filmmaker has mostly played likably ornery types, in dramatic comedies such as "Broadcast News" and "Lost in America. " (His last slightly villainous role was as shady businessman Richard Ripley in 1998's "Out of Sight" -- but, as Brooks points out, he was still victimized by thugs.

As the night grew darker, a cold wind whipped across the asphalt expanse of the vintage Rubidoux Drive-In Theatre in Riverside. A howling gust banged open the door to the snack bar, where hot dogs glistened on metal spits and the black-and-white linoleum floor gleamed. Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" flickered to life on the colossal screen - for an audience of eight cars. This time of year is always slow at drive-in theaters, which have been struggling with declining attendance for decades.

It's a dry heat - a boulder-studded, wind-raked Mojave heat, in which rock stars lie low, artists think big, marines train, weird plants jut toward the sun like beseeching biblical figures, and climbers cling to granite walls like insects stuck to flypaper, except the climbers are way happier. That's a notable thing about Joshua Tree National Park and the towns around it. While legions of Californians keep their faces to the beach, no matter the season, a certain stripe of traveler is powerless to resist the desert, especially in cooler months.

Albert Brooks offers a certain kind of eloquence when asked how his role as a brutal gangster in the new dark thriller "Drive" differs from his past parts. "I've played a few nasty guys over the years," he said. "But never one with ... of steel. " Actually, the actor-filmmaker has mostly played likably ornery types, in dramatic comedies such as "Broadcast News" and "Lost in America. " (His last slightly villainous role was as shady businessman Richard Ripley in 1998's "Out of Sight" -- but, as Brooks points out, he was still victimized by thugs.

At a cinema in San Francisco, about 100 people recently showed up for a free screening of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" and a presentation of a kind of Netflix for movie theaters. The service, called MoviePass, would allow consumers to watch all the movies they want for a $50 monthly fee, using their smartphones to download codes that could be redeemed for tickets at theaters. With the backing of AOL Ventures, the New York start-up had planned a national rollout of the service this fall with online ticket firm MovieTickets.com.

This time, the women rode to Hollywood's rescue. Film executives, who typically cast men as the heroes, were breathing easier after six movies each generated more than $10 million in ticket sales this weekend, fueling a dramatic 35% increase in total receipts over the same week a year ago. Such films as "He's Just Not That Into You," which was particularly popular among women, beat expectations and suggested that the recession and rising unemployment rate have not yet damped movie attendance.

Salman Rushdie, in hiding for nearly a year since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran ordered his death, said in an interview published Saturday that he misses ordinary pleasures like driving a car and going to the movies. In a 90-minute telephone interview with Newsweek, Rushdie also said he feels that if his novel "The Satanic Verses" is not issued in paperback, then the death order and the campaign against the book will have succeeded.

You would think that a car-crazy Californian would have created the drive-in movie theater. But the distinction goes to a New Jersey chemical company owner. Richard Hollingshead opened the world's first drive-in in Camden, N.J., on June 6, 1933. Hollingshead, who died in 1975, came upon the idea when he set up a screen on his driveway and a home projector on the top of a car so that his family could enjoy a movie outdoors.

As the night grew darker, a cold wind whipped across the asphalt expanse of the vintage Rubidoux Drive-In Theatre in Riverside. A howling gust banged open the door to the snack bar, where hot dogs glistened on metal spits and the black-and-white linoleum floor gleamed. Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" flickered to life on the colossal screen - for an audience of eight cars. This time of year is always slow at drive-in theaters, which have been struggling with declining attendance for decades.

There was a time, way back in the late 1990s, when coolhunting was still cool, when nearly every Madison Avenue ad agency wanted a resident hipster to interpret the spending habits of those inscrutable Gen-Xers. Then the Internet exploded, connecting everyone to everything in an instant, and suddenly, the art of predicting the next big trend got way more complicated.

This time, the women rode to Hollywood's rescue. Film executives, who typically cast men as the heroes, were breathing easier after six movies each generated more than $10 million in ticket sales this weekend, fueling a dramatic 35% increase in total receipts over the same week a year ago. Such films as "He's Just Not That Into You," which was particularly popular among women, beat expectations and suggested that the recession and rising unemployment rate have not yet damped movie attendance.

NO modern movie about Los Angeles is complete without an establishing shot of freeway signs. It's the single image that has come to represent us on film, whether we like it or not. No matter what sights are contained within this sprawling, diverse city, it is universally recognized for the thoroughfares that snake around it. Movies set in New York open on sunset views of Central Park or a gilt skyline at sunrise, not the Holland Tunnel at rush hour. But L.A.

Movie ticket sales rose 8% to a record of about $7.3 billion in the U.S. and Canada last year, driven partly by higher prices and a record number of blockbuster films, according to AC Nielsen figures. Walt Disney Co. led the pack of major studios with a market share of 17%, or $1.24 billion, followed by Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. with 14.3%, or $1.04 billion. The number of tickets sold rose 4% to 1.49 billion, while the average ticket price increased by about 4% to $4.89.

Christopher Jackson knew something was up when his dad transplanted the white leather seats from their idled 1965 Mustang to the bed of the family pickup truck. "I asked him why. He said we were going to the drive-in movies," the 12-year-old recalled. "I started jumping up and down, I was so excited." And with that, Christopher became one of the legions of people who are discovering--or rediscovering--drive-in movies. "It's cool," he said.

It's August, in the Valley. Friends on the other side of the hill are making it clear that they feel sorry for us. OK, it's HOT. We'll give you that. But living in Encino and elsewhere in the Valley is just fine, thank you. Save your pity for people who don't have a smorgasbord of entertainment options. And we're talking about things you can do practically free on a weekend other than float motionless in your pool.

A new drive-in movie theater is opening atop downtown Los Angeles. On Oct. 28, Electric Dusk Drive-In will debut on the rooftop of a parking garage at the corner of 4th Street and Broadway. The drive-in will project a wide selection of classic films, cult favorites and contemporary blockbusters on a 24 foot by 18 foot screen, complete with carhops taking orders from a snack bar, according to a statement from Electric Dusk Drive-In. Audio from the movie will be transmitted directly to patrons' car radios, but patrons without cars can also watch movies in a designated seating area.

With the chilling pulse of the"Drive"movie soundtrack flooding their van, Calder Greenwood and his cohort sped into the shadows of the bridges overlooking the L.A. River east of downtown Los Angeles. They were on a mission to humanize the harsh industrial landscape of concrete, rusting metal, graffiti and whitewash. Their installation: A life-size papier-mache surfer. Deftly using wires and a concrete block, Greenwood placed the surfer smack in the middle of the waterway.