This is no April Fool’s gag: I went to the drive-in at noon yesterday. At high noon, on a hot spring day nudging up around 90 degrees. And I (mostly) liked it.
Many Santa Barbarans by now know what I’m referring to, being the current COVID-retooled version of the great SBIFF, which has bravely moved forward with both a robust online component and a daily roster of films screened in the real time/real space venue of two actual drive-in screens (free to all comers, with reservations, or just via showing up!). They have taken up shop in the Santa Barbara City College parking lots, with the beach beckoning from just across Cabrillo Boulevard, implicitly posing the Mother Natural question: why aren’t you over here, on the sand and sea, vs. tuning into car FM frequencies and going cinematic in this scenic space?
This is not the first festival experience on this beach. In the late ‘80s, a too-briefly staged Santa Barbara Jazz Festival set up shop on Leadbetter Beach, with such notable artists as Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, Les McCann, and Poncho Sanchez, livening up the beach.