Close Encounters with the Free Summer Cinema Series at the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens
UCSB Arts & Lectures’ ‘Out of This World’ Outdoor Movie Nights Kick off on July 7
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ | Credit: Sony Pictures
With themes ranging from “Hot Nights with Bogie and Bacall” and “Be Excellent and Party On,” to “Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance: The Great American Musicals,” and “Robots, Space Aliens, and Body Snatchers,” it’s always fun to learn about what new theme the team at UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) will come up with for its annual free summer cinema series on Friday nights at the Courthouse Sunken Gardens.
This summer’s “Out of this World” series launches on Friday, July 7, at 8:30 p.m. with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg’s beloved UFO abduction tale. Caitlin O’Hara, A&L’s director of Public Lectures & Special Initiatives, answered a few questions about the series.
How did you come up with the theme? I thought about films that would be fun to watch outdoors in a community setting like the Courthouse, and I had several other working lists of themes, but the list of alien-centric films came together the most organically and felt like the most fun. We want to pick a theme that will have broad appeal, and this year we have some thrillers, some classics, some comedies … this lineup gave us an opportunity to have a little something for everyone.
