There’s only one season of
the year when you can watch
movies and enjoy the warm
weather at the same time. If
you’re lucky, you can pull
up to a drive-in and watch
the latest superhero sequel
10 metres high. If not, here’s
how to make your own
version in your backyard.THE
ULTIMATE
BACKYARD
MOVIE
SE T-UP
AT THE DRIVE-IN, life does
not recede when the movie
begins. To the contrary, life
asserts itself. People eat
dinner in covered dishes.
They drink cans of beer from
coolers secreted past the
gate. Kids stubbornly play
on dimly lit playgrounds.
I’ve seen vigorous games
of ultimate Frisbee at
drive-ins. And dogs.
Yes, we hang the speaker
on the window. And sure, we
take a gander at the movie,even from the backseat.
But no one goes to a drive-
in for the movie. We go to
a drive-in to be outside as
we watch our stories unfold
10 metres above us, against
the sliver of sunset, the
darkling light, the waxing
disk of a summer moon.
In the backyard, it’s even
better. When someone
strings a bedsheet across
his backyard in order to
watch West Side Story one
more time? Count me in. It’s
a conscious kind of movie
watching, the creation of
sound and light against a
diaphanous, imperfect
scrim. Dancing looks better
against a bedsheet. Big-
band music resonates better
when the wind blows.
This is a conscious
sort of outdoor living, inwhich the comfort of an
Adirondack chair at
twilight is not taken for
granted. Here, at home,
life recedes because you
ask it to. You can lie down
on the lawn. This is your
property after all. Your
grass. You tend this place
by d ay.
In the end, maybe any
summer’s night is meant
to be forgotten. Maybe any
movie is merely incidental
when set against the larger
world. It’s all just light and
sound above the crickets,
after all. But with a backyard
movie, you can sit back and
take a look at the stars. You
are fully outdoors and fully
at the movies, too. Stars
are everywhere you look.- Tom Chiarella
PROJECT
88 http://www.popularmechanics.co.za _ AUGUST 2017
iSTOCKPHOTO/SVETIKD