Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Swashbuckled in Dunlap

Monday night featured a trip for Kati and I to one of the few remaining drive-in theatres, located in Dunlap, Tennessee, a small mountainous town 45 minutes southwest of Dayton. For quite a while, we'd wanted to experience the America of yesteryear by viewing a show outside on the big screen under the stars. It seemed every time we had the desire to make the drive though, the theatre would be featuring award-winners like National Lampoon's Van Wilder and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. This week's feature was Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and given that we had recently survived the lengthy sequel to the original Pirates of the Caribbean, we thought it appropriate to take advantage of the opportunity before Not Another Teen Movie made its way back to Dunlap for an encore performance. Here's a link to the theatre in case you want to make your own trip.

We found the nature surroundings of Dunlap to be seemingly untouched, captivatingly lush over rough terrain, as the truck pulled its way up a series of inclines on TN-111. Eventually, the Ranger crested at a sign noting that there would be a 6% grade over the next four miles, and soon thereafter the view opened up to reveal a host of lights decorating the town. Inside Dunlap's downtown, it was clear to both of us that the small community deserved a day trip of exploration. We were especially interested by a sign pointing to the Historic Dunlap Coke Oven Park, a 62-acre reserve protecting a large quantity of coke ovens, once used in the early 20th century to convert coal into industrial coke. Next weekend the park is scheduled to host its annual Coke Ovens Bluegrass Festival, which I imagine is a big a deal to Dunlap as the Strawberry Festival is to Dayton, which basically is comparable to me looking forward to the second weekend in March for the ACC Conference Tournament or my dad getting excited about a 24-hour Walton's marathon. It's all about perspective.

I suppose that I expected to find a drive-in theatre somewhere far away from lights and traffic, but the Dunlap Drive-in was so close to the town that I probably would have driven all the way to Whitwell (pronounced "Whu-wu" by residents) had Kati not spotted the small turnoff. (In truth, her initial thought was "well, if we can't find the drive-in we can come back and watch the movie at this theatre that's playing it.) At the drive-thru window where movie-goes pay admission, we found a man in his 60s that could best be described as "a nice old man." He smiled at us, mentioned something about us "getting there just in time" for the 9:25 showing, something else about how hazy it was tonight but how "he" (I'm not sure who "he" was) has decided to go ahead and start the picture and something more that I really couldn't understand more than to know that I should just smile and ease off the break.

Somewhere along the way in my thinking I imagined the theatre would be like a big open field with cars parked about haphazardly, but there were actual parking spots on gravel roads, situated in between poles that I presumed once served as mounts for car speakers back in the day. Now, the sound comes through FM frequency. I backed the truck into a space, put down the tailgate, laid out a sleeping bag over the twin bed mattress that fit perfectly into the truck bed and sat back against the cab, relishing the purchase of my truck some four years ago. Anyone that owns a truck needs to take it to a drive-in theatre.

We were pleasantly surprised by everything the place offered and for the price. The sound quality coming through the truck's speakers was good, tickets were $5 each and a large drink and popcorn could be purchased for another $5. The theatre has been operated since 1950, and by the same man since 1963 (who I guess could be "he" now that I think about it.).

Unfortunately, I can't be as positive about the movie at hand. Pirates 3 is about as clever and entertaining as Eddie Murphy playing Eddie Murphy playing Eddie Murphy....but twice as long. For most of the movie, I kept asking myself questions like "Now what are they going after?" "Who's on who's side?" "Why did they have to do that?" and "Did I really just subject myself to a wedding that literally happened in the midst of an epic battle scene?" The Elizabeth Swann character climbed her way a notch or two higher on the annoying meter, Orlando Bloom did an amazing job doing little other than pouting throughout the film and even Johnny Depp's portrayal of the endearing Jack Sparrow seemed lost. Clocking in at nearly 15 minutes shy of three hours long, this film could have been decent at two hours. As it is though, I can't even call it that.

The night was saved though by Dunlap's charm and mystery, something that will undoubtedly lead to a return trip in this summer of possibilities.