This Is the Weekend That Will Be
Admission Free If You Ride in the Trunk
Last week, the Boulevard Drive-In (1051 Merriam Lane, Kansas City, Kan., 913-262-0392) played Grindhouse. This week, in a JohnTV-grade display of bad judgment, the drive-in has changed the bill to Blades of Glory and Wild Hogs.
There’s only one advantage to seeing either of those goddamn movies at the drive-in: demonstrating your cinematic antipathy by putting your car in neutral, revving the engine as high as it will go, then dropping into gear and peeling away in a dusty cloud of critical approbation*. Of course, this could result in an undercarriage explosion. No, I mean literally, not the JohnTV kind of undercarriage explosion.
I really did want to go to the Boulevard Drive-In tonight, but instead I’m going to the I-70 Drive-In (8701 East U.S. Highway 40, 816-861-0500) which is, in fact, screening Grindhouse at 8:40 and 10:20.
Signs Point to “Yes”
In 1973, Leonard Nimoy starred in a made-for-TV movie called Baffled! In it, he plays a race-car driver who experiences a psychic vision of an English manor, causing him to crash his car and subsequently solve a mystery. I’m a sucker for police procedurals involving psychic race-car drivers, so if they’d held the PRS Psychic Fair at the Speedway instead of at the BTC Exhibit Hall (1775 Universal Avenue, 816-482-5230), I might be slightly more excited about it. The event is today through Sunday. Admission is free to PRS members or $10 for nonmembers.
I couldn’t find a picture of Leonard Nimoy in Baffled!, so here’s a video in which he sings about Bilbo Baggins, which I will be playing in a continuous loop for the rest of the day:
Earth Day Stuff
Sunday is Earth Day, and there are a number of local events. Here’s a quick run-down:
Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., attend Earthfest at Shawnee Mission Park (7710 Renner Road in Lenexa). The event includes entertainers, and more than 70 Earth-friendly exhibitors and vendors will offer free activities and entertainment, featuring "green" options in the metro area.
Sunday is Earth Day proper. From 1 to 5 p.m. at the Bruce Watkins Cultural Heritage Center (3700 Blue Parkway), Earth Day events include a giant puppet parade; Mr. Stinky Feet-Jim Cosgrove; African drumming and dancing; enviromental arts and crafts; and Felicia Flash, wildlife photographer, with her sidekick, Karma, the elephant in StoneLion's environmental puppet shows.
At the J.C. Nichols Fountain (47th and Main streets), activists host an Earth Day Iraq peace vigil and rally from 4 to 5:30pm Sunday.
The Earth Day Fashion Show at Liberty Hall (644 Massachusetts in Lawrence, 785-749-1972) benefits the Clean Water Fund.
Don’t forget that you can find hundreds more events here.
*Kids: This is a kind of film criticism known as the “neutral drop.” It’s a lot like Russian Roulette, in that you never know when your transmission is going to explode, but how else is Hollywood going to get the message?
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