When I was looking through some old Martinsburg Journals for my last post, I found an issue from way back in 1984 (oh hell, that was 28 years ago!). Knowing this was a formative year for my obsession for all things cinema, I quickly went straight to the movie section, and found this little gem. Understandably it’s probably not all that special to most people, but memories sure rushed back when I saw this. Of course it’s fantastic for the plethora of fantastic 80’s films on display (even the clunkers like Rhinestone and Cannonball Run II are classics in their own right), but remembering all this, vividly – especially from a time when I was only eight years old – was quite a nice little experience. I must have saved this way back then after seeing Ghostbusters with my Dad and wanting to savor the moment or something. He took me to see it at the Hagerstown Cinema 1 & 2 (Maryland, just over the border from W. Va.), which I remember being a theater in a flat empty field on a country road, and I remember leaving the theater and looking back at it as we drove away while a thunderstorm formed overhead and thinking how desolate it’s location felt. The Hagerstown Valley Mall is where I saw Superman III, which we barely made it to as a long torrential downpour hit on our way there. I guess mother nature was trying to save us from that Richard Pryor travesty, but we didn’t listen. The Winchester Apple Blossom Mall VI (Virginia, just over the other border from W. Va.) is where I saw Clue, Crocodile Dundee, National Lampoon’s European Vacation, Spies Like Us, Summer Rental and I’m sure others I can’t remember anymore. The Berkeley Plaza 3 in Martinsburg is now a 7 screen theater, but still exactly the same as it was back when I lived there, at least from what I saw when I went back in 2000 to visit. There I saw Supergirl, Santa Claus: The Movie, and Clue AGAIN, amongst others. I remember driving there on another stormy, rainy night in 1985 with my neighbors from across the street to drop off their teenage daughter who was going to see Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning with her friends. The setting was perfect with the storm, and I still remember when she got out of the van and I could see the movie poster outside the entrance and it scared the crap out of me with the thunder and lightning outside. The Sunset Drive-In sadly closed soon after this issue. They were playing Top Secret! as a second run flick after the other theaters had it, and once my parents decided we should go, the theater closed after 35 years in business. I still remember being devastated thinking I would never get to experience a drive-in theater again. I think I only did once, in Rhode Island, in college, in the rain. That C.W. Theatre in Charles Town is where I saw Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, so it’s quite funny in this ad they are playing Beat Street. As for the Stateline Drive-In, my parents never got around to taking me there. It’s probably for the best.
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