The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
'The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,' Mark Twain, still very much alive, once quipped. The same could be said of reports of the demise of the Big Island Drive-In theatre. The northern Manitoba icon reopened last Friday _ later than usual but with just as much anticipation from its loyal patrons _ with a showing of the comedy Identity Thief. The drive-in's future had been uncertain this year since the major film studios are phasing out 35-millimetre film. Drive-ins and indoor theatres were given until 2013 to upgrade to digital projectors, but that's a major expense for smaller operations like Big Island. But, the Winnipeg Free Press reports, film studios continue to release a limited number of movies on film _ so the reels will take longer to move from theatre to theatre. The Free Press reports that none of Manitoba's three drive-ins have purchased a digital projector, but two have reopened and the third hopes to later this summer. Marlene Nelson of Morden's Stardust Drive-In said the studios have not told her how long movies will continue to come out on film. 'We feel like we'll jump on the bandwagon as long as we can,' she told the Free Press. Manitoba's other drive-in theatre is the Shamrock Drive-In in Killarney.
