Smith's Ranch Drive-In Movie Theater — Local services in Twentynine Palms

I LOVE the prices, the food selection and people who work there and the fact that DRIVE-IN MOVIES ARE FUN! But the projection is DARK! A standard movie screen is supposed to be lit to 16 foot-lamberts. This is measured with a meter. I worked in the film industry for 38 years and checked screens regularly and without a meter, I would say their screen is about 8 foot-lamberts. It's at least a stop dark. We went to see Ghostbusters Frozen Empire at Smith's Ranch and couldn't tell what was happening in some dark scenes. This weekend, we saw Thunderbolts* at Smith's Ranch and the beginning of the film showcases a battle between the main characters in a locked room. We couldn't follow the storyline because the projection was so dark. There were just so many shots where there was NO detail in the actor's faces!

We left after about half and hour, following another car that also decided to find something better to do.

Last night, we went to see the same movie at the Paradigm Cinema in Yucca Valley. I think even their projectors run a tad dark but they were MUCH better than the drive in. We could SEE what was going on and there were many plot points we had missed while trying to see something...anything at Smith's Ranch.

Today's digital projectors have stackable lamp houses, allowing theaters to increase brightness to adjust for the size of their screens. But instead of investing in more light, the management at Smith's Ranch tried to make the image smaller, so it doesn't fully fill the screen, but this is a DRIVE-IN, where the image needs to be BIG.

I know it can't be easy running a drive-in these days. But if they spend a little more money on the display, I think people will stay for the show and come again. In the meantime, I can only recommend this theater for animated films and musicals. Don't waste your time seeing something like a horror film at Smith's Ranch. You'd get a better scare just staying home and turning off all the lights!

Note the picture I took during the trailers, so you can see how the image doesn't fully...

I have a love-hate relationship with this place. I LOVE the ticket prices, the staff and the concession prices. Really cheap pretzels, popcorn, pizza, candy etc. It's really FUN to go to the drive in. We can even bring our dog!

What I hate is the projection. Either they are miss-threading the projector, or it needs servicing. EVERY movie has about 50 scratches running through it! It's like watching a movie through prison bars.

They also have the projector bulb dimmed way down. This saves them some electricity and makes the bulb last longer. But the image is so dim! If you're watching a night scene, you literally CAN'T SEE ANYTHING! I work in projection and I've offered to fix their projector FOR FREE, because the films COULD look so much better. But they are not interested. We saw "Django" there and all the scratching in the projector created a big ball of hair, so about 1/3 of the screen was just a big hair ball.

The projectionist didn't notice for almost half an hour. When he did, he tried to blow it out, but was pointing the air nozzle on the wrong side of the projector, so the entire movie was shown this way. C'mon guys, this is one of the last drive-in movies in California! Have some pride...

So I've never been to a drive in theatre so I guess you can say this was a bucket list spot lol. There was lots of parking and and the screen was seeable from all sides and angles. As far as sound goes it was perfect over the 89.1 FM radio station. If you're like me and you have day time running lights on your vehicle, the people there are going to ask you to turn off your vehicle. They provide you with a free radio so you can keep the sound going. The customer service was great, some of the people in line knew the owner by name and he was very friendly to me being I'm a newbie lol. The restrooms were very clean and smelled just the same. The only gripe I have is the road leading to the theatre, it's a bit bumpy but once you get past it, it's a nice smooth dirt road and you just pull into a spot. I'd highly recommend checking this spot out. It's $5 bucks and you get to see two movies. We saw Sonic and Dr. Dolittle, both were great movies. And they played on time, with no issues. I'm going back and hopefully you check this spot out for...