Stay cool this summer with several hundred FREE and nearly free movies in and around Ventura County and surrounding areas! These movies are at local movie theaters, parks, libraries and other locations!
Movies/dates subject to change. Contact organizers to confirm. List is preliminary...
My kids and I always wave at Santa Claus facing the 101 freeway as we drive north through Camarillo and Oxnard. Since 2003 this 20 foot Santa has resided in the unincorporated area of Nyeland Acres, bringing smiles to the faces of passersby.
Constructed in 1947, near the community of Carpinteria, Santa Claus was part of a roadside attraction known as Santa Claus Lane, a two-lane roadway that paralleled the south side of U.S. Highway 101, just west of the City of Carpinteria. Between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s, Santa Claus Lane featured a thriving array of stores restaurants, motels, and a post office, as well as attractions, including a child’s train, small zoo, and pony rides, that catered both to travelers and nearby communities.
For over six years, Santa Barbara filmmaker Jody Nelson has chronicled the history of this popular Santa that will be made into a full-length film, "Roadside Santa." Through melding stories of community residents, interviews with scholars and activists, archival footage and stills, the documentary explores themes of cultural transition in California as experienced in the disparate communities that Santa has called home. “Roadside Santa” illuminates how the residents of Nyeland Acres have welcomed Santa to their neighborhood and reinvented him as a potent and positive symbol of community identity, demonstrating the adaptive capacities of new immigrant communities and American culture alike.
The video below highlights some some of the scenes, stories and interviews, as well as the popular annual Santa to the Sea Half Marathon that supports a toy drive for local underprivileged kids. Watch it! You'll learningg about our own Ventura County Roadside Santa and how he brings joy to the local community.
Nelson is nearly finished with the film but is still interested in Santa Claus Lane photos, film footage and memorabilia from the 1940s to present day, Santa Claus Lane stories from people who lived/worked there and the whereabouts of the miniature train and carousel that used to reside there. She also seeks additional funding to help finalize the film and bring it to film festivals and perhaps TV.
This latest piece by Camarillo artist Chuck Trunks is entitled "Chimp Jackpot." He didn't tell me what that means, but one could surmise he's referring to the success of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which opened in theaters on August 5th and was the 4th highest grossing August movie opening in history. Chuck, who is one of the, well, no, THE most particular person I know, said this is a must-see movie. Very entertaining (the movie that is). The movie has grossed over $186 million worldwide in less than 2 weeks, which is kind of like hitting the jackpot I would say. See Trunks' other work on Conejo Valley Guide here.
For movies in and around Ventura County, click here.
For upcoming movies around the community in Ventura County, click here.
This friend, who I trust very much, told me that I HAD to see Michael Jackson's This Is It, that it will be one of the top selling movies of all time, that it will win numerous academy awards and will be celebrated as one of the best movies of all time.
Whew! I told him I'd see it!
My friend Chuck rewarded himself to a movie after finishing a major project. He chose This Is It on the day of the movie's release, October 28, 2009. He saw the movie at the Roxy Stadium on Verdugo in Camarillo. There were maybe 15 people in the theater.
Chuck and I, both in our mid-forties, enjoyed Michael Jackson's music over the years and had an appreciation for his musical and performance talent. We bought his music from time to time, albums like Thriller and Off the Wall. Who could possibly not enjoy any of MJ's music!? He is an icon.
Yet we were not MJ fanatics, never went to his concerts and didn't rave about him. We both thought his cosmetic surgery escapades were pretty strange and that he completely disfigured himself. So what though, he had some quirks. We didn't pay much attention to his legal issues through all the years, giving MJ the benefit of the doubt (though still acknowledging MJ did some weird stuff). But we respected and admired MJ for his incredible talent.
Chuck was mesmerized by the movie. He saw the side of MJ that we never saw before. This was MJ in pure work mode, preparing for his upcoming sold out series of 50 concerts at the O2 Arena in London (we're talking over a million seats sold out within like a week). This was MJ's first concert tour for a dozen years, considered the biggest concert comeback of all time.
What impressed Chuck was the pure perfectionist MJ was in the film footage, tirelessly working on details with his talented entourage. We saw MJ interact with musicians and dancers. We saw how soft
Saturday, May 11, 2013 at 10:45AM 
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