Screen on the Green

The line-up for Screen on the Green is as follows:

Screen on the Green to return this summer

By Dan Zak
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Screen on the Green, the free outdoor cinema series on the Mall, will return this summer for an 11th year of classic movies, Cabernet-stained picnic blankets, deflated wedges of brie and boobs who insist on sitting in high-rise camping chairs.

The films will play on four consecutive Mondays on 35mm film projected on a 20-by-40-foot screen between Fourth and Seventh streets NW: Bond movie "Goldfinger" at dusk July 12, the Neil Simon adaptation "The Goodbye Girl" on July 19, the claustrophobic courtroom drama "12 Angry Men" on July 26 and the seminally violent opus "Bonnie and Clyde" on Aug. 2.

Some Washingtonians were concerned the series would not return for financial reasons -- anxiety left over from last year, when the series was scotched in mid-May because of funding issues, then resurrected a month later thanks to fervent fans who applied pressure via social media and co-sponsors who ponied up cash (the series costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to mount each year).

This year, in a preemptive strike, the "Save Screen on the Green" collective -- captained by Jesse Rauch of the D.C. Film Alliance -- organized a letter-writing campaign and a Twitter assault on perennial sponsor HBO, which this month finalized a sponsorship deal with Comcast to keep Screen on the Green alive for another year. A representative for HBO acknowledged that Washingtonians' "continued interest and enthusiasm" factors into the sponsorship discussion each year.

Of course, the D.C. area is not wanting for outdoor cinema series. Northeast Washington, Crystal City, Rosslyn and the National Harbor will all host movies al fresco this summer.