A Nineties Film Series Ends the Way a Nineties Film Series Should

Some films are better on grass, in the dark, with other people’s children yelling at the screen. This is one of them.

Playhouse Village Movies in the Park screens “The Sandlot” on Friday, August 28. Seating opens at 7 p.m. and the movie starts around 8 p.m., after sunset. Playhouse Village Park is at 701 E. Union St. in Pasadena. Admission is free, and organizers request an RSVP.

It is the last title in a free lineup of 1990s films programmed to mark the park’s 30th anniversary, according to ColoradoBoulevard.net.

“The Sandlot,” released in 1993, follows a fifth-grader who moves to a new neighborhood in early-1960s Los Angeles, cannot throw a baseball, and falls in with the kids who play on the local lot. What follows involves a lost ball, a legendarily menacing dog and a summer that the narrator remembers considerably better than any of the adults would.

The choice of an evening start is not cosmetic. The screen waits on the sun, which means the hour between seating opening and the film beginning is the actual social event — the blankets, the folding chairs, the negotiation over who sits where.

Bring something to sit on. The grass is the seating.

Playhouse Village Movies in the Park screens “The Sandlot” Friday, August 28, at Playhouse Village Park, 701 E. Union St. in Pasadena. Seating opens at 7 p.m.; the movie begins at approximately 8 p.m., after sunset. Admission is free. RSVP requested.