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The title of the fourth Indiana Jones movie has been announced and it's a bit of a mouthful.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The movie is to have a simultaneous worldwide release on Thursday, May 22, 2008.

The title would suggest that our Indy will be making a trip south of the border to the Mesoamerica region the site of the discovery of Crystal skulls.

Labels: cinema, movies

A recent comment I spotted in the comments book of the Little Theatre cinema.

It's obscene to advertise such an appalling/violent computer game - I am surprised that the Little Theatre supports the encouragement of killing other humans.

The advertisement in question was for the game Medal of Honor: Airborne, a World War II first-person shooter. I personally believe that there is no substantive difference between advertising a game like this and screening a movie like Saving Private Ryan.

In any case the cinema has little control over which adverts actually get screened and obviously does not advocate or endorse the killing of people, however unlike some of our customers we are aware that there is a difference between the killing of humans in real life and on the silver screen or a computer monitor.

Labels: cinema, Games

The BBC reports that North American cinemas are experiencing a record-breaking summer at the box office. Takings are expected to top the $4bn (£1.98bn) barrier for the first time.

Box office analysts Media By Numbers say the $4bn figure outclasses summer ticket sales of $3.95bn (£1.95bn) set in 2004.

Their estimates suggest that this summer's box office returns will stand at $4.15bn (£2.05bn) by the time the season officially ends on 3 September.

But they added that actual summer ticket sales are expected to be about 606m, only the sixth-best in modern times.

There's a similar picture at our cinema, we've experienced a better summer than the past few years and that's without any summer blockbusters as we tend towards the arthouse end of the market.

It seems that the death knell of the movie industry sounded by the MPAA in the US has been premature to say the least if in spite of rising numbers of people using BitTorrent to download movies that box office revenue is on the up too.

In fact MPAA research statistics would seem to indicate that it has not only been a good summer 2007 at the box office but that the figures for the year 2006 showed a rising trend across the board.

Labels: cinema, copyright

I have a lot of respect for Bitch Ph.D and read her blog regularly but I think she may be overreacting about the Rapist No.1 action figure from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's new movie Grindhouse.


As well as the Rapist figure (which is the likeness of Tarantino as he portrays said character in the movie in one of his customary cameo appearances) action figures of other characters such as Cherry and Dakota are available to buy.



She seems mostly concerned that it is being marketed by the name Rapist No.1 doll but that is just the name of the character in the movie and to my mind is no different than a Freddy Krueger action figure. It's not as if the figure is even depicted in an act of rape and can hardly be considered glorifying rape or fostering an attitude that rape is acceptable.

I haven't seen Grindhouse yet but I would imagine if Tarantino's previous movies are any indicator that this rapist character meets a gory and well deserved end. I think there is a debate to be had about the depiction of rape in movies and on television and the trend for the sexualisation of female victims of rape in them as opposed to the depiction of male rape victims. Also there is a disturbing trend (in comics it is referred to as the Women in Refrigerators Syndrome) for using violence against women as a plot device and motivating factor for the hero protagonist of the story to whom the victim is connected.

I think that Bitch Ph.D has picked upon the wrong thing for her argument here.

I don't see the appeal myself for these action figures designed for adults and they are very much a niche product that as opposed to movies have little to no impact on society at large. I believe that had she not written about it then virtually the entire readership of Bitch Ph.D would never have known that such a thing as a Rapist No.1 action figure even existed.

Labels: cinema, comics, movies

I'm sure you've seen this advert if you've been to the cinema in the past few months. Some guy chokes on a pretzel in the first few seconds and then is cremated, his remains are taken by his brother Morton. The ashes are then taken by Morton to a company called Live On that through a filtering process similar to that which Smirnoff vodka is subjected to can turn those ashes into a girl's best friend. Morton then is seen pawning this diamond for a stack of notes.

I hate this bloody advert, partly I guess because I'm stuck listening to it four times a day at the cinema, but mainly because it is idiotic. Whilst it is indeed possible to turn cremated human remains into diamonds the process is so expensive that you couldn't possibly profit from doing so and there is nothing particularly special about human ashes as opposed to any other type of ashes that makes them more suitable to produce diamonds from.

I can be so anal sometimes.

Labels: cinema

Just finished watching Children of Men. Fucking fantastic movie that was tightly paced and wonderfully directed. A beautifully rendered dystopia. Great performances by the actors and I didn't even hate Clive Owen in it which makes a change.

It occurred to me also that V for Vendetta should have been filmed this way. Far more convincing portrayal of a future totalitarian British dystopia.

Labels: cinema, movies

I saw Thank You For Smoking yesterday.

A satirical comedy on the machinations of the tobacco industry it stars Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor a spin doctor and spokesman for the The Academy of Tobacco Studies.

Aaron Eckhart's character is brilliant he almost had me convinced that I should buy a pack of cigarettes when I left the cinema.

The great state of Vermont will not apologise for its cheese!

Brilliantly black comedy. I love the way that you never actually see anyone smoke in the movie as well.

I also watched Russian Ark yesterday, well about half of it. Jeez that's a fucking boring piece of pretentious bollocks. I think my major problem with it was the character of the French diplomat, he was incredibly annoying and sapped any enjoyment I may have had.

Labels: cinema, movies

I've had a rather unusual day at the cinema today.

The damn DVD projection equipment packed up again. Bloody overheating pile of bollocks.

Damn the cheapskate film distribution company sending us a DVD copy rather than a print of the film to save money. The quality was dire as well.

Had to make apologies and give refunds to the customers.

Then a couple of passerbys dropped in to see what we were showing and the man said didn't you go to Bath University? He recognized me and it turns out we were classmates on the Electronic & Communication Engineering course. It's been ten years since we'd seen each other and much to my shame I hadn't recognized him.

Jeff Quek who now works for Motorola. Seeing him has brought back a flood of memories, but I couldn't remember anyone's names. So when I got home I sought out my degree ceremony booklet to see if it could help my recall.

Even tracked down some of my other classmates online via Google. Lusajo Kibonde and David Ockwell-Jenner were fairly easy to find as they have unique names.

But I also found Sarah Dolman who works for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society in Bath. I remember her because I thought she was way too attractive to be doing an Electrical Engineering degree.

Labels: cinema

The cinema hosted Michael Eavis on monday for a screening of the documentary movie Glastonbury which he introduced for us. To advertise this screening the following photo featured in the Bath Chronicle newspaper.



We look bored as hell but that's how the photographer wanted us.

Labels: cinema

The Waiter had to deal with a real asshole at the restaurant recently, and as usual he dealt with this dickhead of a customer with aplomb.

I really don't understand people like this, he probably had been having a great meal out and then he has to ruin his own night and everyone else around him but acting like a wanker because he feels a little aggrieved. When it turns out that the customer was in the wrong all along he doesn't come back and apologise no he returns and accuses our man of being an asshole himself.

I've had to deal with tossers like this gentleman at the cinema, narrowly avoided being assaulted by one guy a few years back. Most aggravation comes due to shows selling out especially when there has been long lines of people waiting to get in as people will have been waiting ages only to discover that the show has become sold out.

I can understand that they would be disappointed but what can I do it's not my fault that we're busy because we have the latest must-see movie and that you failed to book a ticket. But invariably there will be one guy and it is virtually always the men that will take their frustration and disappointment out on our staff members. This has not been so much of a problem the last 18 months or so because we've had far fewer busy shows and now that we have an internet booking system plus additional computer stations to take advance bookings people can no longer claim that they tried to book but couldn't get through to us.

Most of the problems we have been having lately is due to the increased complexity of our programme because we have started to add special showings such as shows for senior citizens, parents with babies, late night screenings or one off screenings of classic films. This means that the times can vary from day to day for our regular programme of the latest releases.

Unfortunately this measn that we get customers for screenings that aren't actually happening on that particular day plus it doesn't help when our marketing department is cocking things up and advertising shows that we don't have as well.

So far less assholes recently but still the same number of complaints.

We had a very amusing mixup recently that thankfully my boss got to deal with as he was working at the time. Two old ladies who had obviously not been to the pictures in years came to see Mrs Henderson Presents and then has apparently wandered into the balcony of Screen 1 instead of continuing up the stairs to Screen 2.

So they sat and watched the entirity of March of the Penguins and then watched as the lights went up and saw the audience that had been sitting below them all get up and leave and then saw my boss go in and check the screen and clear up the rubbish left by the audience and all the time they are sitting waiting for Mrs Henderson Presents to start. Quite by chance my boss happens to see them on the balcony as he looks up towards the projection box window which is situated behind these ladies and so he leaves the stalls and goes up the stairs to investigate who these ladies are.

Whereupon he discovers their mistake and has the unfortunate duty now to inform them that they have missed all but the last fifteen minutes of the movie that they had come to see. They are quite irate and are blaming everyone but themseleves for the error and will not even take up the offer of the free tickets for the later performance that day for Mrs. Henderson. They were under the impression that the penguin film was the support feature for their film even though support features haven't been played for decades. They also managed to miss all the very visible signs indicating which movie was playing in which screen and where each screen was.

It's not like it hadn't crossed our minds that customers may go through the door to the screen 1 balcony instead of continuing a bit futher to find the door to screen 2 so that's why there is a huge sign pointing the direction to screen 2 and a very noticeable sign on the blacony door saying 'Screen 1 balcony'. The tickets are marked with the relevant screen number. What more can we fucking do?

Enough ranting about cinema customers for now I'll go back to ranting about infringements on civil liberties or something else tomorrow.

Labels: cinema

This happened last Friday but I've only just noticed that they have added to their website.

War Nostalgia at Little Film Screening

History was brought to life when a film set in wartime Britain was screened in a Bath venue built in the 1930s. Staff from the Little Theatre cinema dressed up in wartime clothing when they showed Mrs Henderson Presents.

If click the link to read the article you'll notice a small photograph with me in the foreground dressed as a Spiv.

Labels: cinema

The cinema has just taken delivery of what is sure to be this summer's blockbuster movie Party in Fresno. I'm hoping that it will be as big a hit as the movie Blue Harvest.

Labels: cinema

More of those damn OAPs blighting my life. :D

One old lady who was slowly making her way past the cinema on her Zimmerframe saw me standing by the door and told me that she didn't like modern films and hadn't been to the cinema since Rudolph Valentino.

Lying so-and-so. I suppose it's possible as she was a very old lady but as he died in 1926 I think it is highly unlikely.

Perhaps it was his untimely death that caused her to stop going to the cinema as he was mourned by a great deal of people. Over 80 000 mourners turned out for his funeral and Hollywood legend relates the story that thousands of women lined the streets, causing riots. Several of his fans were even said to have committed suicide.

Labels: cinema

Our screening of the movie "What the Bleep do we know?" for the Silver Screen (our special show for Senior Citizens) elicited more comments than usual in our comments book.

"What the Bleep....." great film I love this cinema. Thank you. Fxxx

Dear Manageress
thanks for being capable and cute, and do enjoy what the Bleep XX

June 14th Silver Screen
'What the Bleep do we know'
I cannot believe that this film would be chosen for the Silver Screen, it is without doubt the worst thing it has been my misfortune to view. No plot, no dialogue that is understandable Absolutely Awful!!! Where on earth did the producers get the money from to make this? when a lovely little English Film could have been shown. At 75 I want to be entertained.

June 14th What the Bleep...
Great! Inspiring! Just what we old folk need in Bath.
Good to see a film that gives science a look-in on the emotional/spiritual side of existence. It was serious, stimulating, educative, entertaining, provocative... but not trivial, so it won't please everybody.

It appears from the second comment that one of the old folks is trying to flirt with my female colleague.

I agree with the third commenter this movie is absolutely awful. It's pure New Age Cargo Cult science, they go through recognizable motions of science without understanding the true principles. There's seems to be a lot of that going on at the moment.

Labels: cinema, movies

Just had an odd encounter at the cinema with a customer.

"Could I have a ticket to this film you have advertised here." he asked slyly.

"Which?" I asked as we have several showing.

He seemed reluctant to say and whispered "Sin City"

He raised an eyebrow when I told him the price.

"It's always good for sales. I've seen videos, but not usually at the cinema."

It then occured to me that he had somehow got the idea that Sin City was some kind of pornographic movie. I suppose it is in a way but I suspect he will be sorely disappointed.

Labels: cinema

Yahoo News: Loews Goes Reel Time

By Josh Grossberg Wed May 4, 8:47 PM ET

Hate going to the movies and having a commercial-a-thon break out?

This might be the news you've been waiting for.

Coming soon to a theater near you: actual start times for feature presentations.

In response to gripes from customers about the increasing number of ads, PSAs, promotions and sneak previews running before a film, Loews, the nation's third-largest theater chain, has announced that it will soon start publicizing the real times that movies unspool.

But there's a catch. Beginning next month, Loews will include in its newspaper and Web listings a note alerting customers that "the feature presentation starts 10 to 15 minutes after the posted show time."

I do sympathise with customers who feel we trick them into arriving too early and bombarding them with adverts but it isn't a simple task to actually post the times of the start of the movie.

All the times quoted for films at our cinema are for the start of the full performance including the adverts and trailers because they are of variable length it is never certain quite when the main feature will start so we never post the time for it.

Also just to complicate matters any performance for a movie that is only playing once or twice in a week will probably not have any adverts or trailers as we only have a limited number and it is too much hassle for the projectionist to detach them from another print to play with such a movie.

However as a small cinema that isn't part of a major chain we tend to play far fewer actual adverts and customers generally quite enjoy the trailers for fortcoming features in any case.

Labels: cinema

A long-winded blogpost/essay about the future of cinema as I see it.

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution posed an interesting question recently, Why are all movies the same price?

Well, not the same price in all cases. Before 6 p.m. is cheaper, there are numerous dollar theaters, and not all films allow for discount coupons. Nonetheless a multiplex will charge the same ($9.50 in my case) for the number one movie and for a flop. Nor is the price more expensive for Saturday night, or during the summer when demand is higher. Can any economic model predict these results?

This was of course of interest to me and is a subject that I've been considering recently so I posted the following comment there.

I'm a cinema manager in the UK and there are variations in prices at our cinema throughout the week depending upon the day and time of a screening.

We haven't tried varying the price for different movies but film distributors are very resistant to any change and wield a lot of power over us. There are actually very few distributors so if one of them decided to not supply us with their movies we would suffer a lot more than they would.

It's true that most of our profits come from concessions we now seem to be in the popcorn and soft drink business with the movie being an extra on top.

I despair of this sometimes, I think the way things will go is that the movie will be free for purchasers of popcorn. The movie companies will use the theatre release of a movie as a method of marketing for DVD sales and the cinemas will use the movie as a lure for popcorn sales.

Which ties in neatly with the following article from the Washington Post.

An Ever-Shorter Leap From Theater to DVD

"I'll wait for the DVD."

It's the discriminating moviegoer's mantra, one repeated every time we can't muster the motivation to catch the latest Hollywood offering in theaters. But in many cases that waiting game has changed, as movies make the leap from silver screen to small screen faster than ever before.

These days the turnaround time from cineplex to DVD is 4 1/2 months, on average, with movies becoming available for rental and sale on the same day... It's no secret that movie studios, which generally earn more money from home video than box office returns, are eager to capitalize on DVD dollars as soon as they can.

The world has changed around the cinema industry and I don't believe it hasn't moved enough to accommodate the changes. There has been a gradual decrease in admissions over the decades with brief upsurges such as with the introduction of multiplexes and the general upgrading of older cinemas with modern facilities such as Dolby Digital sound, but the general trend has been downwards.

The response to falling numbers has been to increase the prices so that they far outstrip the rise in inflation. In real terms the price of cinema admission is many times what it was, to the extent that parents are not bringing their children to the cinema nearly as much as they used to.

The prevailing trend in the business of movie companies is that they make most of their income from the DVD release of movies instead of the theatrical release. The millions of dollars that is put into marketing a movie for it's theatrical release is equally marketing the DVD release if the gap between the two is only a few months.

We should embrace this trend and slash the price of cinema tickets as neither the movie distributors nor the cinema are making much money from the box office receipts. The theatrical release would become yet another marketing tool for the sale of DVDs for the movie companies and a way of attracting customers into the building for popcorn sales and the like for the cinemas.

I would even go so far as to have no charge at all for children under 10 years of age as this would encourage parents to bring their children to the cinema more often as it would no longer cost them 'an arm and a leg'. I think if children get into the habit of going to the cinema at a young age they will be more likely to continue to do it as adults.

I think we need a diversification in the cinema model as well as in the movies. Cinemagoers range from those who just want to waste a couple of hours and pop in as they pass by to those who make it a part of a night out, the classic 'dinner and a movie' date. To accomodate this we need a range from no-frills establishments to a more upmarket movie theatre with a bar and restaurant.

A major change is coming to cinemas in any case with the major investments into digital projection.

In the UK The Film Council, and in the US maverick billionaire Mark Cuban.

What effect it will have remains to be seen, I hope that it will lead to a revolution in the cinema business model but at the very least it will cut costs.

The present system requires a length of film of around about 2 miles (or 3.5km) for the average movie as movie projectors run at a speed of 90 feet per minute. That is a hell of a lot of film and so it costs thousands of dollars to produce each one, plus if you consider that most big Hollywood movies typically open in thousands of screens in the US it can cost millions of dollars just to get your movie physically to each cinema and in front of the audience.

This is the reason why the UK release date of American movies is months later because we get the movie prints that were used in the US after it has finished screening there, it's cheaper to ship used prints here than it is to produce new copies.

With digital projectors the cost of distribution comes way down as each copy can then be made far more cheaply and delivered on a DVD-like disc or via the internet. Whilst it merely cuts costs for the big players in the industry the move towards digital projection also opens up the market for the smaller independent filmmakers who can then supply their movie to all the cinemas that wish to take it.

Currently if there are only a small number of prints of a certain movie cinemas will have to wait until a print becomes available and then may end up not taking the movie at all if the delay is too long. Thus the filmmaker has lost potential income just because the cost of making enough prints to satisfy the demand is prohibitive. There is no profit in spending a few thousand pounds to get a movie to a particular cinema if there is only enough audience to make a thousand pounds profit there, but if the cost is less than £100 it becomes a viable option.

With the per movie costs coming down to a negligible level cinemas could then adopt far more flexible business models and take advantage of the long tail and show movies for as long as there is an audience for it instead of packing people in for the latest blockbuster before dumping it and moving onto the next.

New multiplex cinemas could be built with many smaller screens in addition to the few large ones in order to show the less mainstrean movies. We could even let the demand affect the supply directly and allow customers to make bookings over the internet many weeks or months in advance and actually show the movies that people wish to see by scheduling the most popular in the larger screens with the most number of performances. Customers would make an initial booking for a movie and then finalise it closer to the date with a specific performance they would like when a schedule has been created.

Labels: cinema

In the ongoing low level battle between the cinema I work at and the local 'multiplex rival' they have finally struck a blow by offering OAPs on weekday evenings which is something we don't do as we only offer a discount before 6pm.

I've lost count of the number of complaints by OAPs who now aware of the difference are insisting we should give them a discount in the evening also or they might stop coming to see films here.

Stupid bloody old people don't realise that as our prices are across the board less than the 'multiplex rival' that we are the cheapest cinema for all but the few shows that take place in the evenings on weekdays. which are the shows leat attended by OAPs anyway as most of them come during the morning or afternoon.

It's not like they don't get a great deal from us already. We do two screenings a week especially for seniors where they get very cheap entry plus a free cup of tea and biscuit. Also they could for only £15 per year become members and get two free tickets plus have their precious discount at all times. It's not as if they can even claim to 'Have fought a World War for us and is this all the respect we get' as most of them would have been young children in the early 1940s.

Labels: cinema

A confused customer unwittingly lead me to a discovery about Amazon.co.uk a couple of days ago.

She was an American lady that now lives in the UK who had enquired in the past about the possibility of our cinema doing a screening of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. She had been told that there wasn't a print available of the movie in this country.

She obviously got hold of the wrong end of the stick and thought this to mean that the movie was unavailable in any format in the UK and so asked a relative in the US to send a DVD copy of it from there.

She proudly presented me with said DVD and explained the whole saga of the events to me. Unfortunately it isn't as simple to show a DVD as she thought and I had to tell her that it wouldn't be possible. Firstly there is the compatibility issue we would have to find a player that could project a region 1 DVD then in order to screen it to the public we would have to sort out the rights for a public screening with the film distributor. We could have done a private screening for her but that would have meant she would have had to hire the screen which would have been very expensive.

Anyway her claims that there was no copy of the movie in this country piqued my curiosity; surely she was mistaken so I searched for it at Amazon. I did of course find it and at a very reasonable price of £7.97 on DVD.

I also noted that it was available from Amazon Jersey at the lower price of £5.63 (plus £1.24 for delivery).

Amazon Jersey!

I didn't know there was an Amazon Jersey. Apparently Amazon has decided to exploit a loophole that allows purchases of less than £18 to be imported to the UK without having to pay duty on them. As Jersey does not currently impose VAT, small value items can be thus be purchased for a lower price from Amazon Jersey.

Labels: cinema

What is it about the last day of the year that brings all the fucking idiots out of the woodwork to make enquiries of me at the cinema?

Why ask us if we are open tomorrow after you have just asked what we are showing tomorrow?

Yes we have all these films showing but we are not going to be open we shall just fucking play them to an empty auditorium!

And yes we have not fucking closed down - you're standing in the bloody foyer asking the question - what the fuck do you think.

How many fucking people can there be in the city that don't know where the new huge Odeon Multiplex is and why the fuck would they think it is okay to ask us for directions given that they are our rivals who are trying to put us out of business.

All these bloody questions when I'm trying not to any actual work and write stuff for this blog.

Labels: cinema

Hooray I've just finished work until Monday.

We had a free screening of It's a Wonderful Life today and we only had about 50 people in for it, where the hell is everyone.

What with free shows and closing early the cinema only took about £150 today. But there was some good news I had a pay increase that was backdated for about 10 weeks so I got a sizable amount of pay that I hadn't been expecting.

I've been thinking recently that the cinema business is dying, in fact I reckon the entire movie industry will soon be facing major upheavals. I shall get around to writing in length about this but for now it's time I got a little merry in preparation for Christmas.

Labels: cinema

Is it an indication of the state of the British education system or am I expecting too much?

Two 12 year old girls bored and looking for something do wander into the cinema to find out what we are showing. I tell them and they ask the question "Who's King Arthur?"

Fuck me. I'm dumbfounded. "You know King Arthur, knights of the round table, Merlin the magician, Lancelot."

How can they not know who King Arthur is. But as I say am I expecting too much, how many people in this country actually do know who he is.

So anyway they go in to watch it. About half an hour later one of the girls comes out to buy some popcorn. Because we are so fucking chronically understaffed I have to serve her. She is a little on the chubby size and she knows it because when she asks for a large popcorn I repeat it just to be sure I heard correctly but she replies "It isn't just for me. It's for my friend as well" like I'd implied that she was fat and greedy or something.

Labels: cinema

As part of the BBC Four on BBC Two series there has been a number of excellent European movies being shown on BBC Two including the German movie Das Experiment, which was shown on Tuesday night.

The film is a thriller based upon the real-life experiment carried out in 1971 at Stanford University by a team of researchers led by Professor Philip Zimbardo. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a landmark psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life. Volunteers played the roles of guard and prisoner, and lived in a mock prison. However, the experiment quickly got out of hand, and was ended early.

Interestingly I didn't find it as shocking an experience as I did when I first saw it a couple of years ago. Maybe watching Big Brother and reading the accounts of the abuse suffered by prisoners at Abu Ghraib and in Guantanamo Bay has desensitized me to this sort of thing.

IMDB link for Das Experiment
Purchase the movie from Amazon.co.uk VHS | DVD

The official site of the Stanford prison experiment is at http://www.prisonexp.org/

The article about the Stanford prison experiment at the Wikipedia also makes comparison to the events at Abu Ghraib.

Labels: cinema

I've just had a rather bizarre conversation with a man of the cloth. In he walks to the cinema wearing his dog collar, stinking of booze and wishing to use our toilet. Having used our facilities he asked me which pub I thought he should visit next as he was looking to offend people. He told me it was his day off but he still wore the collar because it was a part of who he was.

He seemed very keen on telling me statements of fact. "Statement of fact. Even though I wear this collar I'm no different from you. I urinate. I defecate and occasionally I even fornicate." Also he liked to drink gin.

I think he may have been having a crisis of faith as he seemed to be very cynical about the world and he couldn't tolerate liars. He told me that he thought people could do whatever they wished within reason as long as they didn't lie about it. This is a philosophy that I share to an extent.

The most bizarre thing happened as he was leaving to go to the pub I recommended. We shook hands and I told him it was nice to have met him as it was break from the monotony of the day by having a real conversation with someone. He asked me what movies we were playing and he said that he'd see me exactly one week from now and pay me ten pounds for every person that had just watched King Arthur who then stuck their fingers up at me. But he'd only pay me if I didn't lie to him next time I met him.

The surrealness of the whole experience makes me think that things weren't quite how they seemed. At first I thought he might not really be a clergyman, it crossed my mind that he might be an actor. Later I became convinced that he was real but may have been suffering a 'crisis of faith'. Now, one hour on from the experience I'm having doubts about whether he was even human.

Tags: cinema

Labels: cinema

Bizarre customer enquiries part 7

- "Why do they have to put all the acknowledgements on the end of the film? What interest is that to the general public?"
- "I don't really know, but it's of interest some people and it's probably a union requirement."
- "But why do we have to sit through it."
--Fuck I have no words.

A teenage boy wearing jeans, white trainers and a blue Bath Rugby Club anorak asks.
- "Would you know where I could exchange some gift vouchers? I've had a heart attack and I'm stuck in Bath."
--What the fuck

Labels: cinema

It's been three weeks since the last entry for this. The reason being there has been very little to write about due to an abnormally normal few weeks. I don't know if that makes sense but what I mean is that there has been very little incident worth writing about.

So why am I writing now? What the hell has happened to wake you from your stupor Mr. Inca?

Nothing really apart from the most easily spotted lie that I hear on a regular basis from customers.

I've seen all of those films

When what they truly mean is none of those films are of interest to me.

Why do they lie? Do they think I'll be offended if they tell me the truth? I really don't mind if they decide not to see what we are playing. But it pisses me off to hear them tell me they've seen everything when the choice is so diverse that only a true cinema freak would have done so.

Labels: cinema

Just a quickie about a query from a customer I had today.

"Could you tell me how to get in touch with Mel Gibson so I could congratulate him on his wonderful film 'The Passion of the Christ'."

I suggested that she send a letter via Icon film distribution and then she got really shirty with me telling me that I was being no help.

Like I fucking know every single film director's home address in the whole bloody world. What the fuck do you expect from me you psycho bitch.

Labels: cinema

A mere day after I start this thing and I've had the worst day at work ever, and it was supposed to be my day off today.

I got a frantic phone call this morning from the projectionist; today's duty manger had called in sick and both the senior managers were away for the weekend. This meant that I had to go in as no one else had keys to the safe and thus access to the float and the keys to the tills. The staff had managed to struggle through the morning's kids show with the change in their pockets.

Not a good start to my day but things were to go slowly downhill.

Incident 1: Two kids having just sat through the crap known as The Cat in the Hat (great book, poor movie) decide to let off a stink bomb in the auditorium. Thanks a lot guys, goddam bloody kids.

Incident 2: Yet another staff member goes off sick leaving us further understaffed.

Incident 3: A customer enquiry about The Passion of the Christ.
- Are you showing the Mel Gibson Jesus film?
- No not yet I'm afraid. It starts next friday on the 9th of April.
- I've heard it's quite violent.
- Well yes it is very violent. There are graphic scenes of torture and then there is the crucifiction. (Best to be totally honest with customers about violence as they are likely to complain. I can forsee us getting lots of complaints about the violence by customers who will blame us even though we didn't make the film and it was they who made the informed decision to come and bloody watch it.)
- There's those people that have complained about it haven't they. (I think she is still talking about the violence but oh no.) What do you call them? Oh yeah the Jews.

Incident 4: Even though the system doesn't allow it to happen we oversell Screen 2. We have customers that have booked tickets turning up to find we have no seats for them. Fucking hell. Much apologies, refunds and complimentary tickets later we look through the ticket stubs to find four tickets for an earlier show. Should have bloody thought this would happen as I knew we were four tickets down for that show. Had the cashier made a mistake and sold customers tickets for the wrong show? Later as I watch the customers leave at the end of the show I notice four customers that I knew for certain had bought tickets for the earlier show as it was a ticket sale I had done myself. They had just decided to come for the later one instead, unfortunately this just fucks us up if we are busy, but it is hard to stop them doing it.

Incident 5: To cap off the day from hell the fucking electricity goes out halfway through the last shows of the day. A split second of freaking out before I realise that I can still here the sounds of the movies playing. Luckily the projection boxes are on separate circuits from the rest of the cinema so the customers are none the wiser. After scrabbling around a bit in the dark with torches the projectionist and I are able to sort the problem.

End of the day now and I'm typing this just before I leave for home. Roll on tomorrow and further chaos.

Labels: cinema

Inspired by True Porn Clerk Stories and moved to action by the increasingly bizarre customers who are enquiring about The Passion of the Christ I have decided to create a journal of my days at work. I may even spin this off into a separate blog.

Labels: cinema

The Passion of the Christ is bringing the weirdos out of the woodwork at my cinema.

Quote: My husband and I haven't been to the cinema in 30 years but we'll be sure to come and see it.

I am left wondering if they have any idea of what the movie will actually be like.

Customer: Can I have a ticket for Passion of the Christ.
Cashier: I'm afraid it isn't playing yet. It starts on Friday 9th April.
Customer: I must be drunk then.

Labels: cinema, movies