11 Comments

I loved working in a theater during college. All my friends worked there and it was a block away from my apartment. I worked during the switchover from film to digital so I was lucky enough to be able to splice and set up reels for a year or two.

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I worked at a second run theater for a summer during college. Ventilation issues and the switch to digital put them out of business that same year, so I worked there for the last summer of their operation. I grew up going to that theater, and some older friends worked there for several years. I agree with the recurring character analogy. I guess that makes me a Cousin Oliver. I signaled their doom! It's a megachurch now.

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Getting a movie theater job was a big deal in high school, I graduated in 1991, I tried in '90 but didn't make the cut.

Go watch Frankenhooker, it is the greatest of BAD movies.

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This is a great piece and echoes a lot of my experiences with the long demolished Cinema 1 & 2 in Macomb IL. Good memories.

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founding

This is a great piece, Keith. Thanks.

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Never worked in a theater, but I rue and lament the closing of the Bedford Theater here in Nova Scotia. It was opened until about 2006 or 2007, and it was my favourite theater to go to (for all the reasons that led to it being closed...the decor was old and tired, it was rarely busy, but it was also the most convenient location for me to get to and from by bus). We also had the one screen Oxford Theater here near downtown Halifax that was a genuine old style movie house, with one screen, an old style box office, and a balcony! The last movie I saw there was Brooklyn with Saoirse Ronan, and it wasn't long after that that it closed down. I saw a lot of good movies there (Schindler's List, The Big Lebowski, Apocalypse Now Redux), but when all the theater chains got gobbled up by Cineplex, there was no more room for a one screen theater that favoured Oscar Bait and other, smaller films.

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founding

Loved reading this piece Keith, thanks for sharing it.

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When I was at university some 15+ years ago, I volunteered at the film theatre on campus; it's a charity that I'm happy, and honestly a little surprised, to say is still going - Kenneth Branagh is its president, and Peter Strickland (a former volunteer) its patron. At the time, Tuesdays were 'blockbuster' nights (more Tarantino than Michael Bay), Wednesdays foreign language, and Thursdays British or American indies (or indie-like) - because Tuesdays seemed to keep the whole enterprise afloat, I'm kinda amazed it's proved sustainable.

If you were a cashier, you would see that film for free and once you completed x number of shifts, you would get free entry for all films for the rest of the academic year - so if you did all your allocated shifts before Christmas, you could see around 50 films for free in the spring and summer terms. If you were a shift leader (responsible for counting and securing that night's takings), you got a little cash bonus and first dibs on the poster. Good times.

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Thanks for sharing this experience, Keith. My first job was working in a theatre. I suppose you would have considered me a member of the regular cast. It was the perfect job for teenage me—baked in excuses to stay out late, midnight pre-opening screeners and all the Dr. Pepper I could drink.

Aside from a lost taste for popcorn (after two weeks of all-I-could eat ”courtesy cups” of the stuff, I got sick of it and have never really found my taste for it again), I loved and am very nostalgic for every part of the theatre experience. I still have friends from that time, including the best man from my wedding. You nailed the offbeat family culture. It was truly a melting pot of stock high school and college kids—theater kids, nerds, jocks, goth—all forced together, and it worked.

While we, of course, watched every blockbuster, the fact that we sometimes just had to watch whatever was opening the next day led to some fantastic unexpected experiences like sitting down to view Event Horizon with absolutely no idea what I was in for. One screening night, I watched a double feature of THREE KINGS and AMERICAN BEAUTY. My head was spinning at the end and I was drunk on cinematic wonder (yeah, I know AB hits different now in many ways, but TK is still fantastic). I worked through the seemingly endless TITANIC run, the likes of which is now pretty much impossible with the shortened window between theatres and streaming. Our ragtag group of ticket tearers and popcorn sweepers bonded over these films, arguing about the merits and failures. I loved it.

There are so many more memories. Thanks for the excuse to revisit them.

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