The Reel Life

Physically, all I have to show from my summer job is four burns. Each with its own tint, none of them match my summer tan, and so whenever I choose to wear my summer tank tops, I am most often greeted with a "hey - OMG, what happened to your arm!?"

A summer job is a summer job, right? Money is money, even if second-degree burns are not in the job description. But in art, sacrifices must always be made, whether it's a chopped-off ear or a charred arm. Then again, I worked in a theater that is more aptly described as a multiplex rather than an art house, and with summer, these two terms could not be more polarized by what always accompanies summer: comedies and blockbusters.

Summer 2008 was business as usual as all the major studios fought it out in their attempts to lure the bored masses, all those eager to preoccupy those time slots left vacant with the end of school. And while the studios definitely succeeded in some respects (you might have heard of a little old movie called The Dark Knight) they missed the mark on more than several occasions.

Most alarming for me was the reality that I faced every time I went to go use my one professional perk: the free movie ticket. I am talking about the fact that more often than I would like to admit, I was forced to choose between seeing The Dark Knight for the sixth time or sitting through House Bunny. Yeah, I know, don't knock it until you tried it, but I tried them all. And as a movie lover, this was something I looked forward to; but after seeing movies like Step Brothers, my mind began to melt. Those movies stayed in the Multiplex for over a month, whereas a movie I actually enjoyed, Bottleshock, stayed only one week. But in business, sacrifices must always be made. Possibly, the major studios thought that with global warming, the air conditioning in the movie theaters could supplant the allure of a well-executed plot.

Besides the smell of popping popcorn and the skill of kernel sweeping, working at the movie theaters has shown me a little more about the American audience and its standards. Besides the revelation that many theater guests have an inexplicable rage for napkin dispensers and a tendency to spill popcorn only in large quantities, I have come to understand the business of movies on its most practical level, and thus can only sit here in anticipation for next summer's blockbusters.