It’s 3am in the morning and I have spent the last five hours closing the concessions on the cinema. The only thing that stopped me waving goodbye altogether to this miserable job is that tomorrow (or today) is a bank holiday.  I’m not sure whether this is the second job I imagined, and it’s certainly not doing my sleeping pattern any good.  I spent the final two hours with one jabberer and his BO, and another miserable egotist who just moaned about the illegality of it all.  By 2am, having done all the checks my brain could handle I had still missed the checks the others should have done on Pick ‘N Mix and the bar.  Spending the evening training new staff whilst serving overly long queues is not healthy.  The management knew two multifunctionals were going to be off sick but they left us understaffed without a manager on the floor (he was forced to stay in the cash office rather than assist us.

I briefly stop my blog as some arsehole taxi is honking his horn outside!  At this hour!

It is at this hour as I reach for the vodka I contemplate the loneliness of this secondary vocation. Where once my life was fulfilled I now come back to my home in the middle of the night after being on my feet for 9 hours (with a 15 mins break) thinking only of enduring in this mind-numbing job to hold on to my home.  It can take an hour to wind down after such adrenalin-inducing heights from churning out so much coca-cola and sweet popcorn at exorbitant prices.  What to do in such time than contemplate one’s own life.

I don’t know how many customers I served tonight but Indiana Jones has definitely saved the cinema’s bacon.  And the rain helped too.  If only there were another tin of jalapenos in the stock cupboard…

It’s not a vintage year (Check Semi-Pro) to be opening a state of the art cinema in a small town with an existing rival cinema. Unfortunately this one missed the sleeper hit Juno and the mammoth hit No Country for Old Men. There are no sure fire sequels, no new certain barn stormers every one will be talking about. It’s an in-betweenie year with 2007 stacking up the hits and, hopefully, 2009 will explain why 2008 is such a miss. Despite how poor Shrek 3 and Pirates 3 were, how worn Spidey 3 was, they were bankers. There are films such as The Mummy 3 can shine. The year’s profits rely on Indiana Jones with an ageing star. It needs to be to the standard of the first Indiana Jones and not the dross that followed it, to save the year. Kids win the most with sequels to Madagascar and a new Pixar flick with Wally. I had concerns that a Kung Fu fighting panda might typify the year but if it keeps the kids quiet…and looks choc full of references for the adults. The year ends on a high with both James Bond and Harry Potter (now there’s an interesting combination in one film) – but the year is over by then, and they are not confirmed yet. where are the profits going to come from to pay for the new cinemas? Apart from popcorn we are not sure.

2008:

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• 10,000 BC (already failed)
• Dark Knight
• Mamma Mia
• Narnia 2
• Wally
• Madagascar
• Mummy 3
• James Bond
• Harry Potter

So will 2009 explain why 2008 is so quiet? There are a lot of sequels and stuff which begs the question why?

• Terminator 4
• X-Men
• Night of Museum 2
• Transformers 2
• Ice Age 3
• Pirates 4
• Bourne 4

And another “why” is why are there are not more films like Avtar on the horizon?