No Popcorn Necessary

I much prefer to watch a movie in a theatre than at home.  A lot of people complain about the crowds and people with big hair sitting in front of them which I totally understand but I like the experience of watching a story unfold on a big screen with a reacting audience.  The best theatres are the renovated historic ones that have a ton of character, don't you think??  Blacksburg has The Lyric and Roanoke has The Grandin, where I was last night.  My favorite historic theatre, though, is in Milwaukee ~ The Oriental.

I went years ago when I was visiting my college roommate in her new hometown and we walked downtown to see Murderball.  The Oriental has a grand entrance with ceilings about two stories tall.  It is decked out and full of glamour.  The best part was sitting inside waiting for the previews to start because a very loud and impressive pipe organ started to play.  I was thinking to myself, "Where the hell is this organ?  I feel like I'm at church" and then it slowly rose up from the floor.  This giant organ with a nerdy white guy playing it rose up from nowhere and took centerstage.  It was a total surprise and pretty awesome, I must say.

My first-ever job was working concessions at a now defunct movie theatre called the UA Cinema 150.  Now, it's an Equinox gym.  I was never a fan of popcorn but after working concessions I learned to hate it for several reasons:

1. I came home smelling like wet, stale popcorn every night I worked and that stank was gross to me
2. The popcorn machine isn't cleaned very often or very well
3. There were ants swarming in the popcorn bin one night and my manager expected us to keep serving it until I had a shit fit right there and then in front of him and the customers.  I got the job of cleaning it out as punishment.  He later got fired for stealing money from the place.  Shocker.

So, to summarize: historic theatres = yay! and popcorn = no thank you