Going To The Movies

I worked at ArcLight Cinemas, a high-end movie theater here in L.A., for 2 1/2 years - from November 2005 till this past May. Which is a long time to hold that kind of job ("That's like ten years in a regular job...", I've joked).

One of the "perks" of working at a movie theater is that you get to see movies for free. And it's a perk I took great advantage of over my time there.

Those free movies, in part, were what kept me at ArcLight longer than I really wanted to be (That, and the whole thing about needing to pay for food and rent and what-have-you).

But when it comes down to it, you don't want your main form of out-of-the-house entertainment to be the same place where you work. I was fine with it for awhile, but sure enough, towards the end I was starting to feel "stuck" - I didn't want to go somewhere and pay for a movie (Heaven forbid!), but at the same time, the more unhappy I became about working at ArcLight, the more I didn't want to spend all my off-hours there.

Besides that, ArcLight Hollywood (Now there's an ArcLight Sherman Oaks as well) didn't get all the movies that were out at any given time, because of competition with nearby Graumans and El Capitan. Not to mention there were just movies that were not going to play at ArcLight (smaller, independent films, for example).

So ironically, I was working at a movie theater and seeing a lot of movies for free, but sometimes "missing out" on movies I wanted to see, and movies that, as an actor, I should have been seeing (I saw, maybe, ten movies outside of ArcLight during the time I worked there. I had to be very motivated to venture outside the "free movie zone" that had been established).

Now that I'm done with ArcLight, and I'm back to seeing movies on my own, I'm realizing just how much I've missed "going to the movies". I've missed having it be, for want of a better term, an event.

It's been a pleasure to go to whatever movie I want to see, when I want to see it (We could only see movies at ArcLight from Sunday night through Friday matinee, and not on holidays). And I've enjoyed "renewing my acquaintance" with venues like the Vista, the Sunset 5, the Laemmle Grand, and so on (With a theater like the Vista, I feel happy just being there, if that makes sense).

(The last movie I saw was Kabluey at the Regent on LaBrea, a theater I'd never been to; it was a fun movie, and a cool venue that I would never have discovered during "The ArcLight Era".)

And maybe more than anything, it's been nice to re-connect with the excitement and good feeling going to the movies gives me most times. Because that "excitement" is part of what made me want to be an actor in the first place.