It's difficult to explain the horrors of the past week without resorting to laughing at it all.
In short, last week I was at a Regional Meeting for all the General Managers in London where we were all told that we had to do three times the work we were already doing with 5% less resources. One of my colleagues summed things up perfectly when she said 'Well that meeting was shit wasn't it?'
Needless to say we stumbled into the nearest bar and drank ourselves into a new state of happiness. I don't think any of us realised our boss had joined us until it was too late. So we got him drunk too after I and pretty much everyone else told him how shit we thought the meeting was. He stumbled out a few hours later happier I think.
I should point out that I am not advocating alcohol as the solution to your problems. All it does is make you feel temporarily aware enough to realise that in the grand scheme of things, the day job doesn't really matter. We should use it as a means to an end.
A fact I was reminded of on Tuesday this week when I discovered my girlfriend's next door neighbours had been a bit naughty in the early hours of the morning and had 'accidentaly' started a gang fight complete with guns. The retarded hoodies who were cauing all the trouble managed to run away when 30-40 police officers surrounded the area. They had thoughtfully left a handgun behind as evidence.
My girlfriend and her flatmates were all okay, but needless to say were all a bit shell shocked and have now with the help of their landlord written to the council to get the chavs causing the trouble evicted as soon as possible.
So when I think about it, we are all really lucky people most of the time and all of us should look around at all the people we care about and remind ourselves that all the little things that piss us off are just that...little. So the next time you feel like whinging about how much your job is pissing you off, just remember - it could be worse. Also, get off your arse and find a new one if it pisses you off that much.
Failing that, go and buy yourself a bottle of wine or some beer, find your friends and enjoy making yourself happily unaware of the annoying little things for a few hours.
Right. Time to dust off the CV before retiring to the pub then!
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Live Free Or Twi-hard!
The Jewish Film Festival ends, only to be replaced by a phenomenon more arduous and terrifying than that of any story about pizza in Auschwitz. Yesterday evening to the delight of millions of girls and the horror of millions of boys in the country, the second part of the Twilight saga hit cinemas.
It's been less than a year since the first film hit cinemas across the world, but fan fever has infected I'd say about 1 woman in 3. To be honest, I barely paid the film any attention last year. It seemed like another mash up of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and an Ann Rice novel, but without any of the wit or talent of those two writers (although I'm not a big fan of Lestat and co. I have to admit that the book was pretty good). Turns out I'd totally underestimated the power of the 'girl falls in love with boy who turns out to be a vampire tale'. Twilight was going to be huge.
The sheer focus of some of the 'Twihards' I've met is scary. It's like millions of girls and women have suddenly become Star Trek fans, except you replace the pointy ears with pointy teeth.
Like every cinema, my cinema is also playing 'New Moon' which is the new Twilight film's proper title. Apparently this one has vampires AND werewolves in it. Is there going to be an awesome monster mash up? Sort of. There is fighting, but there's also lots of teen angst and beautifully furtive looks from pretty boys and girls who look like they've had Vidal Sasoon prepare their hair every time they step outside. Not really my cup of tea.
For months I'd been criticising the film much to the dismay of a lot of the girls I know who are obsessed with Robert Pattinson's hair (he's the guy who plays the lead vampire that the girl falls 'irrevocably in love with' - keep up!). They told me I should actually watch the film before slagging it off.
Fair point.
About a month ago I picked up a bargain basement DVD of Twilight for a few quid in HMV. I watched it. I am now trying to sell the DVD on ebay.
I'm not going to pick the film to pieces, because there's no need to. It does it all by itself. Watch it and you'll see what I mean. I was quite impressed with Bella's (she's the girl who falls in love with Robert Pattinson who's the vampire, remember?) facial expression. She didn't change it once for the entire film. It was like watching someone who's thinking that they may or may not be constipated. You don't need to see the film to check this expression out - just take a look at the millions of posters for New Moon around at the moment. This expression apparently was supposed to make me believe that she was hopelessly in love with Edward (Robert Pattinson - guy who's a vampire) despite the fact that he initially seems to think she's farted when they first meet.
The film is very silly.
But that's not to mean that I can't admit that maybe I'm missing something to truly appreciate the film. A vagina perhaps.
Anyways, I'm happy that the film is going to take a lot of money at the Box Office. Anything that puts bums on seats at the moment is fine by me. I may never understand the appeal of the film, but that's not to say that I don't appreciate it's commercial value. Besides as Kevin Smith rightly pointed out this year at the Comic Con convention, we shouldn't spend all our time slagging off Twilight as nonsense or taking the piss out of it's fans, because at the end of the day it has made fantasy more accessible to an audience that traditionally avoids fantasy and science fiction like a plague.
So New Moon may not be the best acted, best plotted or even a million miles close to a decent fantasy film, but maybe just maybe, it will bring a new audience into a genre that is always treated with sarcasm and disrespect by mainstream thinking.
I'm still not going to watch it though.
It's been less than a year since the first film hit cinemas across the world, but fan fever has infected I'd say about 1 woman in 3. To be honest, I barely paid the film any attention last year. It seemed like another mash up of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and an Ann Rice novel, but without any of the wit or talent of those two writers (although I'm not a big fan of Lestat and co. I have to admit that the book was pretty good). Turns out I'd totally underestimated the power of the 'girl falls in love with boy who turns out to be a vampire tale'. Twilight was going to be huge.
The sheer focus of some of the 'Twihards' I've met is scary. It's like millions of girls and women have suddenly become Star Trek fans, except you replace the pointy ears with pointy teeth.
Like every cinema, my cinema is also playing 'New Moon' which is the new Twilight film's proper title. Apparently this one has vampires AND werewolves in it. Is there going to be an awesome monster mash up? Sort of. There is fighting, but there's also lots of teen angst and beautifully furtive looks from pretty boys and girls who look like they've had Vidal Sasoon prepare their hair every time they step outside. Not really my cup of tea.
For months I'd been criticising the film much to the dismay of a lot of the girls I know who are obsessed with Robert Pattinson's hair (he's the guy who plays the lead vampire that the girl falls 'irrevocably in love with' - keep up!). They told me I should actually watch the film before slagging it off.
Fair point.
About a month ago I picked up a bargain basement DVD of Twilight for a few quid in HMV. I watched it. I am now trying to sell the DVD on ebay.
I'm not going to pick the film to pieces, because there's no need to. It does it all by itself. Watch it and you'll see what I mean. I was quite impressed with Bella's (she's the girl who falls in love with Robert Pattinson who's the vampire, remember?) facial expression. She didn't change it once for the entire film. It was like watching someone who's thinking that they may or may not be constipated. You don't need to see the film to check this expression out - just take a look at the millions of posters for New Moon around at the moment. This expression apparently was supposed to make me believe that she was hopelessly in love with Edward (Robert Pattinson - guy who's a vampire) despite the fact that he initially seems to think she's farted when they first meet.
The film is very silly.
But that's not to mean that I can't admit that maybe I'm missing something to truly appreciate the film. A vagina perhaps.
Anyways, I'm happy that the film is going to take a lot of money at the Box Office. Anything that puts bums on seats at the moment is fine by me. I may never understand the appeal of the film, but that's not to say that I don't appreciate it's commercial value. Besides as Kevin Smith rightly pointed out this year at the Comic Con convention, we shouldn't spend all our time slagging off Twilight as nonsense or taking the piss out of it's fans, because at the end of the day it has made fantasy more accessible to an audience that traditionally avoids fantasy and science fiction like a plague.
So New Moon may not be the best acted, best plotted or even a million miles close to a decent fantasy film, but maybe just maybe, it will bring a new audience into a genre that is always treated with sarcasm and disrespect by mainstream thinking.
I'm still not going to watch it though.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Pizza In Auschwitz
An old guy takes his two grandchildren to visit Auschwitz to bring home the horrors of the holocaust to them. They end up ordering pizza and spending the night in the former death camp. Black comedy or just totally disturbing?
This is actually the title and synopsis of one of the films playing at the festival. I felt sorry for the grandfather in the film because the children couldn't give a rat's arse about where they were or what he was trying to do. They knew about the holocaust because they had been taught about it from a young age, but they kept asking their grandfather if they could go home because it was cold and they could see little point visiting something that held a lot more meaning for him, then for them. There is a very big divide in the generational gap and some of the older generation seem to have trouble letting this go and allowing their children to move on.
I think I must have done something to annoy the festival organisers as they haven't shown up at the cinema since last Wednesday. Not that I'm complaining - things run a lot more smoothly without them running about like headless chickens trying to wind up anyone within range. Ho hum!
My Tech Manager commented to me the other day that he was having trouble understanding how the organisers could be so rude. I shrugged and told him not to let it bother him. Just do our jobs, smile and take the money. Simply put, we don't get paid enough to deal with the kind of insulting behaviour the organisers think is normal. So the best thing we can do is ignore them when they behave like spoilt children, and just get on with out work.
The chairman of the festival thoroughly upset one of my cinema manager's with his arrogant and rude behaviour last week. My manager already wasn't feeling well when he tried to bully her and she has been off sick since last Tuesday. I said the same thing to her that I said to my Tech Manager - they're not worth worrying about.
On a positive note, we have only had one technical glitch and it was due to a faulty disc that was provided by the festival. Everything else has run smoothly. I know this year has been better than last year - the producer hasn't been calling me every five minutes. Woo hoo!
This is actually the title and synopsis of one of the films playing at the festival. I felt sorry for the grandfather in the film because the children couldn't give a rat's arse about where they were or what he was trying to do. They knew about the holocaust because they had been taught about it from a young age, but they kept asking their grandfather if they could go home because it was cold and they could see little point visiting something that held a lot more meaning for him, then for them. There is a very big divide in the generational gap and some of the older generation seem to have trouble letting this go and allowing their children to move on.
I think I must have done something to annoy the festival organisers as they haven't shown up at the cinema since last Wednesday. Not that I'm complaining - things run a lot more smoothly without them running about like headless chickens trying to wind up anyone within range. Ho hum!
My Tech Manager commented to me the other day that he was having trouble understanding how the organisers could be so rude. I shrugged and told him not to let it bother him. Just do our jobs, smile and take the money. Simply put, we don't get paid enough to deal with the kind of insulting behaviour the organisers think is normal. So the best thing we can do is ignore them when they behave like spoilt children, and just get on with out work.
The chairman of the festival thoroughly upset one of my cinema manager's with his arrogant and rude behaviour last week. My manager already wasn't feeling well when he tried to bully her and she has been off sick since last Tuesday. I said the same thing to her that I said to my Tech Manager - they're not worth worrying about.
On a positive note, we have only had one technical glitch and it was due to a faulty disc that was provided by the festival. Everything else has run smoothly. I know this year has been better than last year - the producer hasn't been calling me every five minutes. Woo hoo!
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Fiesta!
It's been a long long week. Having just completed ten straight days at the cinema I'm pleased to report that everything's been running smoothly.
Well, almost smoothly.
Last Sunday we had one technical issue with a DVD copy that the festival had supplied. It froze halfway through the film. When something like that happens the first thought that flies through your head is 'Shit!' The second thought that follows is 'Shit Shit!'. After you've gotten over those initial thoughts you suddenly become a coiled spring of action. I've had these thoughts many many times, so I knew exactly how my assistant manager felt when she happened to be on duty when the film froze.
She did all the right things; made an announcement apologising for the technical problem and that they were trying to fix it. A round of applause from the audience later and everything is hunky dory. Everyone's happy! Well everyone except the Chairman of the Festival who decided to throw his weight around.
After he spent ten minutes berating my manager for blaming the festival for the problem, which she didn't, and telling her off for not doing her job, which she was, he got shown up by an extremely pleasant woman from the BBC who happened to be in the audience. The nice lady from the BBC had offered some assistance to the projection team and together they concluded that there was indeed a problem with the disc and that it was no one's fault as even during rehearsal the scratch wasn't noticed and there had been no problems. It was bad luck and a duff copy which the Chairmen couldn't seem to live with.
The next day he came and demanded to speak to me and explained things from his point of view. I being the dutiful manager let him rant on and chain smoke himself out before responding that it wasn't our intent to blame the festival and from what I'd been told that hadn't happened. He muttered and grumbled and eventually buggered off saying it was a disgrace and we should be ashamed. A very rude and arrogant man.
It didn't end there though.
The next day he was in again to watch a film and made a point of coming up to me to say 'now, no fucks up tonight right? I'm sponsoring this film.' I think he was joking, but after everything that had happened and after he'd thoroughly upset my manager, I wasn't amused.
All in all, the customers have been fine. Some of the festival organisers on the other hand are among the most close minded, self-obsessed, arrogant and rude people I have ever dealt with in my life. I truly hope karma does it's job and comes round to give them a taste of their own medicine as you cannot treat people with contempt and expect them to smile at you.
Well, almost smoothly.
Last Sunday we had one technical issue with a DVD copy that the festival had supplied. It froze halfway through the film. When something like that happens the first thought that flies through your head is 'Shit!' The second thought that follows is 'Shit Shit!'. After you've gotten over those initial thoughts you suddenly become a coiled spring of action. I've had these thoughts many many times, so I knew exactly how my assistant manager felt when she happened to be on duty when the film froze.
She did all the right things; made an announcement apologising for the technical problem and that they were trying to fix it. A round of applause from the audience later and everything is hunky dory. Everyone's happy! Well everyone except the Chairman of the Festival who decided to throw his weight around.
After he spent ten minutes berating my manager for blaming the festival for the problem, which she didn't, and telling her off for not doing her job, which she was, he got shown up by an extremely pleasant woman from the BBC who happened to be in the audience. The nice lady from the BBC had offered some assistance to the projection team and together they concluded that there was indeed a problem with the disc and that it was no one's fault as even during rehearsal the scratch wasn't noticed and there had been no problems. It was bad luck and a duff copy which the Chairmen couldn't seem to live with.
The next day he came and demanded to speak to me and explained things from his point of view. I being the dutiful manager let him rant on and chain smoke himself out before responding that it wasn't our intent to blame the festival and from what I'd been told that hadn't happened. He muttered and grumbled and eventually buggered off saying it was a disgrace and we should be ashamed. A very rude and arrogant man.
It didn't end there though.
The next day he was in again to watch a film and made a point of coming up to me to say 'now, no fucks up tonight right? I'm sponsoring this film.' I think he was joking, but after everything that had happened and after he'd thoroughly upset my manager, I wasn't amused.
All in all, the customers have been fine. Some of the festival organisers on the other hand are among the most close minded, self-obsessed, arrogant and rude people I have ever dealt with in my life. I truly hope karma does it's job and comes round to give them a taste of their own medicine as you cannot treat people with contempt and expect them to smile at you.
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