The final downstairs movie that isn't to be

We're moving out of the office I've called home for the past six years. (But didn't attend very much in 2020 and 2021.)

Tomorrow is my final day there.

For the purposes of this blog, the significance of my office move is that my current, soon-to-be-former office is about six floors above Cinema Kino, the movie theater where I've seen probably 50 to 75 movies over the years I've lived in Australia.

It's not the most convenient theater to either my old house in North Melbourne or my new house in Altona, but it's been the most convenient theater to my office, so that has meant a large number of viewings over time. (Plus, it's one of the MIFF theaters so it's been host to probably a dozen MIFF viewings.)

After tomorrow, it won't be convenient to anywhere. 

I'm being just a bit dramatic here. My new office is not actually that far away, only a 15-minute walk from my old office, ten if you catch the traffic lights right. So I'll probably still go to Cinema Kino.

What I won't ever do again is clock off of work and be in my seat downstairs less than five minutes later.

Although I didn't do it as often as I would have liked, I loved those occasions where I wrapped things up as quickly as I could in order to arrive in time for the start of a 4:20 movie. It felt like some kind of life hack, like I was getting away with something. (And I guess I sort of was, as I am technically supposed to be at work until 4:36.)

Now, most people never get an opportunity like that, so if any violins are playing out there for me, they are probably the world's smallest. 

But since I did get to taste it, I loved how it tasted.

I'd hoped to taste it just one more time, as a ceremonial ending to my final day in the office, but unfortunately, the movies in question just don't work out for me, or don't have convenient start times if they do. Let's look at my options:

Bad Boys: Ride or Die - I haven't seen it, and don't really plan to -- I kind of feel like I'm still punishing Will Smith, and in any case, I gave up on this series after the second one. I'd probably stretch and take the plunge, but it's showing at 3:50 and 6:20. The first is too early, especially on a day when my coworkers are also in the office, and the second defeats the purpose of a convenient downstairs viewing if I have to wait two hours for it to start.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - Seen it already, and it has basically the same start times as Bad Boys anyway.

The Watchers - Seen it already, and the start time is even five minutes earlier at 3:45.

The Way, My Way - I don't really know what this is but the screenings are at 1:20 and 6 p.m.

The Fall Guy - Seen it already, start time not convenient anyway.

The Three Musketeers: Milady - I don't really know what's going on with these two French Three Musketeers movies but I don't care about the Three Musketeers and never have. But the 3:30 start time does not even make it a consideration.

Challengers - Saw this ages ago and it only plays at 1 p.m. anyway.

The Taste of Things - More French movies. Not really keen on this one anyway, but its start times are 2:50 or 5:50.

High & Low: John Galliano - The poster for this documentary makes it look interesting, but again, it's at 3:30 and 6:10.

The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan - Yes you can watch both Musketeers movies, but this one only at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Wicked Little Letters - 10:30 a.m. only.

Perfect Days - 1:10 p.m., 8:15 p.m.

Radical - 10:30 a.m.

Thirteen movies and not a single one starting between 4 and 5 p.m. Maybe I am getting out of here just in time.

I even considered coming into the office on Friday, which is usually a work from home day but is probably the final day my building pass will work. It also has the benefit of following Thursday, which is the day new movies are released.

And Inside Out 2, the only new movie opening that day, is indeed playing at 4:20 p.m. 

In a way, it would be a perfectly symbolic means of dealing with the emotions -- manufactured a little though they may be -- of moving out of a building you have worked in for six years.

But you know there's a but coming, and it's this: Inside Out 2 makes for the rare movie that all four members of my family might actually watch together, and we'll likely go see it together next weekend.

Yes, you read that right. My 13-year-old son, only two months from turning 14, said he wants to see it. We saw an ad for it come on during the NBA Finals, and I joke-asked him if he wanted to see it. He serious-answered me that he did. You don't have to tell me twice.

So it looks like the downstairs work movie will become a thing of the past without a formal send-off. 

But again, it's not like I'll never come to Cinema Kino again. If I hoof it, I can probably even get there from my new office for a 4:45 movie, if they see it fit to program one.

More than anything, though, I think it is just symbolic of a change I am not dealing with well in other ways, which are also pretty minor but nonetheless still relevant for me. For one, it takes longer to get to my new office, with a longer walk from the train station -- longer by five to seven minutes. Secondly, it doesn't have the same convenience to eating establishments. In my current building, the cinema is ringed by about a dozen different options in an upscale food court, about half of which I frequent.

And I'm a guy who doesn't really like change, in any case. I'll miss silly things like the familiar concierge desk and elevators, and the grandiose complex itself, with its twin skyscrapers flanking the food court, the cinema, a hotel, and a number of high-end clothing stores. The new office does not have any of these charming attributes.

But we do get those fancy curved monitors, so I guess that's something. 

Movie milk

I was walking back to my office from getting my bagel on Wednesday -- the bagel place that had been closed for a year! -- and I noticed this excessively large quantity of milk outside the movie theater downstairs from my office.

And I thought:

"What the hell does a movie theater need with that much milk?"

Now, this is a fancy movie theater and they do make coffee. But as far as I know, they do not offer milkshakes, bowls of cereal, chowder made on site, macaroni and cheese, any of the other things you can imagine requiring an excessive quantity of milk, or even milk by the glass.

Even if you do suppose they are getting in this much milk just to steam it for lattes, it begs the questions:

1) How many people are taking a coffee into the movie theater? If there's one time when you want not to let your bowels take command of you, it's entering into a darkened theater for two hours, one that you can't afford to leave without losing at least five minutes of plot.

2) Even if they do make a lot of coffees at this theater, wouldn't it be better to get a dozen or so bottles and then order a dozen more, rather than getting 30 and risk dumping half of them because you don't use them by the expiration date?

However, I'm going to give the good people who run Cinema Kino the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not stupid. They wouldn't make this sort of order if their usage patterns didn't justify it. Especially nowadays, you can't expect to be profligate and still succeed in the movie theater business.

I guess it just surprises me that this is, indeed, the sort of order they would require on a regular basis.

Maybe they need so much because whoever is delivering it is just leaving it outside the front door, hours before they open, so passersby are only too happy to help themselves to a crate or two.

Gun jumping

I go into the office on Wednesday every week, Thursday most weeks. Because Cinema Kino is downstairs from my office, I always take a gander at the marquee on Wednesdays, as another way of keeping up on release dates when some of the methods I once used have fallen by the wayside.

The thing about Wednesdays, though, is that it's the day before new movies get released, meaning everything I see on there should be at least six days old.

It's a bit confounding, then, that the marquee changers are already showing tomorrow's new offerings. 

And I'm not talking about late at night when they are legitimately preparing for tomorrow. I'm talking about first thing Wednesday morning. 

This week the phenomenon became egregious enough for me to write about it.

On the marquee you see above, there are no less than three titles that aren't actually coming out until tomorrow (or today, by the time I post this). 

I thought it was four, but then I checked and Saltburn is already playing.

The Old Oak, Uproar and Bottoms are not.

I just think it must be frustrating if you are a potential drive by customer on a Wednesday and you say "Oh, I've heard great things about Bottoms! Think I'll go grab myself a spontaneous viewing."

Only to find out that you are 24 hours early.

I get trying to hype the new product. But isn't this false advertising? Is it too much to ask that the movies that appear on your marquee are actually playing?

To say nothing of the disservice it does to currently playing movies whose heat has cooled enough for them to get dropped from the marquee. I guess Kino is discouraged enough about the viewership of Cat Person that they don't care much about trying to get one last drive by viewing.