Death at a Funeral

You probably need to have experienced Phoenix in August to appreciate this story, but if you haven't, just imagine the hottest you've ever been, and then double it.

Yesterday I went to see Death at a Funeral (again, yes, it's that funny) with Jamaal, Will, and Chris D, and we were all arriving at different times. It was playing at the indie release theater, which was built in the 70s, when apparently, it didn't get hot in Phoenix in the summer.

There is no room inside for waiting for tickets, because once they have your money, they need the space to extort more for drinks and food, so there is room for that line. Outside there are 2 or 3 spaceship-like shelters spouting misters that hit about 6 feet above your head. (For the uninitiated, misters cool the surrounding air by about 15-20 degrees if they work properly and are not hung 2000 feet in the air.) There are only 2 ticket windows - remember, indie theater. It was at least 110 degrees if not hotter, humid, and there was a line around the side of the building (building made of brick, path made of concrete, surrounded by another brick wall) of about 150 people. I called the crew immediately and said, no way we're getting in, and no way I'm waiting in that line for a movie I've already seen... then I remembered the ATM ticket machine.

There is ONE ATM ticket machine under the shelters, it looks like a little robot, and because we were in Scottsdale, older crowd, not many people had figured out this option, or they would not be standing in the sun on concrete for a British movie. I'm assuming. So I get in the very short line to buy tickets from the machine. The ticket machine printed a BANNER of tickets for each one, about 15 feet of paper for 4 tickets and a receipt. Cardboard, resistant to folding. The theater helper person was pulling them out to make it go faster AND RIPPING them.

She says to me, just hand them the whole pile, they will know these are your tickets. !!! The ticket taker will know that tickets are tickets! That is comforting, but not helpful when you are going with 3 other people who have not yet arrived. The woman in front of me finished her cell phone call before she decided to move away from the machine, even though she had her tickets, courtesy of the ripping agent. So you get the general dysfunctional picture.

So I mention that staggering the movie times might help, considering the weather and their ancient technology and 2-ticket-agent window situation. The theater agent told me the movies were staggered 20 minutes - did I mention she was wearing pants and a long sleeved jacket? Yup. Not a lot of thinking going on in general here. 20 minutes is not enough, obviously. Theater been open since the 70s. Must take a while to get these kind of stats.

So I get my 70 feet of unfoldable cardboard tickets and rip them into 4 separate smaller strands, just in time for said crew to appear and get fairly decent seats inside, probably because at least 1/3 of the crowd was still in line getting tickets and/or drinks. So really, all's well that ends fairly well.

By now you're saying, just buy tickets online. Which I do 90% of the time, but they charge an extra dollar (they should charge an extra dollar for the people having to work in person at the window, but that is for another blog), and you still have to wait for one of the ticket window people to turn around and acknowledge your existence to get your ticket.

I'm not going to name the theater, b/c if you've been, you know it, but I am sending them this blog.

By the way, the movie is hysterical and is worth about 1/2 of this pain, but not all. It is only playing at the indie theater, so go at night or wait a couple of weeks.