Jody Wenner Writes

  FIRINGS--How to get let go from a crappy job in strange and wacky ways. There were four firings that I can recall during my two years behind the popcorn counter. One of them I was responsible for…well, sort of. I’ll explain that one in a minute. The first one was the most interesting, so I’ll start there. That one happened in a very strange way. One night, one of the long-term employees was working the ticket booth, as was often the case. We will call him Dude for the purposes of this story. There were a handful of people working at the theater who were absolute movie heads. They knew every film, every actor, directors, the whole deal. A few of them wanted to be screenwriters, and a couple of them were working as PAs (production assistants) in the local film industry because they aspired to make movies. Needless to say, they loved gabbing about all things movie. Dude was one of those people. So, that night, a woman came in and asked Dude if he recommended that she see X film....

  Celebrity Sightings You wouldn’t think a little movie theater in Minneapolis tucked away near the Mississippi River would bring in any big-name Hollywood actors, but it did. In my time working behind the popcorn counter, I encountered a few different celebrities. The most fascinating encounter happened so fast, I didn’t even realize it was happening until well after it was over, which was probably for the best. Not that I would have said anything. That’s just weird. Anyway, I was ripping tickets one night. There was a snowstorm outside the big glass windows, so the place was a ghost town. It was late, the very last showing of the evening, and the very last person to walk to my podium and hand me a ticket was none other than the star of Fargo. Except he wasn’t the star of Fargo yet because the movie hadn’t been released…because it was in the midst of being filmed. Then. And there. Or at least somewhere nearby. It was obviously his night off from filming, so he decided to see one i...

  What Would You Do for $4.25/hour? Background/Job Description In the early 1990s I was a freshman in college, and I got a job working at a small movie theater in Minneapolis. Bonus: it was only a few miles from campus, so walking distance…and not even uphill. It was in a very cool historic area of the city that was considered the birthplace of Minneapolis, established along the banks of the Mississippi River in the 1860s. The original cobblestone still existed in places and the street the theater resided on was actually called Main Street. Old photos exist of a time when people rode horses and carriages down the cobblestone road. In fact, next door a saloon was the first establishment there. Inside the theater, in a back hallway you can still see the original exterior brick from the saloon with a painted advertisement of a burlesque dancer. The saloon is still there, though now it’s just a regular old bar and restaurant. The theater, while housed in this historic building, was par...