Adventures in Projectioneering (Part 2): Eyes Wide Shut

Herein are two short stories related to Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut. Both of them took place during my time at Carmike, which technically makes them true.

1. I was very excited to see Eyes Wide Shut when it came out, so much so that on the day it opened, I went to the first showing (I had to work later that day), paid full price - as the front desk lady didn't believe I worked there - and sat down with my bucket of popcorn and a drink. I then realized there was something very wrong with my presence in this auditorium.

The first thing I noticed was that the movie was sparsely attended. No big deal, I thought; it's early on a Friday and most cinephiles will wait until the 8 o'clock show at least to see the Last Kubrick Film. What few people there were seemed mostly to be men in their mid-forties, sitting alone and spaced apart from each other. For a second I thought "well, this makes sense. They probably saw A Clockwork Orange and The Shining in theatres as teens and they've been looking forward to seeing a Kubrick film on the big screen again." Then I noticed I was the only person with popcorn. I was the only person with a drink. I was the only person who didn't walk into the auditorium sheepishly. And then it dawned to me:

Holy Crap. I just crashed a "Raincoat Crowd*" viewing of Eyes Wide Shut.

The Cap'n suddenly felt very awkward. While I realize the film's reputation was one of being sexually, shall we say, permissive, it never occurred to me that skeezy pervert guys would come to a multiplex in Morrisville in the middle of the day to flog the bishop to a Stanley Kubrick film. It never even crossed my mind, which was why I was suddenly so surprised and felt awfully uncomfortable. I was there for the movie. They were there to, well, stay for a little while.

It didn't stop me from watching the movie in a self-imposed ignorance, focusing only on the film, but I do hope it at least gave them pause and I can't recall anyone leaving the movie early. Maybe my purely innocent presence led them to "keep it in."

2. The second story is much shorter and involves one of the ushers taking a used KFC bucket (like the ones in the commercial) and filling it with Sprite to serve as his own giant drink cup. Considering that it had only recently been holding fried chicken, I'm guessing you can see where this is going.

As I was downstairs, hanging out with the ushers, we decided to go see how the much larger crowd was reacting to Eyes Wide Shut, and from the side entrance we could hear them but they couldn't see us. So there we were, four ushers, a projectionist, and one chicken bucket very full of Sprite, listening in, when suddenly we hear

SPLAT!

which, as it turns out, is exactly what it sounds like when the greasy bottom of a chicken bucket gives out, dumping Sprite all over the pants of the genius who decided this was a good idea for drinking out of. He freaked out, and we had to scurry out of the auditorium before his shrieks were loud enough the audience of Eyes Wide Shut were distracted.

If there were other stories involving Stanley Kubrick's last film from an employee standpoint, I surely cannot remember them. Those two, however, share a special place in my Projectioneering memories.

* To their credit, I don't think any one of them were actually wearing raincoats, but at least half of them had long coats on, and this is in the summer, gang.