The consumer shall reign!

Hail CONSUMER!

Aha, at last, a victory for the Voter! The steel beams of corporate society have crumbled in my wake. Persistence has paid off and now my simple indulgence awaits.
Soon my senses will alight from the aroma of freshly popped corn, with each bite, my palate will encrust in a salty blend of butter and crushed corn, my only saviour will be a thirst quenching complimentary post-mix delight. This time no tender shall pass across the counter, no credit card on-line, for I have complimentary tickets and it's Hoyt's who have succumbed to Soliloquy's rebellion.

So after my little rant 'n' rave about no popcorn at 'Black Swan', my wife and I bitched and moaned about how good the movie was, the seats were nice but didn't recline, yet most of all, the sneaky host at La Premiere reneged on the free popcorn. After the film as no-one was there we rang the next day and left a message. After almost a week of playing phone tag my wife actually got onto someone. The first operator said nothing she could do and that we had to write. My wife rejected this and demanded a manager.On hold for a while, I took on the challenge and proceeded with my banter and carefully re-constructed the scene in a real-time like monologue. But the manager 'Wayne' (not his real name but close) totally disregarded my version of logic and expectation and stuck to their policy of "...all complimentary items are self-service..". He failed to acknowledge that we were never communicated that and by the fact that the host actually hand delivered our drinks, then was it not reasonable by precedence, our popcorn too would be hand delivered?

So good old Wayno just listened to me roll around a few analogies such as likening 'McDonalds Drive-Thru' to 'Vue De Monde' comparative service and expectation philosophy etc etc which went nowhere as he didn't even know what Australia's No. 1 restaurant was. So obviously young Wayno, whose barometer for fine dining is limited to a TGI Fridays, came back at me with "..the best I can do is offer you a free La Premiere popcorn". So with a mind to enact some sort of retaliatory vengeance akin to Gary David (or Webb) type of event at the cinema, I calmed myself, said my goodbyes to the sniggering beligerance of the 'Wayno-Wall' and took to the feedback section on Hoyts.com.au to scribe my opinion of a popcornless man.

Here's the result from none other than Wayne himself....
  

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Dear Mr. <Soliloquy Report>,

Thank you for the correspondence regarding your recent visit to Hoyts Victoria Gardens. We appreciate your patronage at Hoyts and welcome your feedback. It is this feedback that allows us to improve on the overall cinema experience.

I am writing in response to your letter regarding your La Premiere experience and the problems you encountered with your visit to La Premiere on Australia Day to view Black Swan.  Please accept my apology on behalf of the team for failing to deliver you and your wife popcorn upon your request.  As stated to you via the phone, the sequence of service in La Premiere does not generally include the delivery of complimentary popcorn or drink due to there being self-service areas.  However after discussing the issues at hand with members of my management team we feel that because you were not made aware of this fact at the time of your visit, it is not unreasonable for you to expect it; especially after a request was made.  Failing to act on this request is therefore unacceptable.

Our staff are required to follow strict procedures in relation to servicing our La Premiere customers.  It is unfortunate that the standard was not reached on your visit. The circumstances you experienced are extremely rare and we have taken measures to ensure that the incident is isolated.  I do however apologise for the inconvenience this caused.

Again, thank you for communicating your feedback.  As a gesture of good will I would like to offer you two La Premiere complimentary passes that you can redeem at any participating Hoyts location. Please forward a mailing address so that I can send these to you. I am confident that your next visit to Hoyts will be an enjoyable one.

Yours sincerely,

 <Wayno 'tail between my legs' Movie Manager>

Thanks Wayne, I appreciate that although you had every opportunity to appease my simple request you have now undertaken the humility to express, and in your own words that behaviours were simply 'unacceptable'.

As Metallica says...."And Justice for All!"

Where's my Popcorn!

Dear Readers,

It's been a while but I have been embarking on a solitude of cinematic research, horticulture and other lame activities all in an effort to subdue the inevitable mindset of other year of self-employment. But I am here again for the opposite of my penultimate update in the life of 'The Soliloquy Report'.

The Arachnid Garden is still at large with Pablo becoming somewhat of a nuisance. He has taken to refraining from his beautiful displays of web architecture to simply hanging loose from the 'Bird of Paradise' fern in the front garden, just dangling from a strand of web. Quite useless it would appear, given it's unlikely he will capture some unsuspecting insect, unless of course the insect is a volunteer in the Insect Fire Brigade (or INF as it's commonly known in the world of larvae inhabitants) and has mistaken the strand for a pole in the insect firehouse, sliding down on the way to an emergency. Unlikely as it seems, for the past few days that's all Pablo has offered me.
To to further add to his delinquency, he foolishly crossed the line and appeared last night right on top of the front door. Silly, silly little Pablo. Even though he is twice the size of his arachnid brethren, he may have the run of the front garden but he has stepped too far on this occasion and should have not have made an attempt to which he will ultimately regret.

So as anyone would do to protect their home against an object that is nearly one billionth its size, I cornered Pablo next to the front sensor light and with swift flick of the wrist holding a loose piece of cardboard, sent him flying into oblivion; or in actual fact the direction of the overly abundant gravel driveway. So is that the end of Pablo? Will I see him again? Will he migrate to another home and spin his webs of wonder or will he mount an rebellious attack? Hmmm...

If he does come to a gravely grave, he can't be to upset, I have effectively made him a celebrity of the arachnid world. Perhaps he will be remembered as somewhat of a show pony who simply went off the rails and ended up eating dirt as you do on a foul, fall from grace. I shed no tears, for Pablo, as he has been gifted a second chance of life. He can slowly amble across that gravel horizon, perhaps onto greener pastures,  a bit Nick Kershaw like, filled with gullible insects to slowly ingest and may even one day have little Pablo's to spread the message of his fame and inhabit the earth with such prowess and efficiency.

On the topic of gravel mind you, our driveway is full of it. About 20 metres by 10 metres of white and grey gravel, encased on one side buy seriously scary and overgrown cactus plants and a brick walled garden bed on the other. From one angle it looks as though you are in the some sort of desert, yet it's a gravel desert with a 3 metre high cactus tree, just loping and scratching at you. Who likes grave anyway? It flies everywhere, it gets in your shoes, you cant walk bare feet on it and if you do it looks like your stepping on hot coals. It chips the paint on your car, it drivels out the driveway so you have to sweep it up constantly otherwise you receive the side-glanced wrath of some overzealous neighbour, who has OCD over the facade of her house and garden. I mean look at where else gravel is used; Garden beds - looks ugly, Roads - major cause of fish-tailing and in turn accidents. What a useless bloody suggestion...hmmm lets smash rocks into little pieces and drive on it?
Gravel has even made its way into film, yet this time as a culinary delight. In 'Life of Brian', "Packet of Gravel?" he asks the Colosseum spectators. I mean really, how oppressed were they? Eating a packet of gravel! How'd they afford entry if all they could afford was a packet of gravel to nibble on? How they invented lasagna is beyond me.

Talking about movies, I have seen two hands full in recent times. While wasting time early in the new year before I had to catch a plane, I saw 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'. Up until then I hadn't seen a full Harry Four-Eyes film yet. But I must say I was particularly impressed with the 'darkness' of the film, especially Ralph Fiennes as the arch nemesis of Harry. He is a real 'nasty' that Ralph; it's no wonder he simply absconded himself from any wrongdoing when he clocked up another 'mile high club' mile with that Qantas flight attendant whose life has since gone to ruin. I hope he gets to disembowel Potter with his wand and get Hermione pregnant while Ron sits and watches whilst being half eaten by a dragon. JK Rowling will need to keep her empire going so if she knocks off 'Voldemort' no-one wants to know about a 'man-wizard', unless he's a fiendish bastard played by Ralph.
So to catch-up I watched all 6 films. I am still not sure what all the fuss is about Emma Watson, she would easily pass down the street without a second look. If I was any of them I would retire with the $30mil I'd made and buy a Zoo.

Next on the film scene was 'The Kings Speech'. I dare you to find a better film in recent years that provides such sheer acting brilliance from the entire cast; perhaps faultless? A great story and sublime efforts by Rush and Firth. Does Rush make a bad film? He must arguably be our greatest ever actor on the world scene?! One of the very few who was actually born in Australia, even if it was Queensland. Some of my fav's are 'Shine', 'Quills' and 'Munich'. Hope he gets the gong over Bale for the Oscar, although haven't seen 'The Fighter' yet.

So another theatrical delight was 'Black Swan', that Aronofsky has a dark sense of reality and loves drawing out the fear from his characters. This film will grow in status over the years. But whilst the film was all engaging, our bellies were moaning, why because the Hoyts girl at La Premiere Victoria Gardens, failed to deliver our complimentary popcorn. First we arrive just as the ads had started, she welcomes us, and we notice the decadent surroundings, fitting given we are paying almost $70. So she asks if we would like anything, "No, just our complimentary drink and popcorn". She asks what soft drink we would like and escorts us to our seats. So we sit down, the chairs are roomy, but they don't recline. Note to self, Gold Class at Village better. So we wait awhile and then these puny plastic cups with a lid and straw are brought to us, it looked like something a Kindergarten would serve a four year old. I ask nicely "Is it Ok if we could get our popcorn soon", yes yes she says and then in a flash disappears.
So after the film starts, we look around and everyone is munching down on their popcorn, amazingly no staff in sight and we are in the front row, so can't be stuffed looking back all the time to see if Hoyts creme of the crop, 'La Premiere' staff are loitering. We look at each other like "Do we go and ask?" "But I don't want to miss the film". Who'd want to leave when I've just seen the gorgeous Natalie Portman undertake a full straddle masturbation exercise. What a scene! It must have been embarrassing to deliver as was Sascha Baron Cohen's delivering oral sex in 'Bruno' during the clairvoyant session. Then again, he wrote it?
Oh well, so we stayed glued to our seats, watching Natalie freak-out over Mila and undertake the Swan Queen in a dazzling performance all the while our mouths remained quenched with the everlasting flavours of Sprite and Coke Zero, whilst our minds were craving that salty, buttery aftertaste of popped corn.

So the movie ends and guess what, the place is a ghost town. No staff in sight, no one to enact our vengeance upon, no poor, zit faced teenager to unleash the wrath of 'dissatisfied customer'. We had 2 hours to prepare our cavalcade of rhetoric and sarcasm, hoping to unleash upon some poor summer holiday adolescent. If successful, such a vehement rage would have no doubt rendered them sleepless for days. Over and over in their mind they would stutter and murmur "If only one more bucket of popcorn had to be dredged from the warm stainless steel popcorn pit". Yet it be of no concern as all their lives were left more bountiful than ever, taking home an easy $12/hour to rip a ticket in half and say "Enjoy the movie". Then like Natalie, they'd go home content with a hard nights work and execute fearless self-pleasure to a wall bound 2D Megan Fox or Twilight icon. Instead if we had found them, no Megan Fox poster would be the ointment to cure their mental ailment after the oral lashings and character degradation we would have spawned. But alas, it was past 11:15pm, Mummy and Daddy had collected them all, whisked them away from the responsible adult world to dote on their Megan Fox adornment, untainted by the anti-customer and will sleep well...until tomorrow that is.