a machination sensation
Yesterday afternoon I took myself to the 4:55 screening of Assassination Nation, which I found to be highly flawed yet still exhilarating entertainment. I really vacillated between B+ and a solid B, and settled on the former just because of how into it I was in spite of its flaws.
The movie is getting decidedly mixed reviews -- a 52 rating on MetaCritic. Weirdly, neither the Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone reviews are aggregated there, and they usually are; those are the specific publications where I read full movie reviews most often. I sought them out this morning, and they evened out to being mixed as well: Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+ (matching my grade); Rolling Stone gave it two and a half out of five stars, and was far more critical of it.
This is the thing about these reviews, though (I also read the full reviews in The New York Times, which liked it a little more, and Variety, which liked it a little less), is that pretty much all the harsh criticisms are totally fair. When they mention the movie's better aspects, they often cite what I also praised -- particularly the inventive home invasion sequence, which was specifically mentioned in several reviews, including mine.
I thought about mentioning this in my review, but never did -- I had so much to say about that movie, I already exceeded 1000 words as it was. The theatre was relatively empty, maybe five other people in there -- even though the ticket taker actually said, "Everyone is seeing this movie this afternoon!" -- and two of them were these heavy-set, hypermasculine guys who were clearly seeing the movie together but sat with the "bro buffer" empty seat between them. To be fair, I suppose, that buffer may simply have been more comfortable for guys as large as they were -- not quite obese, but still. And it was fascinating to see such guys at a pointedly feminist revenge fantasy film, one of which was very animated in his active cheering once the girls in the movie grabbed the guns and started their own bloodshed.
In any case, it was an interesting experience to observe these guys and see how they challenged my own biases against them without having any idea they were doing so. The guy on the right had some kind of contraption, at first I thought it was a mobile phone with maybe the bulkiest casing I had ever seen. Now I think maybe (?) it was a miniature fan. Whatever it was, before the movie started, he held it in the air above his face, and sort of danced his hands with it up and down as he looked up at it. And I thought to myself, Well he's certainly completely unself-conscious, so I've got to hand it to him there.
I rode my bike home at dusk, the autumn equinox now having come and gone just this past weekend, and had lentil soup with take-and-bake bread for dinner, which was ready to eat when I got home. I then went to write my movie review and took a bit longer than I thought I would, as I had so much to say about it. It was well after 9:00 by the time I was done, and so soon thereafter I was getting ready for bed.
I tried to read my library book in bed, and that lasted about five minutes. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I think my body is just conditioned to fall asleep as soon as I lay down. I recently took four boxes of herbal sleep aides home from work as samples, and when Scott saw that stack on my desk he asked if I had some plan for them for use against my husband. Uh, not exactly. I've had periods in relatively recent past where I've had trouble sleeping, and although it's not happening quite as often currently, I figured it couldn't hurt to have something like that on hand. That said, with four of those boxes (each containing, I don't know, 20 pills?), they're likely to be on hand for a very, very long time. As herbal supplements though I don't think they'll likely expire any time soon. They aren't pharmaceuticals. They probably aren't necessarily even technically effective as anything but placebos, but as I've always said -- placebo or not, whatever works!
Another lunch on the patio today! For most of the time I was out there, I was the only one. One person did bring their lunch outside just as I was finishing up, though, and Justin from IT came out for a minute too. Alicia was still preparing her lunch when I came back inside, so was unable to join me. But! She did say to me, "It's a perfect day for a walk in the park."
I said, "Yes, it is! What time shall we go?" And then we agreed on 3:00. It really is a nice day today, and I don't see why it matters that it's 62° -- I was still comfortable out there even with a slight breeze without a jacket. Still, the vast majority of people at lunch were eating inside. They are all so weak!
Anyway. I was going to wait to see another movie until tomorrow but I think now I will go tonight, since Shobhit texted me he's working a shift at a different store from 5 to 10 this evening. He won't be home anyway, and this will free up tomorrow evening to be home with him, which I assume he'll appreciate.
[posted 12:24 pm]