there goes the weekend
My weekend was fairly uneventful until last night, making it a quite rare second weekend in a row that was quite low key -- with the exception of the local SAG-AFTRA SAG Awards viewing party, this time held in the "Shanghai Room" (basically, the bar) of North Star Diner in Greenwood -- just up the street on literally the same block as their usual venue, Naked City Brewery & Taphouse, which apparently they couldn't get for this year's SAG Awards viewing party because someone else had already booked it for the night of January 27.
I've gone to at least three of these local parties with Shobhit now (two SAG Awards viewing parties; one holiday party), and we're both starting to get familiar with repeat faces. I don't remember anyone's name yet, but Shobhit does. He always says hi to the local chapter president by name, and last night we actually sat across from him and his -- wife? I think?
For a viewing party, with a large screen at one end of the room, it wasn't quite as nice as Naked City, but the difference wasn't particularly huge. So, it was fine. The food was palatable, if lacking in substantive protein for vegetarians: aside from the beef thin crispy tac-type things and what looked like small chicken legs, they had cheesy French fries (a little soggy); a vegetable tray with ranch dip; tortilla chips and salsa; deep fried and breaded cauliflower (which I actually had three of -- I found a way I can find cauliflower palatable!); and onion rings.
As usual we were also provided with two drink tickets. This place did not have the cider I like at the other place, nor would they do house menu cocktails -- the best I could get was well drinks, as if it were Happy Hour. So, I got two Screw Drivers with a bottom-shelf vodka in them. But still, those plus the food spread still made ten bucks a pretty sweet deal. (At this event, guests of SAG-AFTRA members had to pay $10 to get in.)
So now I have to make a few comments on the key film acting races, and what I feel they mean for the Oscar race.
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: This award went to Black Panther, which Shobhit is now convinced means that movie will win the Oscar for Best Picture. I think he's losing sight of how much more focus there is here on just the acting than is with the Motion Picture Academy, which pays equal attention to -- in a lot of cases more attention to -- technical achievement, which still leaves Roma, a movie no one expects to win any acting Oscars, by far the front runner.
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Rami Malek's win here for Bohemian Rhapsody was a genuinely stunning surprise, and easily made his Oscar odds skyrocket. In this case, though, Shobhit and I are both in agreement that he will not win the Oscar, for actually similar reasons I outlined above: too many non-actors will be voting in the Motion Picture Academy, and with a lot more people with intimate knowledge of technical aspects behind a "performance," they won't be as easily swayed as Malek's fellow actors in SAG-AFTRA were. Clearly a lot of them assumed he sang all the Queen songs himself, and that wasn't quite the case. And although Malek was still excellent in Bohemian Rhapsody -- the only thing about the movie that was excellent -- the movie was still too misguided in its overall presentation, I think, to deserve this Oscar. I think many Academy voters will agree with me, but we'll see. Bigger surprises have happened. Regardless, I think Christian Bale for Vice remains the Oscar frontrunner in this category, much as I don't want him to be either. (My vote goes to Bradley Cooper, something with which Shobhit vehemently disagrees -- on his SAG Awards ballot, he voted for Viggo Mortensen even without having seen Green Book, just because he doesn't think Cooper deserves to win, which is dumb but whatever.)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: This is one case where the SAG Award winner pretty much does seal the deal for the Oscar win: Glenn Close, who already has the Critics Association Award and the Golden Globe Award for this performance, now also has the SAG Award -- at this point, if she doesn't win the Oscar I'll shit my pants.
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Same deal here as with Actor in a Leading Role: Mahershala Ali was already regarded as the front runner for the Oscar; just like Glenn Close, he also already has the Golden Globe Award, and now the SAG Award (though, not the Critics Association Award -- so his odds may be slightly lower) for his role in Green Book. Last week I was predicting Bradley Cooper would get this Oscar award, but now I'm pretty easily convinced it will be Mahershala Ali. If he doesn't, it won't be quite a shock as if Glenn Close were to lose, but it would still be a surprise.
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: At the Oscars, the one regarded as the front runner for this award is Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk -- but, curiously, she wasn't nominated for the SAG Award here. The one who won the SAG Award, Emily Blunt for A Quiet Place, was another shock, and doubly so considering Blunt was not nominated for the Oscar. So that makes this category the one in which the same person winning the SAG Award and the Oscar is actually impossible. And that's why, even though the SAG Awards has an average three out of four track record when it comes to predicting who will win the acting Oscar trophies, I think this year they're only likely to predict half of them. That prediction really hinges on Rami Malek not getting the Oscar, though, and as I said, his SAG Award win did increase his chances.
Anyway, enough of all that! What else can I tell you about my weekend? Not a whole lot, to tell the truth. I got paid on Friday; we did our requisite shopping at both Costco and PCC -- spending a lot at both -- on Saturday. Besides the viewing party last night, I neither hung out with any friends or even did anything else with Shobhit that would qualify for a Social Review point.
We did watch a bunch of Cheers, though:
Friday: two episodes (about forty minutes)
Saturday: eight episodes (about 160 minutes, or two hours and forty minutes)
Sunday: four episodes (about eighty minutes)
I also watched the delightful Ron Funches comedy special on Comedy Central's website yesterday, and quite a bit of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign launch speech -- which convinced me to be, for now at least, all in for her to be president. As is Shobhit: he's already contributed to her campaign. I found her speech to be rousing, and saw a lot of Barack Obama in her, actually. I also love that she's both of mixed racial background and completely non-white; she has a black father and an Indian mother. Shobhit even told me "kamala" means "lotus" in Hindi and I found that tidbit particularly delightful.
As for where we go from here, Shobhit still hasn't purchased his plane tickets to India and back but should probably within the next week -- a lot still hinges on when his mom gets her renewed passport. In all likelihood he'll still be gone by the last week of February and hopefully even earlier; right now Ivan plans to visit between February 20 and February 23. I still need to bring up the idea of Jennifer visiting to her, but won't do that until I have confirmed dates that Shobhit will be gone. It's not so much that I'm eager for Shobhit to leave, but actually that I just want to have company while he's gone -- and winding up scheduling visits while Shobhit is still home rather defeats that purpose.
Prior to that, this upcoming weekend is set to be a bit of a whirlwind: both days being big city events for the closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the opening of the Highway 99 tunnel replacing it: walks on both of them on Saturday; bike ride on both of them on Sunday. Dad, Sherri, Gina and Beth all coming up from Olympia on Saturday, Gina and Beth staying in our guest room and Dad and Sherri staying in an AirBnB in the West building of our Braeburn Condos that night. All six of us will participate in the walk; Shobhit and Sherri will sit out the bike ride on Sunday.
I also nearly forgot that Sunday happens also to be both Gina and Beth's third anniversary and Beth's birthday (I'd be able to say what year if I were home to look at my calendar, but I'm not), so that's quite the eventful day right there.
[posted 12:31 pm]