Productive Weekend
I took myself to see three movies over three days over the weekend—with a fourth set for this evening—and I still had a pretty cram packed weekend even independent of that. Well, in conjunction with it, I suppose; it probably would not have been nearly as cram packed without the movies themselves as part of the mix, plus the roughly one hour each spent writing reviews.
In order, including links to their respective reviews, I watched: Martin Scorsese's The Irishman on Friday night (solid B; not sure it was worth going out of my way to pay full price for a 209-minute movie in a theatre starting at 8 p.m.); Ford v Ferrari late Saturday afternoon (fantastic: A-; the one movie this year that I can happily and eagerly recommend to anyone regardless of socio-political background or ideology); and the documentary The Woman Who Loves Giraffes early Sunday afternoon (another solid B; it was fine).
As I said, I am seeing yet a fourth movie for the fourth day in a row after work today, and I would not normally do this, but for the lengths of the movies and when their particular showtimes worked for me. Ford v Ferrari is itself two and a half hours, and all of its weekday showtimes that I could possibly do were just too late; The Woman Who Loves Giraffes was only at SIFF Film Center exclusively on Saturday or Sunday. This meant I had to watch both of those movies over the weekend.
As for The Irishman, I sure would have preferred not to have to see that one at 8:00 at night, given its three-and-a-half-hour run time (apparently the longest mainstream film released in over twenty years). And, when I bought my ticket at the Cinerama box office, their website only sold tickets on Friday the 15th, making me think that might be the only day I could see it. I knew it was getting a very limited theatrical release before it would be available streaming on Netflix, so I had no idea if it would play for a full week or not. If I had waited a bit, I could have seen that it indeed was, and, for instance, I could have seen that long-ass movie even at Cinerama over the weekend at a much earlier time. As it was, when I purchased the ticket, all I knew was that the 8 p.m. showing on 11/15 was near selling out.
And, I was very strategic about purchasing that ticket. It turns out The Irishman is also playing at Landmark's Crest Theater in Shoreline, which means not only that I could have taken a bus up there to see it at an earlier showtime on Saturday or Sunday, but that is also a discount, last-run theater for most movies, and tickets are only $4 a person—and are for this movie too. But! Three things still have Cinerama the edge. First, it's far closer to home; only a mile and a half away. Second, Cinerama has the best movie screen in the Pacific Northwest, and I even include IMAX screens in that comparison, as for a lot of mainstream movie presentations I think IMAX theater seats are a bit too close to the screen. And third, arguably the most key thing, was that Cinerama is also the only theater in town which plays the audio of the movie over the speakers in the bathroom. I was certain I would have to use the bathroom during this movie, maybe even twice, and this way at least I could still hear the dialogue. And this is one fucking long movie.
Well, in the end, I have to confess I only saw about about three hours of it. Now, that total run time includes the credits which I always leave during, so that part's not a big deal; I still missed the first 18 minutes of the movie, assuming they did not play any trailers first. And I suspect they did not, considering what time it was when it eventually let out. Anyway, why did I miss the first 18 minutes? Well, because I was an idiot.
I had been up much later than usual on Thursday night, at Shobhit's request, to attempt to restore his failed iPhone 5 (a hand-me-down from me, two phones ago) on iTunes after he got back from work. This left me unusually tired on Friday, first through work and then, knowing I would be out late for this movie, I decided to lay down for a nap before heading back downtown. I set my timer on my phone so that it would go off when I figured I would still have 45 minutes to get to the Cinerama.
For some reason, even though I looked at clocks several times when calculating this, what I did was set the timer to go off after 75 minutes when it should have been only . . . well, 15 minutes. Somehow, I was a full hour off. My intent was to have it go off at 7:15, and instead I actually set it to go off at 8:15. I actually snoozed for the better part of an hour, until I rolled over on the bed and looked at the clock and it said 7:55. And I was like WHAT! and I kind of panicked.
If this had been a movie I reserved through the AMC A-List Plus membership app, where the cost makes no greater difference, I would have bagged the plan right then and there and just rescheduled for another time (by Friday I had figured out the movie was indeed playing on other days). But in this case, I had paid a separate $17 for the ticket as Cinerama is now and has long been an independent cinema. I was absolutely not going to waste that seventeen bucks—so, I leapt out of bed, put on my jacket and my shoes, and hustled down to Cinerama. I had hoped I could hop on a bus along the way, but not one single bus caught up with me as I walked down Pine to Boren, and by the time I reached Boren, I turned to weave my way diagonally up to Cinerama in Belltown. In fits and starts, I actually broke into a jog, actually running the cumulative equivalent of probably three blocks. So, a walk that normally would have taken me at least half an hour took me roughly twenty minutes. And, since I had leapt out of bed at 7:55, I reached the door of Cinerama at 8:18.
The lobby was just emptying of the straggling patrons getting concessions, and there was a guy still standing there to take tickets, but I'm pretty sure I was the last to arrive.
The upside, I suppose, of this massively long movie was that, I figured, it would not be too critical to understanding the story if I missed the first twenty minutes or so. And, I was right. I think I may have missed most of the much-covered "de-aging" CGI they did for early flashbacks on Robert De Niro. Either that or I still saw some of it and they did such a good job that it didn't register, which is a distinct possibility. In any case, the movie was . . . fine. It will be streaming on Netflix the day before Thanksgiving, and I do intend to watch at least those first twenty minutes to see what I missed. I don’t like to review movies I haven't seen all of, but I saw three hours of this one, so in this instance I think that was enough.
The kind of funny thing then, about seeing Ford v Ferrari on Saturday, was that movie is also much, much longer than most, but at two and a half hours, it was a full hour shorter than the movie I had seen Friday night, so it did not feel long at all. Also, it was incredibly entertaining and well done. Seriously, that one's a movie to see. If you only go to the movies occasionally and are trying to decide, decide on that one.
I had a lot more going on on Saturday, though, not least of which was that, given how it was nearly midnight by the time I got home from The Irishman on Friday, I had no time to write the review that same night. So, I had two movie reviews to write on Saturday, barely squeezing them in between everything else.
Shobhit's shift on Saturday started at 12:45, and I spent the morning with him. I skipped my regular cereal breakfast thinking we could perhaps find a place to get brunch at University Village, and that ended up getting pushed out by how long it took us at the Apple Store.
First, though, we drove to the AT&T Store on Broadway and Pike. We finally decided to combine our lines into one bill, which we are told will save us a combined $40 a month. We had previously been paying roughly $90 each for our own separate phone bills, but this combined one is estimated to total about $140 a month. Well, supposed to—Shobhit keeps finding a billing estimate that shows an expected bill of $209 a month, which is mystifying both of us, and we're trying to get a customer service rep on the phone to explain. He actually got on the line with someone yesterday morning, only to have difficulty finding the email that had this estimate while he was actually one the phone. He really should have had it queued up before he got on the line. Because the guy, who was either a stupidly bad listener or had a bad connection as he kept not hearing Shobhit, eventually looked it up and still confirmed the expected $140 estimate. But then, Shobhit found the email again later yesterday evening, and once again still saw the $209 figure. He tried to call them again but by then their customer service hours were over. He'll have to try again tonight, make sure the thing is properly queued up on his screen before he calls, and get an explanation for why he keeps seeing that.
Anyway, we then drove straight from there to the Apple Store at U Village for Shobhit's pre-scheduled Genius Bar appointment, to see if they could restore his phone there even though I could not with iTunes at home. And they tried, and they could not. So, and we knew this would happen eventually especially with the phone he was using being so old, he had to upgrade. Shobhit feels no need to upgrade to the most recent models, however, so to save money he only upgraded to an 8. It took a bit more time than usual because their electronic process getting Shobhit all signed up using the young lady's mobile device kept rejecting him. It only worked, finally, when she took the new phone she had back and swapped it out for another one with a different sku for her to scan.
We were there for well over an hour, so much time in fact that we no longer had any time to stop for brunch before he had to go to work—and he still needed to return home to pick up his lunch. Otherwise I could have just taken Light Rail back and he could have driven to work straight from there. Instead, because my Veggie Grill app said I still had $11 on my gift card, we walked over to Veggie Grill to buy something to go. And then? When I went to pay, they got an error. Turns out, I needed to refresh in the app so it would actually indicate my balance was $0. God damn it! That restaurant's stupid fucking app has been a pain in the ass from day one. I think I will complain to them on Twitter, come to think of it. The information in their app should be accurate when you open it. Why would I assume I need to "refresh"? In any case, the order had already been made, and I wound up paying $16 for the "Rustic Farm Bowl" with veggie sausage added (this spiked the cost, but I fucking love veggie sausage), and Shobhit did not eat hardly any of it. He did eat the yams, which I don't like and so I saved those for him even though he said I could eat the whole bowl if I wanted.
And after this was when I had an impromptu hang-out with Gabriel, and later Lea and Tess. Which was kind of funny, because I had been considering calling Gabriel later to see if he was available for me to come hang out at his place for a bit later in the evening. After all the delays with Shobhit and the phone stuff, I was considering bagging the movie plan for the day and just seeing Ford v Ferrari another day, and for a few hours, that actually was my new plan.
As it happened, Gabriel called me while I was ordering at Veggie Grill and could not answer. He left a message saying he was on Capitol Hill, on 15th and Mercre, and wondered if I was around. Nice, he was actually in my neighborhood this time! That was convenient. I called him back once we were in the car and headed back home, and I learned that Tess and Lea had nail appointments on 15th and Mercer, which is about a mile north of the condo, and he had about an hour to kill. So, once we got to the condo, I rushed upstairs just to fetch Shobhit's lunch for him; rushed back down to get into his car turned around to head north again, and Shobhit very nicely gave me a ride back up to 15th and Mercer.
There is now a nail salon on that corner, where the Chutney's Indian restaurant used to be.
When I last spoke to Gabriel, we had talked about maybe meeting halfway, but said we would reconnect once I got home. But then Shobhit offered to give me a ride, and I just went up there without following up with Gabriel. I called him from the corner at 15th and Mercer, even though I could see Lea and Tess inside the nail salon (and they later told me they saw me from inside as well), and when he answered and said he was already walking toward my place, he then turned around and so did I and we walked a few blocks back to meet up with each other again. I said I just wanted a place where I could eat my breakfast/lunch as I was starving, and he said "great" and decided . . . he wanted to buy a drink.
We tried Witness first and there was a party waiting to be seated ahead of us. So we went into the bar across the street at Coastal Kitchen. He bought a bellini cocktail as well as some oysters (gack). I was super self-conscious about eating a Veggie Grill meal inside another restaurant, but it turns out Gabriel is one of few people who seriously did not give a shit about how tacky that was. Also, we sat at a bar table and he did make an order. Still, I felt self-conscious enough about it that I ordered myself a bellini as well. I ordered the strawberry one and Gabriel ordered the peach mango; he liked mine better though and I happened to like his better so I happily swapped them, which made him happy.
It also made me really happy to finally be able to eat something. And then, there was much discussion, as there always is when hanging out with Gabriel. He is thrilled by the new Star Wars series on Disney+, and he basically talked me into watching it, as I had been pretty indifferent to it up to that point—I was much more interested in the back catalog being offered on Disney+.
Eventually Lea and Tess caught up with us, and after Gabriel and I paid our bills, we caught up with him over at the 15th Avenue bookstore I had walked past zillions of times but never went into, "Ada's Technical Books and Café." I think the "technical books" part always made me assume it wasn't for me, but as Gabriel put it, the place is "nerd heaven," and he was right. They sell plenty of novels as well; they had a copy of The Handmaid's Tale on display, and I noted to Lea that it was one of my all-time favorite books—and it was long before the current series. (In fact, I read it a second time when Gabriel and I were in college together.) They also just happened to be selling the novel Hollow Kingdom, which I literally finished last night, and spent a fair amount of time recommending to Lea after learning she loves crows, which is the species of the book's narrator. When I pointed it out, Gabriel snatched it up and went to get in line and buy it for her, whistling "innocently" along the way.
We were there for a while. I then accompanied them over to a bakery I had also never stepped inside, where Lea bought us all a pastry (I had a pumpkin spice doughnut that turned out actually not to be that good; I think it may have had some kind of alternative sweetener). She decided to buy a birthday cake there for a friend who is apparently gluten intolerant. I had the sense that maybe they had a birthday party or something as their evening plans. So, calling Gabriel later likely would have bee fruitless. I was happy it worked out this way.
Gabriel insisted on giving me a ride home, even though it was only a mile I would have been happy to walk. I had told Gabriel a bit earlier that I had plans to see a movie but was fine with bagging it, but, once I finally did get home, I found I had barely enough time to write the review for The Irishman before catching a bus back to the U District to see Ford v Ferrari at 4:30. So, I went to a movie that day after all. The stupid AMC app keeps not working when I try to reserve seats at the AMC Seattle 10, but they took my number once I arrived and were still able to reserve the seat I wanted, on near the back still open even though there were only maybe ten available seats left, most of them up front.
So that movie let out shortly after 7:00; I barely got on a #49 bus back to Capitol Hill; and then I spent yet another hour writing that movie review.
Only then did I finally have time to start watching The Mandalorian, although I was only about halfway through the first of two available episodes when Shobhit got home from work, and I stopped it so we could watch Real Time with Bill Maher before I went to bed.
Yesterday was also pretty full, but much less hectic. Shobhit and I shared the box of frozen Trader Joe's pancakes he bought a while ago, for breakfast. We watched a bit of TV, I forget what, and I basically hung out with him at home for the morning, until it was time for him to head off to work, his Sunday shift starting at 12:15. The movie I saw yesterday at Seattle Center was at 3:00, and so I left home at 2:15 to walk to the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station to Westlake Station where I then transferred to the Monorail to Seattle Center, which I still delight in being able to use my Orca Card to ride, basically now for free. The only annoying thing was the mezzanine transit tunnel elevator up to the Monorail on the third floor of Westlake Mall was out of commission, forcing me to walk over to the mall entrance—where, the up-escalator was shut down and blocked off, forcing me to us the one-level elevator there up to the ground floor, and then transfer to other escalators up two more floors. It was stupidly convoluted and I felt bad for any wheelchair user with the misfortune of trying to navigate all that shit yesterday.
I still got to the SIFF Film Center in plenty of time to see the movie, though. I even got a nice photo of the beautifully drizzly day while waiting at the Monorail station. I took the Monorail back, but then decided I would try taking the #11 home so I wouldn't have to walk the half mile from Capitol Hill Station. I might as well have done just that; the #11 was delayed and after walking four blocks to the bus stop on 9th and Pine, I was only able to ride the #49 up to Broadway, and I got out and walked the rest of the way, the #11 only passing me by when I was about a block from home. Had I waited for that bus, I would have gotten home faster, but by easily less than five minutes.
Whatever! I went inside, wrote that movie review, and after that finally finished actually scouring my full Flickr account for photos that still needed proper moderation due to nudity. I deliberately waited until that was done until responding back to the help staff I had been exchanging emails with, who had kind of hinted that I could say I was ready for them to "appeal" on Friday, but I wanted to do some more thorough updating, checking and organizing of these photos on my account before I did so. I finally emailed him last night to please do the appeal now, and so I wait to hear back. If they still reject my efforts and insist my account is so-called "unsafe," I really don't know what I will or can do. I truly did a lot to accommodate their guidelines with this, and to the best of my knowledge I did everything I could or was supposed to.
And then I finally finished the first episode of The Mandalorian. And okay, I like it enough, I'm hooked. Shobhit was trying to convince me to wait a year to sign up for Disney+, but he can forget it. I signed up already. I also, however, canceled my long-held Hulu subscription, which is honestly redundant as long as we're paying for this massive cable package. I really wanted to start watching Designing Women whose entire series in now on Hulu, once we were done with Cheers on Netflix, but we still have to seasons left of that one to get through. Oh well, I'll live. I have now traded one streaming service I was paying $14 a month for, for another one that, for now, is only costing me $7. That seems like a more-than-fair tradeoff to me, especially when we should now also be saving $40 a month on our combined phone bills.
I'm still only about halfway through the second episode of The Mandalorian. I did call Gabriel last night to ask if he knew how I could watch Disney+ on my TV without trying to rely on screen mirroring, which I tried while watching Inside Out the other night and it kept disconnecting, which is a huge pain in the ass. He told me I could just get it in the app store on my Apple TV box—except my box is so out of date now, it does not have an app store. And I don't need to buy a newer box just to get the app store. I figure eventually Apple will just add the app themselves; the did finally after a while with Amazon Prime Video, which did not used to be among the options. So I'm assuming it will be there eventually. Until then, I'll just have to watch Disney+ stuff on my computer or my iPad.
I guess the only other thing to tell about my weekend is that, even after making time to clean up my Flickr account, write a movie review, and watch part of The Mandalorian, I then took the bus back to Northgate to meet Shobhit when he got off work at 8:15, and we drove direct from there to PCC Greenlake to do some shopping. One of these days I want to shop at the new Ballard store just to see it. I might have suggested it last night but I just totally spaced it; we were kind of short on time anyway. Last night we used the monthly 10% coupon combined with my 15% employee discount, so we stocked up on a lot, with the intent of perhaps skipping a PCC shop the weekend I get paid on the 30th, this being a three-paycheck month. So, maybe we'll get to Ballard in December, I guess.
Once we were home again and had all the groceries put away—our dinner comprised of a grilled panini we ordered at the PCC Deli and then ate by our shopping cart on the other end of the store, for some reason being unable to resist it until we were home or even in the car—we sat down to watch some TV. And then I remembered, oh! Season 3 of The Crown is available on Netflix now! So we watched the first episode of that, and it was truly excellent. I really look forward to seeing the rest of the season.
So yeah, I watched a bunch of movies and a bit of TV this weekend. Considering what I managed to get done all around that, I still felt like this was an incredibly productive weekend.
[posted 12:22 pm]