easing back
After articulating yesterday how I am slowly incorporating reading books back into my routine, it occurred to me just this morning how I can slowly start re-incorporating movie reviews. I got the idea while listening to The Big Picture, a favorite podcast about movies, and they were talking about all the movies originally scheduled for theatrical release coming straight to streaming through the fall. Now, apparently lots of movie theaters across the country are re-opening soon, against pretty much anyone's better judgment, but that's still not happening in California or New York, which combined contain nearly 18% of the U.S. population; it's also not happening in Washington State, unless it's a county in Phase 3 of re-opening—and even then only at 25% capacity (and who cares about "capacity" in an enclosed space? I mean, Jesus). I decided I could still start writing reviews for movies coming straight to streaming that would otherwise have been a movie I certainly would have reviewed as a theatrical release, and I've already got a working list started based solely on a few the podcast cohost mentioned:
August 28: Bill and Ted Face the Music [being released on-demand; may still be too expensive for me to justify]
September 16: The Devil All the Time (Netflix)
October, sometime: On the Rocks [Apple TV+, which I do not subscribe to, but this is a Spfia Coppola film starting Bill Murray(!), so I hope to figure something out, maybe a free trial?]
October, sometime: Mank (Netflix)
October 16: The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)
October 21: Rebecca (Netflix)
The cohost said there is "a long list" of movies like this, so more will be added to my calendar, but this feels like a good start. I already did this one time, reviewing a movie I watched streaming that I otherwise would have certainly seen in theaters, when I reviewed the Pixar film Onward in April—that was four months ago, and it remains the most recent film I reviewed, by far the longest I have ever gone, like exponentially so, without posting a movie review since I started in 2004.
Onward marks all of 18 films I have reviewed since the start of 2020, as even prior to that I had not gone to see any movies since before leaving for Australia in February; there is absolutely no question that I will close out 2020 with by far the least number of reviews I have written for a single year—with the exception of 2004 itself, as, since I only started in mid-December of that year, I only got in eight reviews by the end of the year. For 2020, though, this now seems like a reasonable compromise approach; in fact, having watched Da Five Bloods with Laney on Neflix, I kind of wish now that I had posted a review of that. But, I had difficulty deciding what I could say about it, and in any case, that ship has sailed.
Most years, I average around 100 to 120 movie reviews. I can pretty much still guarantee that I won't match the previous average of two and a half reviews per week going forward with this plan until it's safe to go to theaters again (sometime in 2021, at the soonest), but it's better than nothing. It'll probably work out to two or three reviews a month, so my best guess right now, with a slew of variables still yet to be considered, is that I will close out 2020 having posted about 30 reviews total—which, amazingly, is still far and away higher than the number of movies people tend to go see in theaters in a given year during normal times. So I still feel pretty exceptional! Also I'm just glad to have some sense of inching toward some kind of normalcy again.
Fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention last night. It ended with Joe Biden's acceptance speech for the nomination, and I found the speech surprisingly powerful—serious, intelligent, compassionate, and with a plan. None of these things apply to President Fuckwit and none of them ever will.
That's kind of all there is to say about that.
I did walk to PCC soon after it ended. I didn't think to check the weather before leaving, it's been so dry and warm for so long, so I was kind of surprised when I got outside and it was drizzling. It was mid-dusk so getting dark, but I had still brought my library book thinking I could read at least on the walk there. It was raining lightly enough, though, that I just said "Fuck it" and put the book in one of the two tote bags and walked the rest of the way there. I didn't really get too wet.
I had to go last night because I was completely out of tea. Can't have that! I needed my tea for my Friday London Fog Tea Latte while working today. So, I got two Stash Double Bergamot Ear Gray Tea boxes; and also got four six-packs of soda since I was also out of that. I added a quart of half & half, and after loading my tote bags with the groceries myself (because cashiers won't touch your tote bags right now), I walked back, the bags kind of heavy for a 0.7-mile walk. But, I made it, and as soon as I got back Shobhit asked if I had driven, because he saw that it had been raining. Nope! Honestly it was super nice just to get that small walk in for the day.
And! Today marks the third time in as many weeks of our Friday Office Lunch Meet-up via Zoom. It was again slightly smaller, but still workable: Brenna, who had been on the call the first time but not last week, returned; the rest was rounded out by Brent (the host), Sara J, Rebecca, and Teresa for the first half hour. That totaled six for the most on the call at one time, but only moments after Rebecca and Brenna had to leave for another meeting, Claudia hopped on the call! It was really great to see her. She talked a lot about training every weekend on hikes, for an eight-day hike she's planning at Yosemite in September.
Teresa asked us all to tell what we do for PCC, since she is new and has had very little interaction with most of us, especially since we've all been working from home; this led to a pretty lengthy discussion of both Sara's and my lengthy histories with PCC—she started in 2000 at one of the stores; I was hired straight to the office in 2002.
Anyway. Even though they seem to be shrinking slightly with each week, I am really enjoying these lunch meetups, and even in a virtual context, I am enjoying getting to know coworkers that I might not really have a chance to otherwise.
[posted 1:11 pm]