in these movie times
I suddenly realized yesterday that there were still some Oscar-nominated films I had not watched which are probably available, so I went through the nominees and made a list to add to my calendar. I wanted something light and short to watch last night, which I fit neatly in between 4:30 when I finished work, and 6:00 when Shobhit finished work: A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon. So, now I've watched more of this year's Oscar-nominated Animated Features than just Pixar's Onward (the first streaming movie I reviewed last year—or ever) and Pixar's Soul (which I really, really loved). Now I've seen three of them! The other two do not appear to be available streaming or on VOD yet.
But, I found some Oscar-nominated International Features and Documentary Features that are available, and added them to my schedule in April. These I will watch interspersed with the six films I bought to watch streaming from the Seattle International Film Festival, which, after being canceled outright last year, is all-virtual this year. The festival dates, which are usually from the end of May through the middle of June, are this year from April 8 (today!) through April 18. Interestingly, all six of the films I purchased are available to me to stream whenever I want, just within those date parameters. A couple of them do have virtual Q&As I want to attend, so I will watch those films on those dates.
Anyway, I reviewed a movie both last night and the night before, but there was an unusually long break prior to that, not having reviewed a film since Wednesday last week (gasp! a five-day break!). That, coupled with the fact that I will clearly have no time to watch movies during my Birth Week, means I have to cram more films into a tighter schedule in between April 6 and April 22—slightly more than two weeks—which meant I thought maybe I'd have a sort of lull in movie watching for April. Not so! Between the film festival and the titles I want to catch up on before the Academy Awards on April 25, if all goes as planned I'll still have watched 13 movies by the end of the month. Slightly below average for each month so far in 2021, but only slightly. And a shit ton for a span of only 17 days.
So anyway, what else? Shobhit asked me to peel a cucumber for him, so I did that real quick before going to the bedroom to write the movie review. I was still writing it once he got home, but he immediately set about to preparing dinner, and right when it was ready, I was done writing and had posted the review.
We ate together in the living room while he was watching his news programs. I asked if he wanted to watch an episode of something else together, and he apparently had other things to do. He really just spent most of the rest of the evening just watching more MSNBC, but whatever. I went back to the bedroom and watched an episode and a half more of the docuseries Can't Get You Out of My Head on YouTube. The fourth episode focused a lot more on a transgender woman from Britain in the eighties, which immediately made it far more interesting to me.
By the time that was done, it was time to get ready for bed. I probably should have gone to sleep earlier than I did but I now have this habit of spending way too much time on TikTok. Shobhit thinks of that as a profound waste of time, but that's only because he has no clue what it really is. And although, sure, a lot of it is just silly fun, I also follow a lot of content creators who are in various ways educators: doctors fighting COVID-19 misinformation, Black people (and people of other races) talking about racism and racist power structures in both the U.S. and around the world, at least one intellectual atheist who used to be a fundamentalist Christian, some queer creators as well. I just yesterday learned the sad and fascinating story of the "Dance of the Forty-One" in Mexico, which has a similar history to anti-gay police raids in the U.S. It's because of TikTok that I have not felt so consistently and densely educated, literally since I was in college. It's amazing.
Lil Nas X constantly sharing variations of memes on his "Call Me By Your Name" video is pretty great too.
[posted 12:32 pm]