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Last night was Shobhit's and my fourth attendance at the Action Movie Night at the Braeburn Condos theater. It had the lowest attendance of the ones we've been to so far, but still had about eight people—the ones whose names I can remember now are Tony, Jake (I think), Derek, Chris, and Rashid—Rashid being one whose name I finally learned this week, but who is moving soon and so he had his last turn choosing a movie this week. He chose
Bullet Train, just released this past summer, making it the first one I have already seen before.
Incidentally, I had a great time watching the movie this time, even though
I gave it an unusually bad review (for me, anyway) when I saw it in theaters in August. I gave it a C+, which I would actually still stand by. But, as I noted to Rashid after the movie, I often enjoy movies more upon a second watch, because it can no longer disappoint me.
And the group on the whole seemed to really respond to it. Shobhit certainly enjoyed it. I told people last night that it wasn't actually that successful, except that just this week, I discovered moments ago, it
crossed $100 million in domestic box office, and has exceeded $230 million globally, which is a definitive success particularly against a roughly $90 million budget.
Anyway, people whose names I remember now but did not make it this week included Joe and Ben. With previous Action Movie Nights averaging around 12 to 14 people, I suppose I've learned about half the names so far. I think it will take a while before I am fully comfortable chilling with the entire group while we eat before the movie, instead of spending a fair amount of time sitting quietly. I did chat with several of the guys last night, though.
Because Shobhit is leaving for India on Sunday, he's being more cautious than usual, and he actually brought his mask. Actually he came first without it, then went back up to the condo to get one; I had him get me one too. He wore his in the kitchen once he was done eating, but I really just wore mine in the actual theater room, which literally has zero circulation. I should probably just adopt that as a habit going forward—it's what I'm still doing when I go to the movies, after all.
His absence the next three weeks also means he will be out of town during the next Action Movie Night in two weeks, on November 19. Alexia has expressed possible interest in joining me that day. Beyond that, I doubt he will come as long as his mom is staying with us, so it could be late December or even January before he joins again. I suppose we'll see. I have no interest in skipping any time until we take our trip to Australia next year.
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— पांच हजार दो सौ अस्सी-सात —
There was a moment while we were all in the kitchen when Shobhit told everyone about how I review all the movies I go see, and he said I see an average of 130 a year. That's actually an exaggeration; my record is 130 (
2011) but I probably average closer to, I don't know, maybe 110 or 115? In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, I saw
119 movies; 2020 saw a record low of
56 reviews; 2021 then jumped back up to a
record 135 reviews but now that I sometimes review streamers, I don't count that as the record because 82 of the reviews last year were streaming, which means only for 53 of those reviews did I actually go to the theater.
The number of streaming reviews I have for 2022 is far lower, currently at 23 out of the 77 movies I have counted for the year. Extrapolating from an average 8.33 movies per month through September, I am on track to have gone to see and/or reviewed 100 movies in 2020, about three quarters of them in theaters, which is low for before the pandemic but high for after.
I just took a brief break from writing this post to write up an email to Tony with most of this same information.
But, now what am I left with? I have little else to tell, since it was 10:00 by the time we got back up to the condo last night. We did take several food items down to the movie last night, though: baked frozen been and cheese pupusas from Costco (the last two of which I had for lunch today); homemade salsa Shobhit made largely from his p-patch vegetables that actually went well with them; and chopped slices of the half of watermelon that never got sliced for Leavenworth last week. It was very tasty. In fact I've eaten more watermelon this year than I have likely had cumulatively my entire life prior.
In other news, I keep having this issue with my AirPods where only one of them syncs after I put them in my ears, and I constantly have to put the other one back in the case and take it back out again. I think I figured out the issue and fixed it, though: I took a toothpick and scraped out ear gunk from the tiny speakers in each one. It was fucking disgusting. But, now they seem to be syncing properly, woohoo!
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[posted 1:16 pm]
