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Last night was Action Movie Night at the Braeburn Condos, and the guy named Ryan was the one who chose this week's title. It was really not an "action movie," although there is a fair bit of very entertaining action in the second half of the second act, when we become very close to convinced a luxury yacht is about to sink.
The movie's opening scene began, and I said out loud with excitement, "Oh my god!" I instantly recognized it as
Triangle of Sadness—which, incidentally, I ranked #6 on my
ten best movies of the year, which I just so happened to have posted this morning. I had given the film an A-minus.
When I first saw it, back in October, I had gone home immediately telling Shobhit how much I loved it and looked forward to watching it with him once it was streaming. I don't think Shobhit remembers this, but he even opened his laptop to watch the trailer when I told him about it. I really think Gabriel should see it too, and when I saw that it was already on VOD on December 6, I texted the link to Gabriel and Lea saying,
You are hereby commanded to watch this movie. I have no idea whether they've watched it yet; I would bet not. It was $19.99 then, but is already down to a much more reasonable $5.99 now.
Whatever the case, having already seen it, I had no intention of paying for it to see it again at home, and would just wait patiently until it was on one of my streaming services, assuming and hoping it would be soon enough. So I was shocked and thrilled to see this as the movie Ryan started in the theater last night. What luck! I didn't have to wait any longer to see it again, and Shobhit was already there with me.
In the end, I think Shobhit really locked in about halfway through, when the storm reaches the yacht and things kind of go to hell among all the filthy rich people who clearly ate bad seafood. The film is quite long though, two and a half hours, and I think in the end Shobhit would declare it too long—he even commented after it was over that he didn't see what the cold open, a fairly lengthy scene of a guy interviewing a group of male models (including one of the two protagonists), really had to do with the rest of the movie. It's a fair question, except that it establishes these characters who exist in the rarified working-model universe, in which women make three times as much as men do. The film is split into three parts, and the first part focuses the most on this young couple, and how that dynamic affects their attitudes about money and gender roles. Personally, although I might have difficulty articulating precisely how, I still think it all fits.
Shobhit's niece, Shivvy, was with us, and given the option to join us, or not. Shobhit had initially figured he would just bring down the last samosas he deep fried, having saved the last of the Christmas supplies for this very purpose, and then skip the movie like he did that time, because he assumed Shivvy might not want to hang out with this large group in which she would likely be the only woman.
In the end, for both all of the dinner portion of the evening and a good percentage of the movie itself, Tony's wife Sarah actually joined us, which she doesn't usually do. Occasionally we see her very briefly, and then she goes back upstairs; this was the first time I had seen her stick around to socialize. Whether that was a random coincidence or she was inspired by the sight of Shobhit and me bringing his niece (she and Tony were just arriving home when we were getting on the elevator to go down), I really don't know. Whatever the case, the first time we had a woman among the group (at least since Shobhit and I have been attending), there were actually two.
Shivvy seemed completely open to coming down to eat, and then maybe staying for the movie, depending on what the movie might be. And the quality of the movies we watch on these evenings vary wildly. She hung out quite comfortably, introducing herself whenever necessary, in the kitchen with the food before the movie. And she came into the theater with us, and seemed engaged enough by it, all the way through, even often laughing. When it ended she said, "That was a wild ride," acknowledged she probably never would have watched that movie otherwise, but still had nothing negative to say about it.
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— पांच हजार तीन सौ चौंतीस —
Action Movie Night is scheduled every other Wednesday at 6:30, and it's often about an hour before the movie even starts. I already noted that
Triangle of Sadness is two and a half hours long, so by the time we got back up to the condo afterward, it was a quarter till 10:00.
I did ask Ryan immediately after it ended whether he had already seen it, and noting that it was one of my ten favorite films of the year. This was by far the best, highest quality film we've seen at Action Movie Night since Shobhit and I started going last summer. It's certainly the one with the most thematic depth. To my surprise, even Tony had already seen it once before—at Ryan's recommendation, apparently. Ryan said he debated whether to stick with this as the choice, and in the end he did. I'm really glad he did, because I was truly happy to watch it a second time through.
In any case, as always, Action Movie Night sucked up the entire evening. I was home about an hour before we headed down, and in that time, I helped Shobhit a little bit with frying the last 14 or 15 samosas. I ate one before he was even done.
As for Shivvy, Shobhit had called in sick yesterday so they could spend a day sightseeing. They apparently went to Kerry Park, the Ballard Locks, and even went to Discovery Park and went out to the lighthouse there. I wonder if Shobhit took any pictures? I keep forgetting to ask. Shivvy has a phone of her own, of course, which she spends a lot of time on and I'm sure she took plenty of photos herself.
We'll be doing some grocery shopping tonight. Plans really pick up this weekend and actually go potentially through Tuesday: we'll all three of us spend the day together Saturday, culminating with the New Year's fireworks at midnight at the Space Needle; she'll join us for a day trip back down to Olympia for Dad and Sherri's New Year's Day family get-together, with possibly a short detour to Gabriel and Lea's in Federal Way along the way; we'll get together with Shobhit's cousin Abhishek with his wife Vinaya on Monday; and on Tuesday (or maybe Wednesday, but I'm thinking Tuesday will be better) we may have dinner at Saffron Grill with Karen, Dave and Anita.
I still need to get clarification on when she goes back to Indiana, exactly. Shobhit has told me it was January 5, but she told people last night it was the 4th. Ben, one of the guys at Action Movie Night, works for Alaska Airlines and so there was a lot of discussion about the airline industry's huge, weather-related messes over the past week, particularly the
Southwest Airlines shit storm (thankfully, Shivvy was never booked on that airline for this trip)—Ben actually was weirdly inclined to defend them. "We're all a big industry-family," he said. Okay. Sure.
Oh, speaking of which. Who was there last night? More than the email RSVPs suggested, since there were the two extra women in attendance: Tony and Sarah; both the Chrises; Ryan, Jake, Ben, Sean, then Shobhit and Shivvy and me. I don't know if I'm forgetting anyone but that's eleven right there, which sounds about right. One of the Chrises has been bringing pizza every time, and the last two times, including last night, he ordered a vegetarian pizza, which we really appreciate. He keeps ordering from Mod Pizza, and they're always very good. Pizza and samosas is a somewhat odd combination, but then, these gatherings always have pretty disparate food offerings.
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[posted 12:30 pm]
