— पांच हजार एक सौ त्र्याण्णव —
I went to see
The Batman with Tracy last night, her first viewing and my second—we had long planned to see it opening weekend, three tickets reserved for her and Shobhit and me on Thursday March 3, and at the last minute she had to back out due to being too busy with work. After seeing it, I said I would happily see it again, and it was only last night—six weeks later—that she finally had enough time in her schedule.
I looked this up. I haven't gone to see a movie a second time in a theater since January 2020.
Knives Out was the last one I went to see again. I never did this extremely often anyway, and for years it was nost often a scenario just like this anyway: seeing it again with a friend (or husband) who had not yet gotten to see it.
So much time has passed in this case, though—and I say "so much" in the context of the current state of theatrical releases; the scales here were much different, even five years ago—that the theater was otherwise empty. Granted, we also went at a low-traffic showtime, in a low-traffic day of the week: in fact, we forgot that tickets are discounted at AMC on Tuesdays, and she only had to pay me back $7 for her ticket. The tickets I paid for opening weekend were like $16, with an upcharge AMC has started doing for high-demand new releases. (At least it had no effect on my monthly A-list Plus membership charge.)
Anyway, when I say the theater was empty, it was truly empty: only one other seat had even been purchased, and the person didn't actually show up. For this three-hour superhero movie, it was just Tracy and me. Even though masks aren't required currently, and Shobhit doesn't tend to wear his at theaters, both Tracy and I still do. Except in this case. With just the two of us in there, we didn’t bother. I suppose the room could have been filled with Covid from a previous patron, but, in all likelihood no earlier screening had many, or any, people in it either.
I got the Impossible Nuggets from Concessions. It's too expensive (just over ten bucks) but I don't care; I love that they offer them now, and I love the nuggets themselves. Shobhit has suggested I just heat Field Roast nuggets from home and bring them, except I would never have those as hot and fresh. It was delightful.
Tracy got herself an honestly too-large bucket of half-and-half popcorn, butter and caramel. This is something they did for years at Cinerama but is a recent addition at AMC. Eating it mixed is very tasty. She shared that with me too, and even offered the last quarter bucket or so for me to take home. I brought it home and left it for Shobhit to have when he got home from work.
— पांच हजार एक सौ त्र्याण्णव —
— पांच हजार एक सौ त्र्याण्णव —
I favorite thing about re-watching a movie in the cinema is not having to write a review when I get home. And this one's a
very long movie—three hours, although about ten minutes of that is the end credits. I stand by the B+ grade I gave it, although I feel even more now than after the first viewing that it could easily have been cut down to at least two and a half hours. That movie does not need to be that long.
It does have several spectacular action sequences, and the fact that there are not
too many is another thing I love about it—that it's not over-stuffed with action like far too many of these movies are, at the expense of story. What action there is in this one, is worth the wait. The freeway chase scene is amazing, and when that sequence ended, Tracy actually said to me, "I forgot to breathe!"
She also complained that we didn't get enough shirtless shots of Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne.
She gave me a ride home, as she always does, and I really spent the rest of my evening working on captioning the photos from last Sunday's day trip through Whidbey Island and Skagit County. With all the high-volume photogenic things coming up, I don't want to fall behind. Easter is Sunday this coming weekend, so I actually budgeted out how many photos I need to caption each day (23) among those left, so they would all be done before I have even more photos from Easter. Last night I actually worked ahead, so I'm already caught up through today. I should have time to do more tonight before I go see yet another movie.
Speaking of which, tomorrow SIFF starts. I have two tickets to in-theater movies and four tickets to virtual screeners, the latter of which I can watch any time during the festival. With the exception of Easter Sunday, starting tonight I'll have at least one movie review to write every day through Wednesday next week—with two to write on Saturday (both SIFF virtual screeners), because of Ivan's insistence that he's not available for a final dinner at Saffron Grill that day and so we'll have to go on Thursday next week. We had hoped to have Alexia join, as she has twice before, but apparently this depends on how early she gets done with meetings in Portland that day.
This last month with Ivan around is going to go by very quickly, just because of how busy I'll be. I'll actually be
watching three movies on Saturday—only reviewing two of them—because Alexia is also interested in seeing the new
Jurassic World: Dominion movie coming out in June. She suggested marathoning its five predecessors beforehand. We'll be seeing the first (and by far the best; it's still my #2 favorite movie of all time),
Jurassic Park, on Saturday. Given that the following week is my Birth Week, that precludes the next two weekends for "Jurassic" marathoning. I'll still have to confer with her on this, but that leaves only one week of wriggle room to get the other four in before the new movie opens, unless we happen to find any time midweek sometime to watch one. Still, I've tentatively marked my calendar for all of them, to make sure I keep my options open so we can hopefully make it work.
I believe she said she has seen
Jurassic Park before, but not many times and it has been many years, so she probably doesn't remember a whole lot. It will be really fun to watch it with newer eyes, as I practically have that movie memorized. I've easily watched it more than thirty times. I literally counted the first twenty times on the VHS tape I used to have of it, and that was replaced by a DVD boxed set of the original trilogy probably fifteen or more years ago.
— पांच हजार एक सौ त्र्याण्णव —
[posted 12:25 pm]
