— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे-चार —
I managed to attend what effectively was a sneak preview of
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, starring Nicolas Cage as himself, at Pacific Place last night. The movie opens Friday but there was a single showing last night at 7:00. Because of the SIFF movies I need to see over the next week, if I didn't want to have to wait another two weeks or so to see this one, I had to go to this showing last night.
Reserving the ticket was a little confusing, as instead of calling it a "sneak preview," the AMC app called it an "AMC Investor Connect Screening." Like, what the fuck does that mean? Is it for AMC shareholders? Well, whatever; the app and my AMC A-list Plus membership allowed me to reserve a seat as normal. I wondered if I would get stopped and asked for some sort of credentials when coming in, but nothing of the sort happened. There were maybe 20 or 30 people in the theater and no one else seemed any different than an average moviegoer either.
Well, but for one exception, a guy in the front section who kept talking really loudly during the trailers. The trailers were loud enough that I didn't even notice for a few minutes, but during a brief moment of silence between trailers, the guy yelled out something incomprehensible, and someone in the stands of seats behind me said something like, "Are you going to talk through the whole movie?"
And then, before the movie started, a young woman who I suspect may have been a theater manager came in and asked him to come outside with her, which the guy actually did willingly, even though he kept kind of ranting as he left. He never came back in so he must have been asked to leave, if not outright escorted out. I was surprised the theater even went out of their way to do that, clearly for the sake of the rest of us in there.
Bizarrely, there was yet another guy in the front section, in the back row of that section and about two rows behind the first guy, who
also shouted out things a couple of times. What was this, a ranters and ravers convention? This second guy even turned around to shout something back at the back section, where I was seated in the stadium seating, and it seemed to be directed at the person who had previous asked the first guy if he was going to keep talking. This second guy wasn't as angry as the first, seemed to be trying to prove some point I guess, in a tone that indicated he seemed to think he was being reasonable. When he finished talking the second time, turned back at us in the back section, he turned back around with a sort of dismissive wave of his hand at us in the back.
The thing is, though,
this guy was both attempting to talk over the sound of the continued trailers, and speaking through a perfectly well fitted face mask. The ultimate result of this was that none of us had a clue what the fuck he was saying, rendering his efforts completely useless. The guy was clearly a bit nutso on some level himself, or at least perfectly willing to be some measure of disruptive in his own right. So, he lost most respect from me there. But, I grudgingly had to respect him for being sensible and keeping his mask on—which is not even required currently by the county. It was a weird mix of emotions, observing this weirdo who at least was wearing a mask.
Anyway, the movie was . . . fine. A lot of unrealized potential, but adequately entertaining. I had settled on a solid B but as I wrote the review after I got home, I spent far too much time criticizing it to feel like a solid B made sense. I did say I still had a good time, but I had to knock it down to a B-minus.
— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे-चार —
— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे-चार —
I might have gotten to bed a bit earlier, but wound up spending a bit of time exchanging texts with Danielle right after I finished, starting with her sending me a photo of a muffin, apparently, or something—I'm still unclear on exactly what it was—covered in what looked like peanut butter. I don’t know if it was a mini muffin on the end of her finger, all of it covered, or what, but what it looked like was an erect penis covered in shit. Nice conversation starter.
We got to talking about our Birth Week day together, though, and she proposed something that throws a bit of a twist into the plans for that first weekend but I may still be able to work. It would just mean finding a way to go from Seattle to Kitsap County to Shelton (or more specifically, Union, where Jennifer lives) to Olympia and back to Renton over Saturday through Monday, without the use of a car. Because Danielle proposed she take the Amtrak down from Tukwila Station in the morning so we could ride back together later the same day, and that way we get an actual train ride in. This will be logistically challenging because until she proposed this, even though I had long figured a Birth Week themed on trains should obviously include a ride on Amtrak, I had not managed to find a way to actually fit Amtrak in. Now, maybe I can.
I had to call Dad this morning to confirm it would be okay to stay the night at his and Sherri's house Sunday night that weekend, and get a ride to the train station the next day. Dad has to start preparing for a medical procedure on Monday that week but it should still work. But, I then needed to see if Jennifer would be okay with driving me—and my bike—to Olympia on Sunday morning. Assuming that can work out, then I would just take the Bremerton ferry with my bike instead of the car on Saturday, and then the Bremerton-Annapolis passenger ferry to meet up with Jennifer at Kitsap Live Steamers late Saturday morning.
Jennifer got back to me this morning and did tell me it shouldn't be a problem to give me a ride Sunday morning to Olympia. The last question is just the logistics of getting my bike on the northbound train from Lacey station, and once I have that ironed out—the website shows that I can take a bike on, but says nothing about a fee or registering it as the site elsewhere says should be an option—then it's just a matter of both Danielle and me booking our tickets. The only way this can likely work is if Danielle books a 7:30 am train southbound, and then we ride together back on either 10:13 a.m. or 1:53 p.m. Both of those are too early for Danielle to come southbound on a later train and still be there in time for the northbound return; the next northbound train is not until 9:18 pm, and there's still a plan to do dinner in Renton.
— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे-चार —
[posted 12:20 pm]
