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I am finding that it is much easier to enjoy lesser-quality films at Action Movie Night every other Wednesday. It seems this is the point: this group is not getting together to watch movies with any kind of critical eye, but just to hang out with each other and have a good time. The stakes are far lower, at least intellectually speaking, than when I go to the movies on my own with the intent to review it, which I do for literally every new release I go to see. At Action Movie Night, on the other hand, I can see something like Bullet Train, which I gave a C+ after seeing it in theaters last August, and then actually have a blast upon rewatch.

So, I had a similar experience last night, even though the movie was not one I had seen before—but I still went in with decidedly low expectations. Last night was Shobhit's first pick, and he even emailed me for a suggestion—not a suggestion of a movie pick, but which I thought he should pick between two possibilities: Face of Evil, "Low budget movie in which I acted," or Mojave.

In the end, Mojave was the choice, which was what I had suggested. I really love the idea of surprising the group with a movie Shobhit was actually in, but there are only about two particularly decent feature films he was in, and neither of them quite fit the broader theme of Action Movie Night. I haven’t even seen Face of Evil, but on IMDb the user rating is 2.8 out of 10—not ideal. Even Mojave, which Shobhit had recently found on HBO Max and decided he wanted to watch, had mixed to bad reviews, but at least it was still in the realm of "mixed," which countless movies in the Action Movie Night history have been. They watch a lot of movies that are "kind of bad" but not a whole lot that are objectively terrible.

So, to be perfectly honest, I did not think Mojave would be terrible, but I did fear it would be "meh" at best or dreadfully boring at worst. It wasn't quite either of those things.

When Shobhit was still setting up the laptop in the theater room after I had helped him get things plugged in and such, for a moment I was out in the kitchen with everyone else while Shobhit was still in the theater, and Tony asked if I was excited for this week's movie. "I'm not exited about it at all, actually," I said, and we both laughed. I clarified that I didn't think Shobhit's choice was going to be awful, but I thought it might be kind of "meh." I also told him that I played no part whatsoever in Shobhit's choice: "I stayed completely out of it," I said. I guess I just demonstrated in the above paragraphs that that isn't technically true—I did guide Shobhit between his two proposed ideas. But also, my approach is always to find a good, quality film that hopefully will entertain the group. Shobhit's approach, and this was the part I made a concerted effort not to influence, was more like this: there was a mid-tier movie he had already found on a streamer he thought looked interesting, and so he decided he would just wait until Wednesday and make it his inaugural choice for Action Movie Night.

Which is to say: I'm interested in demonstrating that I have good taste, even though the group doesn't particularly care about that. Shobhit simply made a choice just like he would if he were choosing to watch a movie on his own at home. In fact that was exactly what he did.

And you know what? It didn't suck. I mean, it still wasn't great—and, amusingly, I just found this Observer article from January 2016 with the headline, 'Mojave' Is the Worst Movie of the Still-Young New Year. And the thing is, had I seen it in theaters then, I might very well have agreed. But with no need to get all that invested in its quality, I found it surprisingly engaging watching it last night. Even though Oscar Isaac, who is nearly unrecognizable as the villain who uses the word "brother" way too often, adopts a truly preposterous accent. I wonder how much he got paid for that job. But, whatever—spoiler alert!—when Garrett Hedlund finally shoots him dead, I found that moment eminently satisfying.

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So anyway, who all was there last night? I think there were nine of us: Tony, Jake, Ben, Chris B, Ryan, Sean, Jesse, Shobhit and myself.

For the second time, Shobhit made cucumber sandwiches, this time using cream cheese as the spread, with red peppers and basil on top of the cucumbers. They are super tasty and all but two of the sandwich halves got eaten.

Two other people brought pizzas that were vegetarian, which Shobhit and I appreciated. Shobhit made himself a Tequila Sunrise using Mango Nectar for a cocktail; I made my requisite Hot Buttered Rum, using the batter I've saved for a couple of months now for use only on these movie nights. I should be using the last of them at the next one in two weeks—which, I was relieved to realize, is a solid 11 days prior to our trip to Australia, which is an ideal distance as the last unmasked group gathering I should be at begore we go.

There was some discussion about the Academy Award nominations, which had been announced just the day before. It was interesting to hear this group talk about them, because Ben, for instance, noted that two of the ten Best Picture nominees (Triangle of Sadness and the likely winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once) were previous choices at Action Movie Night—although Ben, who clearly has been going since its early days, called it "Man Movie Night." I still hate that regressive phrase. What the fuck does that even mean, really? I'm glad it was officially changed when the broad invitation was extended to the entire building. But, I guess old habits die hard.

Anyway. There was a moment when Ben actually said, "I think we can all agree that Top Gun Maverick was the best movie of the year, right?" Um, no. I did think it was great, don’t get me wrong, but Best Picture? Come on. I got the feeling he hasn't even seen the true best picture, Tár. This is not to say I think Ben has no taste; he sung the praises of the brilliant 2021 HBO miniseries Station Eleven, after all. In fact, there was a period there where we all got into talk about quality series like Andor or The Mandalorian, or even MCU series like Loki (which I enjoyed a lot but would not call it amazing) or Wanda Vision (meh).

Getting back to movies, Ben did mention that, of the Best Picture nominees, Top Gun: Maverick was the only one during which he did not check his watch. That's amazing to me. I only felt one of them was too long for its own good, and that was Elvis.

Someone brought potato chips, and I had some of those too. Between more food than usual and also a cocktail, I'm amazed my weight is merely flat this morning compared to yesterday, rather than increasing. Now I just need to stay disciplined again for the next two weeks. At least I am well rested today: I actually went to bed shortly after the movie, which thankfully was a brisk 93 minutes long, was over, and was sound asleep unusually early, at 9:51. The alarm woke me up at 5:09, so I got a solid seven hours of sleep and then some.

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[posted 12:30 pm]