— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ अट्ठाईस —
I stopped working yesterday at 4:00. I realized, right after I packed up my laptop and all its accessories back into my backpack for returning to the office today, I really could have worked another ten or fifteen minutes. But, then it was done. Oh well! I had some extra time to wash dishes, which I cannot resent Shobhit for not doing for the next two weeks, as he's not supposed to get the dressing on the hand that underwent surgery wet, until he gets it taken off on the day after Christmas.
I asked Shobhit if he'd be okay with me going to a movie. He asked what movie it was, and I said,
Godzilla Minus One, which I had heard on one of my podcast was a surprise hit—especially for a foreign film—and was also surprisingly good. Shobhit said, "It's discount Tuesday, right?" So I said, "Yeah. Do you want to come?" I noted that I also had a $5 reward I could use toward it, so his ticket would only barely
not be free.
He went for it. I booked the tickets, and after the $5 reward was applied, all I had to pay for his ticket was $2.10.
Shobhit absolutely got his money's worth. When I
wrote about us watching the new, German version of
All Quiet on the Western Front last January, I mentioned how Shobhit tends to get really into war epics. If there's a romance element, all the better.
One of the many surprises of
Godzilla Minus One is that it qualifies for all of the above—in addition to being a giant monster movie. Shobhit was
locked in. We hadn't even gotten past the opening sequence when we first see Godzilla attack the island military camp when he turned to me and said, "I like this movie."
Clearly he doesn't mind subtitles so much when it's in the theater. At home, he complains about it meaning "I have to pay 100% attention." Well, in a movie theater, you kind of do that by default. He can't keep getting up to get a snack, or browse the internet. This movie clearly did not bore him, though. By the end, even
before the emotional reunion between characters—like, just the sweeping vistas of the ocean and military ships that managed to (spoiler alert!) defeat the monster—I heard Shobhit sniffling.
I was genuinely surprised. Shobhit is not a big cryer at movies. He cried at
Coco, but that made straightforward sense. Crying at an action movie—albeit one, admittedly, with genuinely compelling human drama regardless of monster sea creature attacks—was not something I expected. To be fair, once the aforementioned emotional reunion occurred, even I got a little tear-eyed. And I'm usually the one who is a crybaby; sometimes even commercials make me cry.
This part really took me aback: as soon as the credits rolled, Shobhit turned to me and said, "Number one movie of the year." Seriously?
Shobhit used the bathroom, and when he came out he predicted what grade I would be giving it. Mind you, 95% of the time he is spot on with what grade I will give a film. "A?" he said. "A-minus?"
"B-plus, probably," I said. At first he thought I said "A-plus," and was clearly thrilled. No:
a gave it a B-plus. I really stand by that, and you can read my review to see why.
Shobhit was very disappointed. I was like, "B-plus still means really good!" Shobhit countered: "It was better than
Barbie. It was better than
Oppenheimer. It was better than the moon movie," in the latter case trying to come up with
Killers of the Flower Moon. And, okay,
Godzilla Minus One genuinely is a shockingly good movie given the IP, but it is objectively
not better than any of those other three movies. (Although, I am in the minority here, you could possibly convince me it was better than
Oppenheimer, just by virtue of how that film treats its women like sexual window dressing.) He declared that if
Godzilla Minus One gets any SAG Award nominations, that's what he's voting for. If that movie gets any SAG Award nominations, I'll eat my foot. There are just far too many other, far more widely seen, superior films from this year.
Mind you, I would still recommend it. I really enjoyed
Godzilla Minus One, in spite of the few minor issues I had with it—which I detailed in my review, in which I had a lot to say about it. We walked home from Pacific Place and I then spent about an hour writing that review.
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ अट्ठाईस —
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ अट्ठाईस —
I have a ridiculous lot going on today. "Holiday lunch" with my three-person team, with Gabby and Amy, at Serious Pie. We still had our regular Wednesday morning in-person meeting this morning, and Gabby said, "Who's ready to eat a lot of pizza?"
Gabby had also left a lovely Christmas card, alongside a small bottle of prosecco with a gift bow on it, on my desk this morning, while I was in the kitchen getting tea. I put the bottle next to my little Christmas troll I put out on my desk in December, to make it look like he's already celebrating.
Tonight is also Action Movie Night at The Braeburn Condos theater, which starts every other Wednesday at 6:30. But
between that and the end of my work day, Katy from UNFI has invited several of us again for "Miracle on 2nd," at Rob Roy on 2nd Avenue. The invite said "3rd Annual"—I wasn't invited in 2021, but I was last year. And I had a lovely time.
It does mean, though, that I won't get home in time to make the dish to bring to Action Movie Night like I usually do, but that's okay because Shobhit decided he would bring an Indian snack mix for the first time this time. He can't chop with his bandaged hand, so last night I chopped onions, tomatoes, potatoes and mushrooms for him. He'll put it all together tonight before I get home from going out for drinks.
Anyway! Lunch today: Gabby got us a Lyft so we wouldn't have to worry about parking, and off we went, at 11:30, to Serious Pie on 4th Avenue. I'm pretty sure I've had their pizza before, but I don't think I had ever eaten at that location. We were going to share two pizzas, but Gabby wanted to get one of the ones with meat, so we shared three (I only ate from the two vegetarian ones, of course).
We talked about all sorts of things, talked shop a bit, gossipped a bit. I really like advocating for team lunches like this at least once a quarter, because I really believe there's value in getting to know your coworkers as people. I had budgeted for this, but Gabby kind of threw down the gauntlet and pretty much suggested that she'll be springing for any and all of these lunches. Amy was like, "We have to pay you back sometime!" and even offered to call the Lyft back, but Gabby wouldn't hear of it.
Me, I never have any problem accepting generosity. I do sometimes like to think of my own way to be generous back, though. One of these days.
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ अट्ठाईस —
[posted 1:22 pm]
