Holy shit! Sort of. Sort of? I'm going to need some more contextualization from Shobhit on this, but: at the Tasveer Film Festival screening of
Katlaa Curry Saturday night, there was an Indian prince in attendance: Manvendra Singh Gohil. He's thought to be
the first opening gay prince in the world!
Except: to what degree is he
recognized as a prince? This is where I am at a loss, now that I figured this out today. But, when I google
royal families in India, this guy's family never appears to get listed. Even
his own Instagram profile identifies himself as "Prince of erstwhile Princely State of Rajpipla Gujarat India."
Erstwhile? Is this just because the
Kingdom of Rajpipla is no longer a State, existing inside what is now Gujarat? What is the distinction here, I don't get it? Why is he called a "prince" but he doesn't seem to get included in lists of Indian royal families? There must be a bunch of historical details and nuances that I just have no understanding of. Shobhit might.
And here's the thing, about that screening on Saturday night. It was scheduled for 8:45, and started at about 9:00. Shobhit got off work at 9:00 but drove to meet me and came into the theater about 20 minutes into the movie. He'd have come earlier, but he thought we were going to the Uptown and had to get redirected (by me, over text—don't worry, these South Asian audiences are riddled with people who text during movies; on Thursday multiple people actually took photos of the screen during the movie) to the PACCAR IMAX Theater at the Pacific Science Center. When I noted that the screenshot of the ticket I sent him wrote the location, he replied:
You expect me to read everything when I am working. I decided to ignore that. Because: ummm, no. But it would make sense for you to check the location
after work and before you drive to the theater. That's not an unreasonable location. Given that Thursday's movie was at the same place, I don't know why he just assumed otherwise, except perhaps to assume they only used the IMAX theater for a special occasion like the Opening Night movie. But, the schedule showed many movies playing there.
Here's the thing, though. There
was a screening of another movie at the Uptown, and it was far more attended. When
Katlaa Curry was introduced, a lady said into a microphone, "I guess everyone went to the other screening, I apologize." At that moment, I counted how many people were in the audience:
eight. After the movie started, at least another six people or so straggled in.
The movie at the Uptown was a pretty significant one, an incredibly critically acclaimed film (MetaScore 91!) called
All We Imagine as Light. Under other circumstances, I'd have gone over to that one myself. But, Shobhit got a code for us to use and get into any of the LGBT themed movies for free, and I found this one about two fishermen who fall in love and booked tickets to that, since it cost us nothing.
In retrospect, I think perhaps it was a mistake for the programmers to screen
Katlaa Curry at the same time as
All We Imagine as Light, a
far higher-profile movie.
Katlaa Curry was a movie I
gave a solid B, and it was worth seeing.
Anyway, that Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil had gotten up to speak for a few quick minutes before the film, and I did not register exactly who he was; I thought he was the director, and even texted Shobhit that the director was there. When the film ended though, and the prince came up again, Shobhit whispered explanations to me and I did not fully understand him. When he said, "Where is the director?" I had to say, "I misunderstood, I thought it was that guy." And when Shobhit explained that the guy sitting next to who I did not realize was the prince was the
partner of an openly gay Indian prince, I thought it was just the partner coming to help promote the movie, with some other guy who was involved in the production somehow but evidently not the director as I initially thought.
It was only when I started googling these people this morning that I realized:
Oh! That guy
was the prince. They were there, as a couple, promoting the movie.
I had already felt bad that the screening was so sparsely attended. I'm even more shocked now that it didn't get more attention, with the world's only openly gay prince there. Except: maybe this prince isn't that big a deal in many people's minds? Not necessarily because he's gay, but because he's not part of a fully recognized Indian royal family? This is the part I can't figure out. If people still call him a prince, though, and it gets noted that he's the only openly gay prince in the world, that certainly strikes
me as a big deal. I wish more people had come!
— पांच हजार छह सौ अट्ठानबे —
Beyond all that, I had a
very movie-centric weekend. I saw two movies in the theater on Saturday and I watched two movies as a double feature with Laney in the Braeburn Condos theater on Sunday.
Friday was just at home, though, and Shobhit and I watched a bunch of TV. We caught up on
Only Murders in the Building, and then the two episodes of the current season of
Abbott Elementary that I did not realize had already aired—both of which were legit hilarious. Then I got roped into watching
Real Time with Bill Maher even though I'm really not a fan of his anymore; between his transphobic bullshit (he actually used the phrase "gender denialism" a few weeks ago, unironically) and his endless complaining about supposed government overreach during pandemic lockdowns (mistakes were made, even I will concede, but they were always based on the available data at the time and with the intent of saving lives), I kind of can't stand him anymore. But, he had David Hogg on as his guest and I love that guy, who actually heldp his own very well against Maher's needling, which Shobhit pointed out. Then his panel guests were Joe Scarborough and Mark Cuban, who spent an excessive amount of time just agreeing with each other, but at least Joe Scarborough pushed back against Bill Maher about more than one of the kind of dumb things he said.
Oh, and before I even got to the TV shows on Friday, I finally wrote my review of
Wakhri, the film Shobhit and I had seen as the opening night film at Tasveer on Thursday. Twice since Thursday, I had to wait until the next day to write the review because the movie showtime had been too late.
— पांच हजार छह सौ अट्ठानबे —
— पांच हजार छह सौ अट्ठानबे —
Anyway! The other movies from the weekend. On Saturday afternoon, Laney and I walked down to Pacific Place to see
We Live In Time, the cancer drama starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield. We both enjoyed it quite a lot, mostly because of the stars.
Laney said she wanted a snack after the movie, so we went over to the Starbucks on 7th Avenue, where we both got a pastry and a drink (I got a tall hot chocolate), and chatted for a bit. I had the iced lemon cake and it was fabulous.
From there, at my suggestion, Laney joined me to check out the
Día de los Muertos skulls that are at the two Seattle Convention Center buildings. The art on the one we found very quickly right inside the front entrance to the Arch building was stunning. We then walked over to the Summit building and didn't take long to locate the skull there, which was very pretty as well—as well as a very cool heart painted on the side—but not quite as stunning as the other one, in my opinion. This leaves only one skull, located over by the Amazon campus, for me to see and get pictures of. After these, I already have
a photo album with 21 shots in it, one more than the album I had for the skulls placed around downtown last year. I'm sure I'll get somewhere between 3 and 5 shots of the last skull I need to see, too. I may see that with Tracy on Saturday next weekend, after we go to the
Día de Muertos Festival at Seattle Center that afternoon.
Laney was clearly glad to have checked out the two very accessible to us this past Saturday, though, both within a block of our regular route back home after the movie. We then just walked the rest of the way up Pine Street.
I went home after that, wrote my review, and it must have been well after 6:00 by the time I was done. I made myself some dinner. I hopped on a bus shortly after 8:00, and went straight down to Westlake Center where I transferred to the Monorail to take me straight to Seattle Center. I wish that track were longer than one mile, but I do love that it moves you a full mile in all of two minutes. If the transfer syncs up well, it can really save you a lot of time—easily done for me, as I have an annual transit pass, which thankfully has been working on the Monorail sice 2019.
I had a rare opportunity to sit in the front seat, facing the front window, while riding the Monorail. They kept that section roped off for quite a long time after the pandemic began, and only within the past couple of months finally removed it. And usually families or kids snag that spot, but I was riding on a Saturday at about 8:30 p.m. with no Kraken game going on; there was only a handful of passengers on the train. It had been raining lightly so of course I took a short video, which I was really happy with even though I couldn't get the camera to focus on the approaching Space Needle rather than the fucking raindrops on the window. Then the upload to TikTok got snagged somehow, and it took me several minutes to get the video loaded properly to my socials. By the time I finally got to the Pacific Science Center with that handled, it was just a few minutes before the movie was supposed to start.
After the expeirence on Thursday, I figured there would be a delay in the movie itself actually starting—which would actually only help Shobhit as he could not leave work until 9:00. When I got there, I was surprised to see no one in line or anything. I came in the door, and a young woman at a table scanned my QR code. I walked toward the theater entrance, and another guy asked if I had been scanned in and I said yes. So, I went to the door, went in, and sat down.
I totally assumed everyone in there was for the same movie I was there for, although I was kind of surprised there were already people speaking with microphones to introduce the film. But then they actually
finished, and the small crowd in there actually got up to leave! I had actually crashed the straggling end of the previous screening. Sheesh. Nobody tried to stop me from going in, though. Was this a White privilege thing? I honestly don't know.
One other person just stayed in their seat, clearly waiting for the next movie. And within a few minutes, the handful of other people arrived. I do wonder how many of the eight who had been in there when the movie first started were there with paid tickets. I was not; presumably the prince and his partner were not; that would have left five. As I said, though, antoher six or so came in later, although Shobhit was also in there for free.
— पांच हजार छह सौ अट्ठानबे —
So that finally brings us to yesterday, when Shobhit worked from 8:30 to 1:30 and then volunteered for Theater Puget Sound—helping set up for the "Gregory Awards," the local theater awards ceremony I only just learned about with this, that we'll be attending tonight—for a few hours in the afternoon.
And while he did that, Laney came over at noon, and we watched two movies we had both long had interest in but, frustratingly, neither ever got a theatrical release in Seattle proper (the second one had screenings in the suburbs only, something that continues to baffle me). So: we saw
The End We Start From, a bleak near-future drama about an environmental disaster in the UK, starring Jodie Comer; and
I'll Be Right There, a comedy about a woman addicted to the chaos of her family starring Edie Falco, which was far more fun. I definitely made the right choice to watch them in that order. I could hear Laney sighing during the first one, not out of boredom—we both agreed it was very well made—but just out of the exhaustion of the terrible things that kept happening.
I had the theater booked for six hours, but we were done in less than four. We spent a bit of time chatting, before she went home, kind of humorously in the rain—the disaster is all about massive flooding causing a near societal breakdown in
The End We Start From. She walked through the tunnel of scaffolding now stretched up the walls of both Braeburn buildings that face the "canyon" between the two.
Before Shobhit got home and we watched this week's episode of
The Penguin, I spent a good amount of time working on this year's calendars. I really need to get on that during what small amount of spare time I have for it. Shobhit had actually emailed me a couple of possible things to go do on Friday evening, but I realized that day that Saturday would mark the beginning of two solid weeks during which I have plans of one kind or another every single day, so I wanted to keep that evening free.
Tonight I have the aforementioned Gregory Awards; Tuesday and Thursday I go to movies (though I don't yet have confirmation that the Thursday one will be playing locally then, so that one could change); Friday is my first in-person pumpkin carving party in many years (the last four had been virtual; the last in-person one I did was in 2014, after which I gave up because people stopped coming); Saturday is the
Día de Muertos Festival; Sunday I'm doing a "Triple Feature Pizza Party" at the Grand Illusion theater with Tracy. At least all I have on Wednesday is a scheduled haircut. I should probably also buy my pumpkin that day.
— पांच हजार छह सौ अट्ठानबे —
[posted 12:32 pm]
