— पञ्चसहस्राणि पञ्चशतानि सप्तनवति च —
Back in 1998, within the first year of my living in Seattle, I went to see the Johnny Depp movie
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at the Regal Meridian 16 theater, over my the Convention Center. This is a very tripped-out movie because Depp's character, Raoul, is high on drugs most of the time.
So, when the fire alarm went off in the middle of the movie, I was very confused for a moment, thinking the flashing lights were a part of the movie. Then I finally realized:
Oh, this is actually happening.
26 years later, last night, at the movie I went to with Laney—the new Dev Patel film
Monkey Man—a very similar thing happened. There's a lot going on in this movie visually—no drug highs, but a lot of stylized, quick-cut editing—so again, it took a moment to realize the flashing lights were not part of the movie.
It's interesting to see how people respond to situations like this. Once we were standing on the sidewalk outside the main entrance to Pacific Place, Laney commented on how calm and collected everyone was. I noted that this was very much a product of cultural conditioning—we all went through so many fire drills as children, any time a fire alarm goes off we not only assume it's nothing, but just mosey on outside at a steady but unrushed pace without any panic. To be fair, we also noted that if, say, we saw a giant Godzilla-like monster, we'd all indeed be running and screaming.
As it was, plenty of people inside Pacific Place made little to no effort to leave. The staff at the AMC theaters multiplex did tell us we had to go outside, they were locking up the theater. There are maybe three restaurants currently open on the same, top floor where the theater is located though, and we saw people dining at their tables and making no move to leave their meals. Laney noted that it was probably nothing. "But it
could be something," I said, driving home the point that we really should have been going outside regardless. Better safe than sorry, and Laney agreed.
Firefighters and at least two emergency vehicles from the closest fire station did indeed arrive to check things out. I saw a couple of them walk in through the main entrance, one with an axe held over his shoulder and another one carrying what looked like a metal poker.
Eventually we were let back in—surprisingly quickly, actually; I don't think we were outside much longer than ten minutes. We had taken escalators down, which I had suggested because getting in elevators under these circumstances is not recommended, but we took the elevator back up. The theater doors were still closed, and we walked over to one of the seats that look like rocks near the railing that looks down the building's central atrium, to sit while we waited. And then: the alarm started going off again! It had the same recorded voice message that we had initially heard inside the theater:
Your attention please. Building management has decided to evacuate the building.
This time, I was much more certain that it was a false alarm, but Laney felt we should go back downstairs anyway; we could always just come back up again. We got to the ground floor and weren't even at the doors before the alarm had turned off again. We turned around to head back to the elevators, but we also saw another firefighter heading toward us, on his way out of the building, and Laney walked over to him to ask whether we were right in assuming it was safe to be back inside.
The guy confirmed that indeed it was, and even gave us more information unsolicited: a cook burned some food in a restaurant kitchen, setting off the sprinkler system and thus the fire alarm to the building. So, that's what happened.
The guy was huge. Very tall, several inches taller than I, and quite stocky. Not usually my type. He had a very cute face though, and he was super friendly and agreeable which made him even cuter. He could hoist me over his shoulder any time he wanted.
— पञ्चसहस्राणि पञ्चशतानि सप्तनवति च —
— पञ्चसहस्राणि पञ्चशतानि सप्तनवति च —
AMC staff scanned all of our tickets again to let us back inside, once staff finally made it back, several minutes after most of us, and opened the doors again. By the time my QR code on my AMC app was being scanned, the staffer informed us the movie was already restarted, which was kind of annoying. On the other hand, Laney and I had both agreed that, even about an hour into the movie, so little of substance in the story had actually happened that we wouldn't likely feel like we missed much.
This turned out to be true. In the end, both Laney and I, after having high hopes for it, found ourselves disappointed by the film. At first I told her I was leaning toward a B-minus, and her immediate response was, "That's generous." When I got home later and sat down to write the review, I realized she was right. This was
a C+ movie at best.
Curiously, Letterboxd users are generally loving it. The average user rating is 3.8 out of 5 stars. I have it two and a half. This was Dev Patel's directorial debut, and it really shows. I often find myself really impressed by directorial debuts, but not this one. It had a lot of competent and talented people working on it, but if the story itself lacks cohesion, it kind of renders all the talent inert.
Anyway, Laney and I met at Pacific Place at 5:00, after I walked downtown from work; the showtime was at 5:15. There were so many trailers it was ridiculous; when they finally ended I said, "What day is it?" And then the movie has a run time of two hours and one minute—lengthened by the fire alarm interlude. It was well after 8:00 by the time I got home. Thankfully I had leftovers to eat that I only had to nuke in the mircowave; I had it with the last of the champaigne I brought home from Lopez Island—I had no juice to add to it for a mimosa but adding orange Zevia soda, especially now that the champagne was flat, did the trick in a pinch.
There was really no time for anything else last night. By the time I had my review posted, it was time to get ready for bed. I never saw or spoke to Shobhit last night either (he's still in India, and will be for nearly another two weeks), aside from an exchange of texts while Laney and I were outside during the fire alarm.
I had made myself chai with the last of my milk on Monday night, and I think I used a bit too much of the loose tea: I had a terrible time sleeping Monday night, constantly waking up. As a result I was rather tired last night and I slept like a log. It was a challenge to get out of bed this morning when my alarm went off. But, I'm okay now.
— पञ्चसहस्राणि पञ्चशतानि सप्तनवति च —
[posted 12:30 pm]
