— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्रह —
It was Action Movie Night at the Braeburn Condos last night, which means it was the one night this entire week in which I did
not have to write a review of the movie I saw.
It was Tony's choice this week—it has cycled back around to him right after my choice every time I've gotten a choice so far, which has now been four. Tony tends to have good taste, an average of better quality picks over the long, 12-year hisory he has with this group himself (as literally the host of the group). He admitted he had never seen this one, though.
The choice was a movie I actually reviewed just last month:
Monkey Man. How he got a digital file copy of this movie, I don't know; he was a bit cagey about that. I think he got it through Ryan, actually, who is the one who's always got digital file copies of movies. I do see that it's available on VOD currently, albeit for twenty bucks.
I would bet that had it been rented, we would have gotten the stylized subtitles that I saw in the theater for most of the times people spoke in Hindi. I also had an advantage when I saw it in the theater, because I went to a screening that was closed captioned, giving me translations of
all the Hindi spoken in it.
There's mostly English spoken in the movie, but there's a lot of Hindi. This copy had no subtitles whatsoever, which made for an interestingly unique viewing experience with this group—Shobhit is the one person among us who not only speaks Hindi, but as a native language. He understood absolutely all the dialogue, and would often giggle at Hindi being spoken when none of the rest of us had any idea what was being said. One of his bigger giggles had someone asking what the guy onscreen had just said, which turned out to be "Get up, motherfucker!" in Hindi.
There's also an extended opening sequence, a flashback of the title character as a child listening to his mother tell a mythical tale of a monkey that ate the sun, thinking it was a mango, or something. (I probably got that totally wrong.) In the theater I got to see it all in English subtitles. Last night, we all just watched this mother and son speaking in Hindi, with no aid as to what she was saying.
As I noted after the movie ended, it didn't make a huge difference not being able to understand all the Hindi spoken—but, it would have enhanced the experience a bit. No part of it changed the criticisms I had after seeing it last month, and
I stand by the C+ grade I gave it.
I also talked to Jake, before the movie, about having started to read
Dune, the original novel. He was nearly as excited to hear that as Gabriel had been (although Gabriel actually used the word "jacked"). He proceeded to give me a bunch of other science fiction novel recommendations that I probably won't ever get to, including further sequels in the
Dune series.
It was otherwise a packed evening last night. I rode my bike home from work, and Shobhit was nearly done making the macaroni and cheese we brought as our vegetariandish to the pre-movie potluck. I was a little put off by the rather large amount of sauteed vegetables he was adding—I always think macaroni & cheese should be simpler, with two or three added ingredients at most—but, I have to concede, it proved popular. Like three people complimented us on the dish last night.
Then, we spent about an hour with me helping Shobhit record audition readings he needed to submit on video. We got downstairs about five minutes late, which was very unusual, because of it. We're usually the first ones to get down there. It didn't really matter, of course.
There were two new guys attending last night. One of them was introduced to us, and I overheard the other one's name getting mentioned. I can't remember either one. I think the first one was a guest brought by Chris. I do remember that the latter guy apparently lives in the west building, the one the kitchen and theater are in. We'll see if either of them keep coming back, and I can finally learn their names. Besides them, there were Tony, Jake, Ryan, Chris G, Derek, Daniel, Shobhit, and myself. I think that was everyone. That would make ten.
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्रह —
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्रह —
It seems I have found a new perso to swap cat sitting duties with in the building, since Alexia is moving to Issaquah at the end of the month. I went to the discussion board for the Braeburn yesterday morning to post a request for this—and found someone else who had done exactly the same late Tuesday night! How's that for timing?
I jumped in as a last minute sitter for their cat, Tachi, down on the second floor, after apparently other arrangements fell through at the last minute. I'm not sure I have ever met this straight, presumably young couple who evidently have a small child—in a studio condo, I discovered when I went into it last night. I think they were doing a lot of last-minute things to head out last night, and there was never time to send me specific instructions; I barely got her to text me the code for their door.
I spent several minutes trying to find where the hell they would be storing cat food, only to see a jug of it on the kitchen counter right in front of my face. I learned later they had fed the cat before leaving, but I would never have known that because they didn't tell me. I later finally got information on the litter cleaning (theirs is not the clumping flushable kind), which I went down to do this morning.
Tachi is ridiculously friendly, and was all over me the moment I got in the door last night. Anyway, I'm hoping the somewhat frazzled vibe I got from this woman isn't too much carried over to returning the favor to look after Shanti and Guru while we are in Toronto next month, but the current plan is for that to be what happens. I did tell her my cats are old and therefore a bit higher maintenance. I already have a detailed Word document that I have shared with Alexia many times, and thankfully, Alexia still has her calendar marked for these dates in case she is needed as a backup.
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्रह —
Speaking of Toronto, it seems even Shobhit is already looking up ideas for things to do while we're there, which makes me happy.
He even texted me that we should talk about whether it'll be worth it to buy a Toronto "CityPass," so we can do multiple things—including the CN Tower—at a combined, pretty steep discount. I didn't have any of the other qualifying items on my initial list of things to do, but looked again and found two that I'd actually love to do: touring the Casa Loma, a 1914 Gothic Revival castle-style mansion; and a Toronto city cruise. We've done similar cruises in both Vancouver and in Chicago and I think we'd get some spectacular views of the city. So as of this morning, I'm really liking this idea.
I already have several other things to do on my list, of course. But actually most of those are either free or cheap, so that's good. We're thinking we'll go to Groupon to look for a place to have afternoon tea somewhere.
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्रह —
[posted 12:35 pm]
