— पांच हजार सात सौ पांच —
So I did plenty this weekend, but thankfully Halloween was behind us by the time the weekend began so there's not a huge amount to write about it. I just want to record what I did!
For instance: I went to a movie with Laney on Friday, but I didn't even have to write a review for it, because
I already did nearly a year ago. It was
Godzilla Minus One, given a re-release to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the creature in pop culture.
The first Japanese
Godzilla movie came out in 1954, thus being the year it was born. You know what this made me think of? Sherri, Barbara, Gail (Danielle's Mom), Janine (Gabriel's mom)—all born in 1952. They're all older than Godzilla! I need to inform them all individually as soon as I can.
Laney and I had originally planned to see
Anora that night, only to find that, while it opened at SIFF Cinema that day, it was not opening at AMC until November 8 (this coming Friday). I am more eager to see that movie than maybe anything else coming out the rest of the year, but Laney wanted to wait the week so we could use our AMC memberships. I was okay with that, even though it put a crunch on other movies we intend to see in November,
and it left no new release for us to see this past weekend. I noticed that
Godzilla Minus One had been re-released, though, and Laney had not yet seen it. I told her it's great, and she agreed we could see that instead.
We had to see it at 7:00 because there was no other ideal showtime. Totally fine; as I said, I did not have to write a review anyway. We walked down to Pacific Place together as usual. When the movie ended, she said, "That was fucking amazing!"
She was suitably impressed. I had already told her that when Shobhit saw it with me last December, after he had actually
cried (something he very rarely does, even at movies), he turned to me and said: "Best movie of the year." I kind of thought: okay, settle down. It's great and all but not
that great.
Laney was clearly more aligned with me on this, but she was super glad to have seen it—the first Godzilla movie of any kind, Japanese or American production, she had ever seen. It's a great introduction.
— पांच हजार सात सौ पांच —
That brings us to Saturday, when I also hung out with Laney: we had our second Happy Hour in six days. We usually space out our Happy Hours roughly every two weeks (they are scheduled every second Saturday and every fourth Monday), and this was originally scheduled for November 8. But, she has a friend's birthday party to attend that day, and Shobhit and I leave for Phoenix on Sunday. So, we just rescheduled it for the previous Saturday.
We went to a place on 15th called Bar Vacilando, which I kept forgetting I had been to once before:
with Shobhit, in the summer of 2019. It's easy to miss as it's nestled between two other joins on 15th Avenue E about six and a half blocks north of my condo complex; Laney met me there and we walked the rest of the way together.
They have an inner courtyard that is quasi-open air: it has a roof and open-air spaces just at the tops of the walls, and it has hanging heaters that warmed the area so significantly that Laney and I both took our jackets off. We both quite liked the place, though, and especially liked the idea of coming back in the dead of winter as an outdoor space that would be adequately sheltered and heated regardless of how wet and cold it might otherwise be outside.
— पांच हजार सात सौ पांच —
As for Sunday, Shobhit had the day off work but he did not come with me to the movie I went to see. I did throw it out to him, clarifying that there is some Oscar buzz on it so there's a fair chance he'll get a SAG Awards screener for it. What's more, it will be on Netflix soon and I will also be re-upping my Netflix membership soon. Ether way, he'll have an easy way to watch it at no extra cost so that's what he chose.
It doesn't come out on Netflix until November 13. I had considered just waiting myself and reviewing it then, except I really want to keep that evening open as it's when Shobhit and I return from Phoenix—our flight doesn't even land until 6:10 p.m. For that reason, I also want to keep Thursday the 14th open, in case I still need to work on my travelogue email. And after that, I have plans on eight of the following nine days. It just made the most time-economical sense to take myself to see
Emilia Pérez yesterday afternoon.
That is: even though it's only playing at The Crest Cinema in Shoreline—the one Landmark theater we still have left in the area (they used to run both the Egyptian and the Uptown, now run by SIFF; as well as the Harvard Exit and the Guild 45th, now long permanently closed; and even the Neptune, long since converted into a live theater space). I decided to test how to get up there using transit now that Lynnwood Extension is open for light rail.
In the past, getting up there on a bus took way too long and necessitated at least one transfer. Technically the itinerary can still include a transfer, as unfortunately the Crest is nearly in the very center between Shoreline South Station and Shoreline North Station. These stations are roughly two miles apart, which means that from either one it's merely a one-mile walk to the Crest—a distance I regularly walk home to see movies at Pacific Place.
Still, I left very early yesterday, not knowing what the chances were that the movie would sold out, given its relative buzz and The Crest being the only theater in the area playing the movie. The showtime was at 1:40, but I wanted to get there at least half an hour early for this reason. It's about a ten-minute walk from home to Capitol Hill Station and I caught the northbound train at 12:28.
The train from Capitol Hill Station to Shoreline South Station takes 18 minutes. I then walked that last mile more quickly than Google Maps estimated, and was at the theater at 1:05—only to see posted on the window that they open at 1:25. I had twenty minutes to kill! I could have caught a northbound train as late as 12:48, or actually even later. I just found a spot to loiter in the parking lot until the theater opened.
And, in the end, there couldn't have been more than 20 people at that showtime. I was 35 minutes early to a movie I could have arrived for in the middle of the trailers. This means I actually could have left Capitol Hill Station as late as 1:05, which was when I arrived at the theater.
Incidentally, there is a bus line that runs up 5th Avenue NE in Shoreline, the street I walked up and that the theater is on. It just wasn't coming by while I walked north on it, and I was happy to get the walk in anyway. Ditto on the way back, when strangely three different #365 busses, all of them headed for a stop at Shoreline South Station, passed my by in the space of ten minutes. Some of them must have been very off schedule.
Anyway. I had been to The Crest before, but it had been ages. I don't even remember what I last saw there. Doing a search in my Google Calendar, I saw movies there four times between October 2006 and August 2010, the latter presumably the last time I went there. That was for a movie I can't even remember called
Waking Sleeping Beauty (looks like I gave it a B). Looking at my old blog entry, it appears I did take transit then, also by myself—but, I had to bus first to Northgate Transit Center and transfer there.
The transit scenario now is far better as it's quicker even when factoring in the mile walk,
and the light rail station is far closer to the final destination than Northgate is. It looks like The Crest shows a lot of the Netflix movies given a limited theatrical release for Oscar qualification, so now I'm pretty likely to go there a bit more often going forward. The matinee price is $9, which is no more than the discounted price I pay for tickets at SIFF Cinemas.
This worked out very well for me, and I quite liked
Emilia Perez in spite of its flaws.
— पांच हजार सात सौ पांच —
[posted 12:33 pm]
