the reviewer
Shobhit spent the evening with Sachin last night, doing I actually don't really know what -- something about real estate, on the Eastside -- and I was in bed before he even got home. I think he barely got home before Ivan got home from work.
So I took myself to a movie. Not only was it the first movie I'd gone to since going to see the excellent Phantom Thread with Laney last Sunday, but, since I was seeing Phantom Thread for the second time, it was the first movie I had to review in 13 days -- my first posted review since Hostiles (which I really liked) two Fridays ago.
This one was The Commuter, which I had originally considered seeing when it opened January 12, but decided against at the time due to its unimpressive 56 score on MetaCritic, and I did other stuff besides movie-going that weekend instead. (My first viewing of Phantom Thread was actually on the first night it played, Thursday the 11th.) Anyway, The Commuter played at the Meridian downtown last night at 6:45, let out right at about 8:45, and I was sitting at my desk at home at 9:07, giving me just enough time to write the review before bed. Two full weeks between posted reviews is too much, but the only other option was to see a movie I already knew I would not like.
Honestly, I thought I was settling on a movie I wouldn't really like when watching The Commuter, just out of desperation because options have been so bad for weeks -- this has been the worst January for new releases for as long as I can remember. I went to the movies last month only six times, two of them repeats, so I only posted four reviews in January this year -- compared to January 2017, which was also a downturn compared to most months but at least last year the month yielded seven reviews out of nine movies I went to (two of them also repeats). As such, January of this year ties for the record number of movies I went to see (six) and reviewed (four), the last time that happened being 2013, five years ago. I've never had less movie-going / review writing activity in a given month since I started writing these reviews in late 2004 (at Shobhit's suggestion, incidentally).
Ironically, after going to see The Commuter for no other reason than there being no better option, the movie notably exceeded my expectations. I was really expecting a B- movie at best, far more likely a C+ movie or even a solid C -- in the middle of the movie I was thinking, I'm actually enjoying this. It's a solid B. Still not good enough for me to insist anyone else rush out to see it, but still worth my time. I fully expected to have a great time tearing the movie apart in my review, but generally praised it instead.
The movie and subsequent writing of the review pretty much took up the whole of my evening, though. I was home for all of about an hour after walking home from work, and I had leftover beans and rice for dinner. I walked back downtown for the movie, stopping at Walgreens to get a packet of m&m's to have with my contraband soda from home at the movie. (I often think of that word when sneaking food or drink into movies, ever since Ivan saw me grabbing a soda on my way out to a movie when he lived with me in 2014, and he said, "Grabbing your contraband?") I then walked home from the movie again. So, between walking to work and back, and then to the movie and back, so I walked a cumulative solid seven miles yesterday.
To my amazement, I weighed in this morning at 146.2 lbs, a nearly 2-lb drop from yesterday, which honestly makes me suspicious of the scale's accuracy. I don't imagine it matters what I do today -- and I will likely have a drink tonight -- I fully expect it to come up again tomorrow, at least slightly. Shobhit is convinced it is because I did not have any alcohol last night and am thus not retaining water; he's taken to drinking less in his own efforts at weight control (although he seems to hover at permanently around 40 lbs heavier than me). He's down 1.2 lbs from yesterday.
I know there's not much sense in my obsessing over my weight to the extent that I do, but it's just hard not to, when I come from a family full of obesity (particularly my mother and my brother), and I was once myself thirty pounds heavier, about a decade ago, and I am eager never to return to that weight again. So when I see my weight trending upward, even slightly, it freaks me out.
That didn't stop me from eating m&m's yesterday. I've been relatively successful lately of keeping my meal portions fairly small lately, at least.
Justin Timberlake has a new album out today -- his first in five years. I can't believe his two The 20/20 Experience albums came out as long ago as 2013. At least this five years between albums is two less than he waited between Futuresex/Lovesounds in 2006 and The 20/20 Experience in 2013. Anyway, this makes five solo albums for him now. I realized only recently that he was all of 25 years old when he released "Sexyback" from Futuresex/Lovesounds -- but then, that was also the year I turned 30. Now I'm nearly 42, and he's 37. The age difference between us feels far less wide now than it did when it was 25 vs. 30, even though the difference is five years either way. Hell, even Ivan doesn't feel so young to me anymore, now that he's 32 -- and he'll turn 33 the same day I turn 42. Nine years is still a pretty wide spread. It even hit me just the other day that Tommy will himself be 30 on his birthday in July this year. Even the people I was still associating with in their twenties, for a while at least, are all moving into their thirties. It's weird when you notice even people who are a lot younger then you are themselves getting old. Or older, at least. I don't even think of myself as "old," exactly -- although I've been by definition "middle aged" since my late thirties. I think I'm starting to get used to it. I do sometimes wonder how long it will be before aging alone affects my capacity for slutting around. Honestly, depending on how I play my cards, maybe never.
When I was younger I fully expected to get both uglier and less horny as I got older. The reverse actually happened. This doesn't seem to have stopped me from wondering if I'll ever have my own midlife crisis. Probably not, but you never know.
What was I talking about? Oh! Justin Timberlake. He's still gorgeous, for the record. I'm really digging the album so far, it has pretty infectious beats -- although it's comparatively less distinctive than any album he's released since his debut, Justified, in 2002. I actually could have purchased Man of the Woods on iTunes last night, and even had a reminder in my Google calendar to do so once it was after 8 p.m. -- and then I spaced it. I had to purchase it using my phone after getting to work this morning. It'll still sync to my iPod classic once I connect it to my computer later.
[posted 12:12 pm]