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We had our Action Movie Night last night, and it was Shobhit's turn to choose. He had been waffling between
My Own Private Idaho and
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and maybe this is regressive of me (it probably is), but I must admit I discouraged either one, because they are both so overtly gay. I think
My Own Private Idaho is even pretty overtly sexual. I do feel confident that the guys at Action Movie Night would be very gracious about it and would not complain, but I also feel pretty confident that as a group they would not be especially into it. I could imagine something with a high-camp quality and large gay following working, something in the vein of
Death Becomes Her; but amping the gayness itself? Personally, I would avoid it.
In my defense, I said, "It's totally up to you. I just wouldn't choose it myself." In retrospect,
To Wong Foo might have actually been okay. I'm still less convinced about
My Own Private Idaho.
I gave him an alternative suggestion that he went with, though: why not
In a World..., which was one of the two wide-release movies he
actually had a small part in? The other one was
What Maise Knew, which would be the worst possible choice as it's a deeply depressing movie about a child caught in the middle of a bitter divorce (Shobhit appears as a locksmith—because one of the parents is changing the locks).
In a World... is a much more light-hearted comedy though, and we both agreed that it would be super fun to have that playing and not give any warning at all that Shobhit would suddenly show up.
The movie itself is actually slightly better than I remembered from the time of its release (2013). In retrospect, some of the movie itself is regressive, in that it looks down on women who speak a certain way while simultaneously trying to present itself with a feminist perspective. ("I sound like a sexy baby" is still a pretty funny line though.) Written and directed by Lake Bell, it has a lot of recognizable people in it, some who became more so later, but still; it does feature Geena Davis in a couple of scenes.
I rented the movie on Apple TV and played it from my laptop. A couple of times, the connection wavered and the movie got stuck. The second time, I had to close it and restart it. During the couple of minutes it took the second time to fix it, there was chatter in the theater about how much they were enjoying it. Tom, who notoriously falls asleep at every movie he comes to, commented even then that the movie was keeping him awake. He brought it up again when the movie ended and we all filed back out into the kitchen, and even said he'd be watching it again. He looked forward to watching it with his girlfriend so he could say "I know that guy!" when Shobhit shows up.
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— पांच हजार आठ सौ अठहत्तर —
That moment was one of the most memorable we've had since we've been going to Action Movie Night—it's too bad we had light attendance this week: just seven people. There were Tony, Jake, Ryan, Chris G, Tom, Shobhit, and myself. And Shobhit's very brief scene, which is a cut to his character accepting a "Golden Trailer Award" as a setup to the next sequence, comes along pretty late in the film. And this was certainly a first for the entire history of Action Movie Night (which, again, began in 2012 as "Man Movie Wednesday," which certain people, like Ben, still call it): a screening of a movie one of us in the group was actually in.
It took a few beats for it to even register. After a couple of seconds, Tony, who always sits in the seat in front of the one I always sit in, with Shobhit to my right, kind of slowly turned around, looked at Shobhit, and said, "You dirty dog!" This was right around the time Jake recognized him and lightly shouted, "Hey!" Basically all four of the others said something or emitted some kind of sound of recognition. It was indeed kind of an electric moment.
And this was hardly an "action movie." It's a lighthearted comedy, that's it. And it's written by and about women, which is also very unusual for this group—and to their credit, they were all super locked in. More so than I expected, honestly. Maybe I should give straight guys more credit. HAHAHAHAHA! I kill me!
Anyway, when the movie ended, I went to turn it off, and they all hollered for me to wait; they wanted to see Shobhit in the credits. I had long forgotten that he was credited as "Sloppy Indian," which I now renember being amused by at the time, but now kind of think: what the fuck? What need was there for that? His character is just excited, hardly sloppy. Maybe he was written more "sloppy" in mind, I don't know, but I have a hard time imagining that being used as a character name now. What a weird credit.
Shobhit made an Asian noodle stir fry dish that basically everyone had some of; Chris G brought a vegetarian pizza that Shobhit and I both had one slice of, then later split a slice of; there were two slices left at the end of the evening and we brought them home and put them in the fridge.
I had totally forgotten we had spiced apple whiskey in the cabinet, and when Shobhit mentioned that, I heated up some hot apple cider and spiked it with that, as my cocktail this week. Overall it was a pretty great Wednesday evening, I must say.
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[posted 12:33pm]
