— छह हज़ार बारह —
Yesterday after work I took myself to see
Hamlet starring Riz Ahmed, and it . . . kind of wasn't worth it. It had some cool elements, especially all the Hindi and South Asian stuff, but overall I found it to be kind of a mess.
Here's the part I did not include in my review, but seems to be pretty indicative of this movie's overall appeal. I was one of only six or seven people in the theater—that alone doesn't mean much, as I was at a 4:30 screening and those don't tend to have a lot of people in them. But, two women who had come to see the movie together, and sat down in the front section, got up and left maybe two thirds of the way through the movie. They never came back. I watched them leave, and then I turned to look at the guy who was sitting in my same row about three seats down from me—and he was asleep. I'm pretty sure I heard him lightly snoring later. I'm not sure how much of the movie he actually retained.
I feel like actors like to jump at the chance to play Shakespeare because in their minds it elevates their craft. Well, that only works if everything else in the collaborative nature of filmmaking, and film adaptation, is working. And this is a movie that sets
Hamlet in contemporary London. In spite of a couple of supporting actors who I thought were very good, this just didn't work.
— छह हज़ार बारह —
— छह हज़ार बारह —
I rode my bike to work yesterday, but did not today—too chilly and damp today, with rain in the forecast nearly all day. Yesterday was sort of a medium ground as far as the weather went, cooler than Sunday but workable with cycling. I rode my bike from work over to AMC Pacific Place, just a few blocks, where I kind of love their bike rack area because it's in a back corner of the parking garage that no one from outside ventures to so my bike feels very safe back there even though a guy in a nearby booth like we get at Rainier Square.
So, the movie was at 4:30, and it ended at 6:45, so I got home right around 7:10, maybe a few minutes before. I spent the next hour or so writing the movie review. Shobhit got a late start making dinner because, seemingly out of nowhere, his boss got fired by the Board, so he had some conversations to deal with. I feel bad for that person but know nothing about the details; I'm just glad that Shobhit's position evidently remains secure. It was still a slightly unsettling turn of events so soon after Shobhit was let go from the play he had been cast in, although that was totally unrelated except that the people involved are acquaintances who know each other.
Speaking of that play, it did not get the hoped extension to another weekend through Easter Sunday. We'll always have that, I guess: it wasn't
that successful. (We have no way of knowing if it would have been with Shobhit in the part, but that's beside the point. I'd like to be at least slightly petty about this!)
— छह हज़ार बारह —
[posted 12:31pm]
