— छह हज़ार चौदह —
Last night was Action Movie Night, and although it would have been Chris G's choice were he present, he was not (and hasn't been in several weeks), which thus bumped it to the next person in line—which happened to be Shobhit. And Shobhit really stuck with his record as arguably the most eclectic history of movie choices out of all of us, this time choosing an HBO original movie from 1998, which for some reason he loves, called
The Pentagon Wars.
This was Shobhit's seventh time choosing the film, and just for kicks, I'm going to share his full history:
January 25, 2023:
Mojave (USA, 2015, 93 minutes)
September 6, 2023:
Awaara (India [in Hindi], 1951 release in India and 1956 release in USA, 168 minutes)
January 24, 2024:
Casablanca (USA, 1942, 102 minutes)
August 7, 2024:
School Ties (USA, 1992, 106 minutes)
February 19, 2025:
The Fall Guy (USA, 2024, 127 minutes)
September 17, 2025:
In a World... (USA, 2013, 93 minutes)
April 15, 2026:
The Pentagon Wars (USA, 1998, 104 minutes)
I want to say that each of these films is completely unlike any of the others, except I suppose there are some commonalities between
Awaara and
Casablanca: both are classic black and white films, though the former is from the fifties and in Hindi whereas the latter is from the forties and in English. The biggest irony I find between Shobhit's choice of both of those movies is that the group all stayed and watched the entirety of
Awaara, and largely seemed surprisingly engaged by it; yet, at least one person thought
Casablanca was too boring and did not stay to watch that one. Which I think is nuts, but whatever.
Those two movies aside, they all have very different vibes, and
The Pentagon Wars, which Shobhit said he had already watched at least twice before, may very well be the first made-for-TV movie anyone in the group has ever chosen. (It was HBO, so it still had higher production standards than network TV.) It's based on a true story, and the group last night seemed fairly into it, actually. This would be the third comedy Shobhit has chosen (each of them his most recent three picks), but all of them of very different types.
His last choice,
In a World..., was probably the most fun, because we played it without telling anyone in the group that he was
in it. Tony even asked us last night, "You're not in it, are you?" I informed him that there was only ever one other wide-release film Shobhit had a part in (the 2013 film
What Maisie Knew), and it would be a truly terrible choice for "Action Movie Night." Shobhit has a couple of times chosen films that are more romance than action, but this one is just straight up depressing, as it's about a little girl caught in the middle of a bitter divorce.
— छह हज़ार चौदह —
— छह हज़ार चौदह —
Anyway, there were eight people in attendance for Action Movie Night this week: Tony, Jake, Derek, Chris B, Daniel, Greg, Shobhit, and me. Ryan is almost never absent and I found myself wondering if he had a completely unrelated reason for not showing this week or if he's just had enough of the other guy who tends to annoy everyone—who, it's worth noting, was really not annoying at all this week. He did bring a bag of potato chips into the theater with him, and when he sat that down in the seat near me he actually said, "I'm not going to eat in here." This was clearly because Ryan had told him last time that he couldn't anymore because of how much he was crinkling.
There was a lot of food options this week, and most of them vegetarian. One person did order a pizza but that had meat on it, but Daniel brought a vegetarian kimchi; Jake brought sub sandwiches and half of them were vegetarian; Shobhit and I brought gnocchi and garlic bread. I mentioned that the gnocchi was a sample private label product from work, and more than one person was kind of amusingly excited by that, like they were getting secret advance access before a product launch. I honestly couldn't remember whether we are selling it yet or not; I just looked up gnocchi in our system while writing this very paragraph, and it appears we are not. So, I guess there was a bit of legitimacy to their little thrill about this.
When we all dispersed after the movie, Shobhit noted that we'll be missing the next one—that's during my Birth Week, and that very day both Barbara and her friend Becky arrive. Barbara will be with us for the next five days, and Becky for one. I haven't mentioned this yet, but Becky lives in Spokane and when she caught wind that Barbara would be visiting Seattle, she asked if she could get together with us. This put a slight monkey wrench into my Birth Week plans but I made do, and found a way to make it work. What's more, I told Becky about our "Guest Suite" we can rent at the Braeburn which has always cost $65 a night; she basically jumped at that and I booked it and—this part I really respect—Becky sent me the money over Venmo within minutes. I want to go check out the Ballard Historic District that evening as it was created in 1976, and I figure we can perhaps all find a place to go out for dinner in Ballard that night.
Anyway, sometimes I still do Action Movie Night during my Birth Week, sometimes I don't. Last year I didn't because that was my actual birthday and Shobhit and I went down to stay the night in Portland. This year Barbara and Becky will be here, and although I won't be out of town that day, I've got other things I want to do.
— छह हज़ार चौदह —
[posted 12:35pm]
