Birthday Hiatus

I've been back from my vacation for almost a week now and I'm still not fully functioning yet. All I can think about is the next time I can take an extended amount of time off from work. Mostly so I can have free time to go to the movies. I've been three times since my last post.

FIRST UP
On it's opening weekend, I saw Fifty Shades Freed. I went on a Saturday after my book club with Kelly. It was my treat. It's been tradition for us to see the films together. We always go opening week and we always go to the same theater. I didn't get the VIP seats this time since they were already sold out. We snuck in a bottle of wine and found our seats (middle row, seated towards the right side of the screen). I had so much fun. The majority of the audience were drinking and/or drunk already. It really helped make this a memorable experience. As for the actual movie, it was good. I felt that the actors were so happy this was the last one that they just went for it. The leads' chemistry was at an all time high in the finale. I'll definitely be watching it on cable.


THEN CAME THE JUGGERNAUT
This is obviously the highlight of my film going experiences these past few weeks. I almost dedicated a whole post just to Black Panther, but decided to do a short retelling since I plan on seeing it again with the boyfriend. I saw it on the Friday that it opened. I went to a matinee showing with a fellow book club member, Shanti. It was the first time we'd been to the movies together with just us. We had seats towards the back, leaning left on the screen. I can't talk enough about how fucking epic the film was. I kept grabbing Shanti's arm and squealed multiple times. If I cared, I'm sure I would have been completely embarrassed. The next viewing I had was that Sunday with a coworker of mine, Monica. we thought we were doing something by getting there 40 mins early but all the good center seats were already taken. So we grabbed two seats on the left side of the theater towards the back. I was not trying to fight anyone for the middle ones. Again, the film fucking owned my whole life and I can't wait to see it a third time.


AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST
I had a solo outing to see the Oscar nominated short films. I only saw the animated ones. I was the only black person in the theater which usually puts me on edge but it didn't bother me too much this time. I guess because I had been waiting for the right time to see these films so I could give a rat's ass about my own discomfort. I nabbed a seat in the second to last row towards the right side of the screen. The films were shorter than I thought they'd be. Not a one went over 15 mins, I think. In fact, they were so short, they also showed the "honorable mentions" after the nominees. My pick for the win is Negative Space. It just hit me the hardest in terms of the story and the animation was great. I'm a sucker for stop motion.