Moving Pictures

With not a great deal to do driving on the way up to KL, other than marveling at the antics of the usual melange of mentally deficient drivers, and listening to Van Morrison, Dream Theatre, Oscar Lopez (a Spanish guitarist whom Noi favours) and Richard and Linda Thompson, I was thinking over my post concerning seven favourite movies, realising there were two obvious deficiencies. The first, and most striking, Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing. I suppose it slipped my mind as I’ve seen it so often (showing it as part of an enrichment programme for Literature at a school I used to teach at) that I’ve become a touch jaded about it. I wouldn’t want to watch it at this moment, for example. But I know I will watch it again some day, so it qualifies.

The other omission was Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies. To be honest, it’s his plays for tv that really resonate with me but I’d certainly be keen to view what I suppose is his best known feature film any time at all, so it makes the list. And that reminds me, or rather, reading Writing Home reminded me, of the brilliant play for television (or was it a film? – I don’t know how to classify such things) The Insurance Man, scripted by Alan Bennett. A great Daniel Day-Lewis performance as an eerily distant, completely convincing Kafka. But I don’t think it really qualifies, so now I’ve got an odd nine (favourite movies, that is.)

I’ve been thinking of something from the world of animated films to get the list to a satisfying ten. But I seem to like all cartoons so it’s difficult to pick anything out. If I had to I suppose it would be either Monsters Inc or A Shark’s Tale, but they sort of cancel each other out – and as soon as I write them at least six other titles come to mind.