jonathan.beckett@gmail.com

The Movie Challenge

While talking about movies that various actors had been in last night, our eldest daughter roller her eyes and stated as dramatically as possible that all”old” movies – particularly musicals, which she holds a special place in her version of hell for – wererubbish.

After laughing out loud for a few moments, I realised she was deadly serious, and so an idea hatched in my head.

“How about you agree to sit with me and watch three 'old' movies – and at the end of it see if you still have the same opinion ?”

Almost unbelievably, she agreed. So I upped the ante further, knowing she also holds a special place alongside “old” movies for anything with subtitles.

“Ok – lets turn this into a two part challenge – for the second part we will watch three foreign language movies that have subtitles”

She agreed again.

Now I have a problem. As wonderful as this chance is to spend some time with her, I need to decide on three old movies, and three foreign language movies to watch with her over the coming weeks. I'm almost at a loss to choose, because the range of what I might show her is vast. There are literally thousandsof amazing movies to choose from – from Breakfast at Tiffany's, to Barefoot in the Park, to La Lectrice, and Cinema Paradiso... where do you even start ?

I will say that I'm tempted to go with quiet movies, rather than box office monsters.