Day 2 - Movies and Pizza

So my day today did not go to plan after getting back from church. I was meant to have defrosted some capon, which my Nana gave me after Christmas, for my dinner with the leftover Ginger Rice. Capon is my family's turkey alternative. None of us really like turkey as it is too dry, and we eat so much chicken generally that that would be boring. Same foes for most other meats. So before Christmas my Nana will find a capon for us. I assume with great difficulty since I was told they're illegal to rear in England. But they are delicious and juicy and a decent size.

Anyway, I forgot to take it out the freezer, so I decided to be lazy and order pizza from Pizza Express, along with their famous dough balls. In my opinion, this fits neatly into todays question. Favourite movie? Becase when you're at home with your friends, there's nothing better than a film and some pizza.

I had a Pollo Ad Astra, the lovely tender chicken well accompanied by sweet pappadew pepper (which I've never heard of but which are out of this world) and red pepper that goes nicely with the overall soft sweet taste of the pizza. Those dough balls I ate as I walked into my living room, half gone before I sat down. I would post a picture but the whole meal disappeared before I had a chance to remember. My flatmate had a boring Margherita, but with my 50% voucher (I'm a penny-pincher me) it cost her only £3, and together we watched Legally Blonde on the telly.

I have a lot of favourite films I've realised, which is strange since I've only really been a true movie goer in the last couple of years. I could probably give you favourite film by category but I'm very bad at telling genres. So here's a shortish list. Amelie - for a light hearted surrealism that leaves me feeling optimistic and hopeful about people. Also the soundtrack, music by Yann Tierson, is smply amazing.

Changeling - so many people give Angelina Jolie such a hard time, but to be honest I don't care. This film made me cry. It made me bawl my eyes out and my heart clench thinking of such a convincingly played mother of a kidnapped child fighting for the authorities to do something. Watch it!

Spirited Away - pure fantastical escapism. Even if you think animé is a childish past time, or can't tell the difference between animé and cartoons, watch this film and see how the artwork is so beautiful and real. I love this film, not only a little because of one scene where a train is travelling over an area that has flooded and looks like a calm sea, interrupted only by the waves caused by the train. The score behind this scene was composed by Joe Hisaishi and is called The Sixth Station; it fits the scene almost as though the artwork was made for the music, not the other way round.

The Joy Luck Club - a story that follows two very different generations of Chinese women from four families, it talks about the experiences of the first generation while in China, amd how these motheres hope for their American-Chinese daughters. Very moving, powerful stuff, based on the book by Amy Tan. I love this film because it makes me think of, and tolerate more, the strangeness and the differences of culture and attitudes in the women in my family, as a second generation British-born Antiguan on my mum's side. This film is my favourite of the four, maybe tied with Spirited Away.