I love bread. Specifically, Italian bread. Back when I ran the comic shop, there was a really good coffee shop just up the road from us (A really good, basic latte being one of my other loves) and I used to regularly go there for lunch which, most days, would be simply a ciabatta loaf with real butter and strawberry jam. It's the smell and the texture and the way that the outside crackles when you bite into it. Throw in some sundried tomatoes or olives and cheese and I'm in absolute heaven:)
On a more literary note, I adore that moment you get in really good fiction when there's absolute parity between the reader and the characters. There's a point in Hunt for Red October, in the middle of the briefing on the submarine being stolen where everyone else is arguing and Alec Baldwin is just staring at the information on the screen. The moment where he puts it altogether is such a perfect piece of physical acting, such a perfect, genuine character moment that you can almost see the lightbulb over his head.
There's another right at the end of The Illusionist (Which, oddly, gets the mindset of mid level and amateur magicians almost as well as The Prestige nails the mindset of the 'rockstar' magicians like the Maskelyne family). All it is is a shot of Paul Giamatti laughing but it's like an electrical connection between the viewer and the character. You feel what they feel, see what they see. I love that to pieces.
My all time favourite of those though is the last ten minutes of Sneakers. That's the magic bullet for me, that final scene where they realise that just once, just ONCE, they have the upper hand. It's as close to a perfect cinematic moment as I've ever seen, the acting, the way Branford Marsalis' music comes in, the dialogue. It makes me smile, every single time and by the time we get to:
'Tahiti isn't in Europe!'
'When you get the chip back, you can give geography lessons. Until then, this man goes to Tahiti.'
I'm grinning like a Cheshire cat:)
