Fun Insomnia Game

If you're up at a bad hour with awful thoughts running through your head and you have a lot of the movie channels on the "cable," might I suggest flipping back and forth regularly between three separate movies until they seem to blend into one? It takes your mind off everything! That's today's special "holiday" "blogging" tip: Take your mind off things, for goodness' sake! Like, right now I'm worried about that apostrophe at the end of "goodness'" but I'm just going to put it out of my mind. The trick to my method is, find three films that blend appropriately. Last night (or this morning, I should say), I was lucky enough to come across Werner Herzog in INCIDENT AT LOCH NESS (it's a comedy... and when I think comedy, I think Werner Herzog!), the Monkees film HEAD, and the version of A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM with Diana Rigg and Iam Holm (the latter painted entirely green, as was a young Judi Dench). After a little judicious flipping I could hardly tell one movie from either of the others, and my brain was soothed and satisfied and slumbrous. Try it out for yourself next time you can't sleep, though I doubt that you - or I - will ever be able to find such a salubrious combination again. In passing, I may remark that it was the second version of A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM I've encountered recently. I watched the 1935 version for my article about Dick Powell. I'm afraid - without giving away anything about the article - that Mickey Rooney's performance (in the Ian Holm role of Puck) led me to make some catty comments. I would like to clarify at this time that I've seen plenty of top-notch Mickey Rooney performances. There's one where he's a jazz drummer menaced by thugs, and it provides an appropriate outlet for his considerable energy and, indeed, desperation. Wow! I've gotten off track, haven't I? That's the way it is with "blogging"! Irrepressible! Just like Mickey Rooney. (Pictured, Ian Holm and Ian Richardson, painted green.)