So I’m watching this movie, In Her Shoes, and about twenty minutes in I’m finding myself terrifically bored. I could turn it off and watch something else, but it’s the last DVD I have from Netflix, and I’d like to mail it back Monday and get something else. So I let it play and head into the kitchen to putter.

My eye lands on the food processor that has been sitting on the counter, unused, for the last couple of weeks while I haven’t had the time or energy (or appetite) to eat anything more than frozen foods and leftovers. I decide that chopping something will probably be more entertaining than this movie, so I take the tub of cooked chicken out of the refrigerator.

Once the chicken is chopped, I mix in a little mayo and mustard and relish, but I’m still not quite ready to say that I’ve done anything very special. So I open the refrigerator door a little wider and stick my head all the way to the back of the shelf, where I find a jar of giardiniera. Pickled Italian vegetables. I can’t even remember why I bought it, but it was probably for some recipe Rachael did, back when I had time to watch her show.

After I’ve processed the veggies, I’m not sure what to do next. It takes two sessions in the machine, because the cauliflower stayed pretty much whole the first time through, but now I have everything finely chopped and set aside. I take a small bowl and lift a spoonful of the chopped chicken into it, and then add some of the chopped vegetables. I mix it up and give it a taste and decide to take all of both and make one small vat of sandwich spread out of it. This is going to be great!

Then I realize that I have only two pieces of bread left in the house. So it’s going to be great, but it’s only going to make one sandwich tonight. At least it’s a fairly healthy sandwich, and it turns out to be a pretty tasty one, too. I take it into the living room and sit in front of the movie, which has been running the whole time I’ve been puttering.

Amazingly, the movie is suddenly better. It’s now watchable, and I’m thinking I should have just started it about 45 minutes in. Who needs a setup? Who needs background? I’m interested in what these characters are doing now, and I couldn’t care a bit about what they did in the first third of the picture. And I decide that maybe some movies (maybe most movies) should be started somewhere in the middle. It makes them more like art house films, and it forces me to pay attention. It’s much less boring that way.

Of course, another reason this particular movie gets better after 45 minutes is that Shirley MacLaine doesn’t appear in that first part. It’s all Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, and all sex and self-involvement. Now it has become two parallel stories, each more interesting than anything with the two stars together. I’m not sure how to apply this lesson to other pictures I watch, but it’s something I’d recommend when viewing this one. Watch the second half first (or maybe the second half only). It also has the advantage of taking a lot less time that way.