I recently saw the Queen. I was really good. I thought Helen Mirren did a very good job in it. One thing I thought they were going to show more of was the queen's life. I thought they were going to show more of her life before getting in to Diana's death. But I still thought it was very good.

I know this has been said before, but the scene where Omar Sharif appears out of the desert, first a barely perceptible dot on the horizon gradually becoming a shimeering shape and then a rider until after a couple of minutes he hoves into view is one of the great scenes in cinema. It is both beautiful and, in an I-can't-stand-it-anymore sort of way, as tense as anything found in any thriller or horror film. Lean is actually reported as saying he regrets losing his nerve and not making the scene even longer - he cut to O'Toole and removed a large chunk of Sharif's arrival.

I suppose it is in the eye of the beholder whether spending three minutes watching a shape in an empty landscape slowly getting bigger and coming onto focus is rivetting cinema or yawn inducing. I fall into the former camp.

I suppose it is in the eye of the beholder whether spending three minutes watching a shape in an empty landscape slowly getting bigger and coming onto focus is rivetting cinema or yawn inducing. I fall into the former camp.

Me, too. And I believe so does Van Sant. I never even thought about it, but there's a great scene like that in Gerry that probably does go the whole 3 minutes.

Getting past the multiple victims, did you like the direction? The cast? The dialouge?