Look! Cute pussycats!

I use that headline not to make readers check out this entry -- well, that too -- but because my favorite film of the week so far can be found here: http://jezebel.com/5900906/your-morning-ennui-henri-the-french-cat-articulates-the-pain-of-existence.

It's pithy. It's accurate. It riffs off our stereotypes about cats, the French, foreign films and even  ourselves. In two minutes, it creates a complete character we can understand (to the extent that we can ever understand cats, four of whom live surrounded by clouds of mystery in my house).

I shared this short with a friend who said, "Well, it's not really a movie. The guy just pointed a camera at a cat." This obviously isn't true, because director Will Braden drew a performance from his furry leading man. But the remark set me to asking a bigger question: What IS a movie?

I'd argue it's any work of art on film or video, however short or slight, that moves us to laughter, cogitation, sorrow, anger or a new way of looking at the world.

It can be in any color, with or without sound, with or with actors or changes in location. You can shoot it with a traditional camera, a cameraphone or even a still camera, if you keep the images moving in the editing room. We might all enjoy life more if we kept open minds and didn't put blinders on ourselves.