Friday 17 February 2012

Guest Top 5 - 5olly's favourite War Films

The first guest post of the year is from my Twitter friend 5olly who had spent most of last year watching and (occasionally) blogging The Channel 4 Top 100 War Movies here. He finally finished this marathon effort, well the watching part anyway, and kindly agreed to let me reproduce his final post on the subject here. I'm looking forward to whatever project he decides to take on next.

I managed to watch all the war films in the list, I just failed miserably at blogging them. It’s the blogging bit that I find so difficult, mainly cos I’m such a lazy twat. But in the spirit of Chop’s Top Fives I’ll give you my 5 highlights.

1. Ice Cold In Alex (No. 26)

Genius film and one that transported me back to a rainy afternoon in Hangleton as a young boy. Surprisingly for a Black & White film I loved it. Great story and it had me on the edge of my sofa. Best product placement ever as well.

Read my brilliant review here.

2. The Pianist (No. 32)

Amazingly I found this film one of the most tedious films I’d ever seen when I first saw it when I was doing the IMDB Top 100 Films. Bizarrely I rather enjoyed it the second time round. This was probably due to the fact that i was expecting to watch the right film this time, and not The Piano with Harvey Keitel.

Read my first review here, and my later review here.

3. Memphis Belle (No. 88)

Who knew there was an alternate ending? Who believed it involved Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland? Who didn’t realise it was a completely different show that I’d got confused with? (Yep that’s right, it was me) It’s was still a good film though, even with the singing..

My extensive review (including a video of the confused ending) can be found here.

4. Oh! What a Lovely War (No. 70)

A brilliant film set in my home town. A true joy to watch. So good I went out and bought it. If I said that I was dreading watching a film about a musical, about the First World War then I wouldn’t have been lying. It’s funny, sad and poignant. Well worth a watch. I would link to my review, but I didn’t do one.

5. Play Dirty (Not even on the list)

Brilliant! An English version of The Dirty Dozen! Michael Caine rocks out over the African desert and kicks some Nazi arse! A genuine highlight of my year of film watching, and proof in point that doing pointless New Year Resolutions might leave you somewhat wiser, if not a tiny bit bored of war films….

So yeah, what next. I have no idea. I have a couple of projects in the pipeline for 2012, but I think I might have a break from blogging films this year.

I might just podcast reviews instead…. Here’s the first one… Grease (1978) Vs. Sexboat (1980) I can only apologise… But say hi to Dotmund while you’re there.

Grease (1978) Vs. Sexboat (1980) by 5olly

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