Tag Archives: List

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Top 10 War Movies – The Guardian List

where-eagles-dare-LST065899

This year I want to move back to what this blog was initially meant to be. A place where I would write about war movies and related themes, and not so much a blog, which is limited to reviews. As you may have noticed I was less and less present, not only because I was not so lucky with my movie choices  but also because I didn’t feel like writing as many reviews as before.

So, in order to kick off the new year, I’d thought I’d share with you this top 10 war movies list that I found on The Guardian website. It was published on October 28, 2013.

The top 10 war movies are

10. Where Eagles Dare

9. Rome, Open City

8. La Grande Illusion

7. The Deer Hunter

6. Three Kings

5. Come and See

4. Ran

3. The Thin Red Line

2. Paths of Glory

1. Apocalypse Now

It’s an interesting list and I’d say, they are all worthy movies, however there is only one among these that also makes my personal Top 10. Guess which one.

How about you? What do you think about this list?

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Movies on the Spanish Civil War: A List

Spirit of the Beehive

When I think of movies on the Spanish Civil War, Land and Freedom comes to mind. And Pan’s Labyrinth. And the abominable There Be Dragons. I was surprised to see that there are quite a lot and some of them seem to be well-worth watching. 

Do you have a favourite?

I might be watching one of these soon

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12 Best War Movies of 2012

the-duellists

I just noticed yesterday that I didn’t write a post on the Best War Movies I’ve seen in 2012 and thought I’d remedy that immediately. Obviously the list consists of the movies I’ve watched this year and not the movies which came out this year. And it also consists only of the movies which I have seen for the first time that’s why you will neither find Platoon nor Tigerland on the list.

And here goes:

Captain Conan

Agora

Waltz With Bashir

The African Queen

The Dam Busters

The Battle of Algiers

Soldier of Orange

North Face

317th Platoon

Stalingrad or Dogs, do you want to live forever?

The Duellists

Mephisto

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War Movies Based on Novels – A Thursday Thirteen

A common feature on blogs is the so-called Thursday Thirteen in which you can share a list of thirteen things, books, movies and what not. I’ve never done this so far but since I’ve hit a dry movie-watching patch and don’t want to stop blogging entirely I thought, why not?

While a great many war movies are based on original screenplays, many, and even some of the best and most famous, are based on novels. Here are thirteen war movies based on novels:

  1. The Thin Red Line (1998) – based on the novel by James Jones
  2. Catch 22 (1970) – based on the novel by Joseph Heller
  3. 300 (2006) – based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller
  4. Ben Hur (1959) – based on the novel by Lewis Wallace
  5. Enigma (20019 – based on the novel by Robert Harris
  6. Behind the Lines aka Regeneration (1997) – based on the novel by Pat Barker
  7. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) – based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque
  8. Schindler’s List (1993) – based on the novel by Thomas Keneally
  9. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) – based on the novel by Pierre Boulle
  10. Dances with Wolves (1990) – based on the novel by Michael Blake
  11. Cold Mountain (2003) based on the novel by Charles Frazier
  12. War Horse (2011) – based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo
  13. Slaughterhouse Five (1972) based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut

I have only read three of the books (Regeneration aka Behind the Lines, All Quiet on the Western Front and Cold Mountain) but seen almost all of the movies. Is there a book among my thirteen I shouldn’t miss or another novel/movie pair which is worth mentioning?

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Canadian War Movies? or A Failed Attempt to Write a List

One  aim of this blog is to raise awareness of all the many conflicts that have been fought on this planet and another one to introduce people to movies from many different countries. My war movie lists are one of the means to achieve this. I’ve done a few lists on movies from different countries like Australia, France and Russia and thought it would be interesting to make such a list for Canada. Canadian soldiers are often depicted in WWI and WWII movies but I couldn’t think of a lot of Canadian movies.

I have been looking really hard but all I came up with are three movies, two of which I have reviewed. I haven’t seen the third, War Witch aka Rebelle, as it’s from 2012 but it looks interesting.

Passchendaele (2008) (My review)

Incendies (2010) (My review)

War Witch aka Rebelle (2012)

Additionally I found two War Romances for which Canada is one of several co-producing countries. I’ve seen Closing the Ring and as far as War Romances go it’s not bad at all. It’s a Richard Attenborough movie starring Shirley Mac Laine and Christopher Plummer and some other interesting actors. I might review it one of these days.

Head in the Clouds (2004)

Closing the Ring (2007)

But is that possible? Are there not more Canadian war movies?