Wartime Romance Films: All’s Fair

Coming out of Dunkirk last week (guys, it’s amazing- go watch it (except for the erasure of everyone who wasn’t a white man from WWII)!) I was inspired to write a list of great war films.
When I got on it the next day I realized belatedly that war film knowledge is really a big gap in my film expertise.  I haven’t watched most of the classics yet (Bridge on the River Kwai, All Quiet on the Western Front, Das Boot, Patton, etc.) and I couldn’t get more than a few minutes into Saving Private Ryan when I tried to watch it a few months ago. (It’s just so overblown and melodramatic).

My list would have been solely Hacksaw Ridge and Dunkirk, and we can’t have that- even if I do write movie pairing posts sometimes.

So I decided to ease into the subject with a genre I know a little (okay, a lot) more about- wartime romances.

My criteria were vaguely as follows: 1) There must be a war that actually took place in reality. 2) The plot must primarily follow some kind of romantic trajectory- the love story can’t be a secondary consideration, which rules out things like Hacksaw Ridge and Watch on the Rhine.

Be warned- it’s a bit of an eclectic list, but all are worthwhile in my book.

Intimidating and Read

Spring boarding off my post of yesterday, I decided to write a post about the longest books that I have read.  At least the longest books that I’ve read and would recommend. It’s a list that makes me feel accomplished (I read so many words!) and kind of nervous, because maybe I’ve already finished all of the best long books… It’s hard to know whether you’re going to die before you finish reading everything you want to, or whether you’re eventually going to find a place where you’ve found and read all of the things that appeal to you most. Both strike terror into my heart.

I once again cut off the list at 800 pages, with the lengths given according to Amazon.com.  Some books I real (Moby Dick, The Woman in White, etc.) felt like they should be in here but are apparently not so long as I imagined. Or perhaps Amazon is selling them as large-paged books with tiny fonts? Anyway, they must be omitted, no matter how exquisite and verbose they seemed.

Seven Favorite Movies

I’ve decided I’m going to write this post after feeling challenged by this youtube video from Shmoes Know, one of my favorite movie-related youtube channels.  Which should be another list.

The idea of writing a list of my top seven movies is horrifying to me.  But it’s also an oddly exciting challenge.  But I’m sure I can’t do it without regret and self-blame (because of those poor sad rejected favorites- how will they forgive me?!)

You know I love making lists, right? Yes, I know it’s the whole point of this blog, but I’m just checking.  I have an Excel spreadsheet of movie ratings.  From 1-5.  It’s been a while since I went through and edited to reflect current preferences, but as it stands now, there are 81 ‘5-star’ movies and 312 ‘4-star’ movies.