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.

Saturday Links July 22

It’s a Saturday edition of the regular Friday links post, which you could look at as a very exciting new development or just sad evidence of my disorganization.
Truthfully, it’s neither: I’m visiting Lily this weekend and we were very wrapped up in seeing each other again (it’s been two whole months, which is a lot when you’ve just been living with someone for four years!) and the rediscovery of the film, A Bug’s Life.

A Bug’s Life was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, but watching it as an adult (for the first time!) has had a lot of unanticipated results. 1) I can’t help but recognize how far computer animation has come. It’s much more detailed now. 2)A Bug’s Life is basically a mashup of Aesop’s Fable (The Ant and the Grasshopper) and the classic film The Seven Samurai. Who knew? (Not three year old me).

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.