Top 10… films

Casablanca

This 1940s classic has it all – Bogart and Bergman, a script full of quotable quotes and As Time Goes By.

Seen it many times now both at home and in cinemas on Valentine’s Day at art house cinemas in both Glasgow and Bradford, but missed out on seeing it in Lisbon by four days back in 2015…

Cinema Paradiso

Sicily, film, love and the Catholic Church’s local censorship of feature films all play their part in this DVD and occasionally TV screened delight.

There’s fun, pathos and social commentary, all in the same movie. My DVD copy came free with a weekend newspaper. My iPad copy cost a bit more…

Con Air

Want an over the top action film to watch while you eat pizza and sink beers?

Well Con Air has it all once the initial few minutes are out of the way and Nicholas Cage’s character ends up in jail.

Is it loud? Certainly was when I saw it on the big screen on Saturday night in Middlesbrough a few years ago.

I’d gone to see Pulp Fiction, but the wrong film had been delivered – and that wrong film was Con Air.

A good night out, even though it took a couple of days before the hearing returned to normal. Someone had turned the volume up to eleven!

Die Hard

Yippee Kai Aye!

I’d passed up the chance to see this in Geilo, Norway when it was first released back in the 1980s, but finally caught up with it at the National Media Museum in Bradford on Christmas Eve a few years ago.

Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, more action than you could shake a stick at and some great one liners too.

It may have been Christmas Eve, but the cinema was packed!

High Fidelity

Chicago takes over from Islington as the setting for the film of Nick Hrnby’s book with John Cusack in the lead and a scene stealing Jack Black as one of the workers in Championship Vinyl record shop.

It’s pretty faithful to the book, has a great soundtrack and a cameo appearance from one Bruce Spingsteen.

Hot Fuzz

The second of the Cornetto Trilogy sees Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as police officers in the sleepy town of Sandford where strange things happen in the name of “The Greater Good“…

Nothing is quite what it seems in what appears to be the perfect example of Small Town England, and you’ve never heard a former James Bond swear so much, especially in the blooper reel!

Paul

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play two comic book guys heading out on a road trip around alleged sites of close encounters.

A car accident sees them having their own close encounter with Paul (a Seth Rogen voiced CGI alien) and it isn’t long before they’re being chased by men in black suits, The Big Guy and a bible-toting father with a shotgun who wants his daughter back.

Pulp Fiction

I still haven’t seen this on the big screen, but there’s more than enough going on via the small screen to keep you glued to it.

Royale with cheese, Dusty Springfield on the soundtrack, Harvey Keitel in the role that he riffs on in the current batch of Direct Line adverts and Big Kahuna burgers too.

Shakespeare In Love

Yes, it’s that award winning film with a strong cast, witty script and Gwyneth Paltrow’s closing walk on Holkham Beach.

It’s a classic, and rightly so!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

This is a film I can watch over and over again and one of the few that I will still watch if I happen to chance upon it once it’s already begun.

The strong cast and script deliver the goods and whilst I was surprised that there was a follow up, I’m pleased that they didn’t go the whole hog and make a second sequel.

Stop Press!

And one for a potential film list later in the year is Victoria And Abdul. Seen yesterday at Broadway Cinema in Douglas, Isle of Man, Stephen Frear’s film is sad, funny and engaging. Judy Dench plays Queen Victoria for the second time on the big screen.

A very good way to spend a very wet afternoon just off the Promenade in Douglas. Back home tonight!