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Desert Island DVDs

April 11, 2010
Features
25 Comments

Picture the scene, your author here gets kidnapped by an angry band of disagreeable movie bloggers and left for dead on a remote Desert Island. After 3 months of living off of tree bark and spring water he finds a rusty old lamp, tries to polish it up and WHAM – out pops a Genie. “Oh great one” Says the Genie, stretching, and giving his balls a seriously overdue scratch “You have awoken me from a 10,000 year slumber, and while I’m eternally grateful my wife will be pissed so I need to nip off home and do some washing up. Quickly, tell me eight things you would like…”

After a short think Paul replies. “I’ll have a solar-powered hot tub, an everlasting bottle of chilled Dos Equis, a bottomless bag of hot McChicken Sandwiches and the five most attractive Swedish female volleyball players the history books will ever see”

Fast-forward 25 years and Paul’s getting old, terminally jaded, has serious weight issues, no sexual boundaries left, alcoholism and 5 moody women / 47 unwanted children running around. He yearns to re-live the days where he sat around watching movies all day without a care in the world. It’s even more annoying that he found a 50″ TV and DVD player under a rock some 24 years ago… If he could go back to that fateful day and ask for eight of his finest movies, he would have probably said…

1) BASEketball: This film never fails to make me laugh. Watched it dozens of times growing up, know the script inside out and will never get bored of this. Anything featuring the minds behind Airplane! The Naked Gun and South Park is a surefire winner. Best Scene: pretty much every psyche-out

2) Kill Bill I: nothing comes closer to filling a man’s insatiable lust for a great revenge tale like Tarrantino’s first Kill Bill Movie. With an epic story and more action than you could shake a stick at. Everything about this is textbook cool. Best Scene: House of Blue Leaves showdown.

3) Goodfellas: one of the best movies ever made and definitely the best gangster film. Screw the Godfather Trilogy, this is where it’s at. Diamond cast and technically it’s still one of the slickest films out there. Best Scene: Shoe Shine / In What Way Am I Funny?

4) Happiness: Every single subject brought up in this film is totally wrong. Rape, paedophilia, sodomy, abuse, massacre, masturbation… yet Todd Solondz manages to make this one of the most unforgettable black comedies known to man. Best scene: Seymour Hoffman’s phone manner.

5) Love Me If You Dare: outstanding French movie about a life-long romance that starts off brilliantly but strains with age. Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard set the screen on fire long before they were household names. Best scene: the dares in school.

6) Oldboy: Korean masterpiece that’s just too damn good to never see again for the rest of your life. Everything about it is just stunning. Best scene: the single-take corridor fight.

7) The Wire: bit of a cheat here but seeing as I rate this higher than any film I’ve seen to date I’d love nothing more than to have the free time to watch it again, and again, and again. Best Scene: Omar, Stringer Bell and Brother Mouzone in the empty building.

8) Swedish Nymph Volleyball Milfs Go Wild*: On a practical note, any red-blooded male’s going to need some company until he’s rescued, dies or tries to escape!

Click here to see the full list of everyone’s Desert Island DVDs

Note: now you know why this isn’t a creative writing blog… *May not be a real movie, but you get the picture!

The Wire

August 27, 2009
TV
1 Comment

The Wire: summing this up in a paragraph is criminal, but I’ll give it a go. Written as, and plays out like, a rewarding volume of books. Most recurring characters are fully developed, believable, flawed, yet admirable in one way or another – watching their individual journeys over the seasons is brilliant. It peaks in Seasons 2 & 3, but don’t write off 1, 4 and 5 because they are still well above par! Upon finishing the last season you’ll literally feel a large void in your life. Having watched it twice round it’s the only show I’ve seen where things mentioned in Season 1 aren’t significant ’til further down the line – as late as season 5. If anything, it’s more rewarding on the 2nd viewing. Because you have to pay attention, it’s not for absolutely everyone, and it may take a few episodes to get you hooked, but is definitely one of the most rewarding and enjoyable things you’ll have the privilege of watching. It’s realistic, the acting’s great, storylines are epic, technically sound and the police methods are so real that actual gangsters watch the Wire to learn surveillance techniques. If you haven’t seen this yet, do yourself a favour and pick it up. I know for a fact that this will become known as one of the greatest TV shows ever made.

Score: 9.5/10