Blogathon – Five Films Forever

It’s been quite some time since I’ve participated in one of these things, so when my blogging mate Claire Packer over at Cinematic Delights recently returned to the blogosphere after a prolonged absence (so, officially, welcome back Claire!) and touched base a while back to see if I’d participate in this latest venture, entitled Five Films Forever, I figured it was about time to jump back in.

You can find Claire’s own post for this blogathon here, with links to many others as well! Enjoy.

It’s a fairly straightforward idea too: pick by five desert island films, films I could happily watch on an endless loop provided I had power, a television, and either a DVD player or WiFi.

My dream location to be stuck forever isn’t a desert island, however. It’s far less cliched as that. No, if I had to be stuck somewhere and I could choose, it would be somewhere cosy, comfortable, well stocked with food and filled with cartography. There’s only one place that ticks all those boxes. Therefore, my dream isolation, where I could comfortably sit and while away the rest of my life, is:

Bag End, Hobbiton, The Shire.

Of course I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life there, mainly because I’d hope my reverie would be interrupted by tiny men wanting to go on quests and stuff. But with a big enough television and a loud enough sound system, I could make do for long enough I’d at least come out looking like pre-Balrog Gandalf.

Selling this to my wife and kids would be hard, so I’d have to come up with five movies I love so much they’d just nod and wave me away on my ringwraith. So here’s my five all-timer movies (in no particular order) I could watch on repeat, rewind and repeat.

  1. Armageddon (1997)

Honestly, the cheese and high hokum in Michael Bay’s asteroid extravaganza is enough to sink any desert island list beneath the waves. One of the great 90’s action films, it came along at the perfect cinema-watching time of my life and, aside from perhaps The Rock, is arguably the most fun film Bay has ever directed. With a stellar cast (hell, there’s only one or two people in the cast who haven’t gone on to bigger and better things, plus it’s got the great late Michael Clarke Duncan as well, RIP), a fantastic soft-metal score by Trevor Rabin, not to mention some fantastic action sequences, what’s not to love?

2. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)

Forget the “Special Edition” bullshit, I want the original theatrical version of Star Wars, the sci-fi blockbuster that kicked off an entire franchise and transformed a generation of young kids into nostalgic filmmakers themselves. Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Sir Alec Guinness taking on the Empire in the Millennium Falcon alongside an overgrown saltshaker, a reject tin man from the Wizard Of Oz and a mutated St Bernard: it’s a classic, evokes powerful memories in me (as it does most people) and also boasts John Williams’ iconic score. But it would have to be the original version, not the one filled with preposterous new (dated) CG effects and additional Jabba.

3. Starship Troopers (1997)

Paul Verhoeven has directed many masterpieces and he’s also directed Showgirls, which is probably a masterpiece for a whole load of different reasons. Arguably his best is RoboCop, but the one I find most rewatchable is Starship Troopers, his loosely-based-on take on Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel set in the future. Filled with splendid CG and model effects, action violent enough to make Game Of Thrones look piss-weak by comparison,  and a slew of subtext commentating the US military industrial complex and how close “freedom” might seem to fascism, this ostensibly shallow action classic is a lot smarter that many give it credit for. It’s a hell of a thing.

4. The Dark Knight (2008)

Christopher Nolan’s near-perfect take on Batman, Gotham City’s caped crusader, stepped up to shatter expectations with his enormously successful 2008 sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins. Rocked by the death of co-star Heath Ledger during post-production (he would go on to snag a rare posthumous Oscar for his turn as the Joker) and featuring a stellar cast and dynamic performances, this is arguably the superhero film of the last two decades and set the bar for all to follow, including the MCU and DC’s reset with Man of Steel.

5. Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (Extended Editions, duh)

It’s an easy pick. Plus, there’s the additional bonus of this trilogy technically counting as one film, surely? Peter Jackson’s extended editions have become the definitive editions in the two decades since these films released into cinemas, setting the bar for fantasy filmmaking (a bar not even Jackson himself could match with his Hobbit trilogy a decade later) and they offer a fully-realised world in which the audience can immerse itself eternally. Elijah Wood’s jewellery-wielding Frodo, Ian McKellan’s Gandalf, Sean Astin’s Samwise, Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn and Orlando Bloom’s gravity-defying Legolas will transport you to Middle Earth and the armies of Mordor – not to mention the superbly rendered schizophrenic Gollum (Andy Serkis) – in this lengthy and largely faithful adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s 60’s uber-novel. Clocking in somewhere around 12 hours, rewatching this thing is a sure-fire way to throw away many hours in the comfort of Bilbo’s favourite chair.

 

Who wrote this?

10 thoughts on “Blogathon – Five Films Forever

  1. Sure great picks indeed. Enjoy them all, even if Armageddon is a cheese fest. Although I think I’d pick The Rock over it if it came to it. And that made me think of Con Air.

  2. Hey Rodney! I’m so with you, I’d want to be stuck somewhere cosy, comfortable, well stocked with food too… and preferably somewhere equipped w/ great home theater system too, ha!

    LOVE your picks! I picked Batman Begins in my previous Desert Island blogathon a decade ago, but I certainly don’t mind bringing The Dark Knight, I love both the 1st + 2nd Nolan’s Batman films equally. Hey you can’t bring all 3 LOTR movies man, you gotta pick just one 😀 I actually just rewatched the trilogy and they’re still so immensely watchable!

    1. Ha ha thanks Ruth! If I was *forced* to choose one of the LOTR films instead of all three I’d have to take Fellowship; there’s just something magical about that first instalment. Have you checked out the new 4K editions on disc? They really are something to behold!

      Yes, I’m a lazy bum really, so sitting comfortably on a couch with the remote and a half-decent home theatre would be the ideal way to waste my life!

  3. Great read and great choices.

    Starship Troopers is such an unappreciated film and it made me smile seing that here. Star Wars is obviously a no-brained, as is a LOTR trilogy (although they didn’t make my list), but the inclusion of Armageddon is what’s opened up a debate in this household. I think this debate may get us through the weekend and may prompt a rewatch just to be sure.

    Enjoyed it, thanks.

    1. Armageddon is one of those polarising films, isn’t it? You either hate it with a passion or are all-in on the silliness and cheese. It remains an all-timer for me simply because it’s so bafflingly overstuffed with talent, plot twists and glorious 90’s action sequences I can’t help but love it.

  4. Hi Rodney,

    Fellow #FiveFilmsForever blogger here.

    Excellent choices, its quite funny I am about to write a review on Armageddon after watching it again this week.

    A New Hope (which was one of my choices) and The Dark Knight are spot on choices as well.

    Thanks for sharing

  5. Thanks for taking part, Rodney, and thanks for the official welcome back as well 🙂

    First of all, EPIC choice of where you’ll be. I went for NZ – why didn’t I think of Hobbiton?!

    Love the variety of your selection!
    Armageddon is an inspired choice. I think I could happily rewatch that for a while too.

    A New Hope and The Dark Knight – excellent.

    Starship Troopers – hell, yes! Such a cheeseball but I do enjoy it.

    LOTR trilogy – bending the rules slightly but hey, maybe you recorded it yourself after finding lots of costumes around Bag End?!

    1. Did I not mention that Lord of The Rings is a documentary I made for this very blogathon?

      Well……

Comments are closed.