This blog recently marked its one year anniversary. This started off as a simple project to watch consecutively the Military History magazine's Greatest 100 War Movies. See my mission statement. I got the idea from the movie "Julie and Julia". Ironic that a chick flick inspired me to watch so much testosterone! Later, I realized that just doing the Greatest 100 was too limiting, so I altered the mission statement to allow me to branch out. This includes going to war movies in theaters to do "now showing" reviews. This is so cool, but unfortunately a rare experience these days.
I went back and counted the number of war movies I have watched since starting this project and was surprised to find the number was 172. That is close to one every other day for the last year. You would assume I have no life, but I did manage to teach six history classes and coach a high school soccer team, among other things, during that year. It has been fun and I look forward to the next year as I continue to view and review the Military History 100 Greatest War Movies and others. I should be in the top ten by this time next year. Hopefully the quality of the top fifty will be better than the bottom fifty.
I have to thank my wife Rachelle for putting up with this obsession of mine. She does not share my love of war films, but she puts up with me. She does sigh and shake her head a lot, however. This is what she did when I took her to our first war movie ("The Thin Red Line"), by the way.
I also owe a debt to my colleague Caroline of All About War Movies. Her advice and support has been important to this blog. She was my blog's first "friend" and is still its best. You meet the coolest people in the blogosphere (at least in the parts I hang out in). That's a shout-out to all my other bunkies.
In honor of my anniversary, I thought I would share my favorite movies over the past year, and my least favorites.
TOP TEN FAVORITES
1. Waltz with Bashir
2. Last of the Mohicans
3. Oh! What a Lovely War
4. In Which We Serve
5. Dr. Strangelove
6. Where Eagles Dare
7. Three Kings
8. Cross of Iron
9. Enemy at the Gates
10. Black Hawk Down
WORST CRAP I SAT THROUGH
1. Braveheart
2. The Tin Drum
3. Castle Keep
4. Beach Red
5. Siege of Firebase Gloria
6. They Died With Their Boots On
7. Army of Shadows
8. Journey to Shiloh
9. A Wing and a Prayer
10. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Congratulations and you've done so well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words too.
I quite agree with your Top 10 but,as you may know, not exactly with yout Top Crap. For a start I haven't seen them all and there are two movies I like a lot on the list (not in my Top 20 though) The Army of Shadows is one of the great classics of French cinema. Every sound is meaningful, even the ticking of the clock and the actors are fantastic.
I' looking forward to watch Waltz with Bashir, didn't get a chance yet although I had it since months...
Happy blog anniversary!
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