Gladiator gets my vote
I WAS surprised when I read the top 10 films Brits in lockdown would choose to watch to keep them entertained.
The Desert Island Flix list was compiled by flat sharing website SpareRoom. Number one was the 1994 prison drama Shawshank Redemption, adapted from a Stephen King novel and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Worthy but not my choice.
The other nine were Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Pulp Fiction, Titanic, About Time, Gladiator, The Matrix, Forrest Gump and Jurassic Park.
Choosing films is a subjective process. All the above have quality but only one – Gladiator – would figure in my top 10.
Lockdown means I would want a mix of entertainment and nostalgia, plus a feelgood factor, rather than anything too heavy. The only one from the Flix list I would keep would be Gladiator, for its spectacle, great cast and Russell Crowe saying: “My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commander of the Armies of the North. General of the Felix Legions. Loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”
And here are another four to make my top five (I’m not greedy). Disney’s Frozen, It Happened One Night, a Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert classic from 1934, Singing In The Rain from 1952, and Went The Day Well, a 1942 film where British villagers stand up to German paratroopers.
And if I had to choose anything from TV, it would be a full set of Game of Thrones.