Saving Private Ryan (1998)

I overcame my Steven Spielberg prejudice (haven’t liked one of his films since Duel or Jaws) to watch this World War II epic. The battle scenes are extremely dramatic – bloody and terribly tense – and he deserves credit for these. What I didn’t like was the “present day” segments that top and tail the film. I don’t think these were needed at all. (Titanic suffered from the same slightly naff device.) Also unnecessary was the soupy music that is laden onto so many scenes. This is intrusive and emotionally obvious, undercutting the realism.

The other fundamental flaw is that the film can never explain why the life of Ryan (Matt Damon) is important enough to be worth rescuing at such a high price in terms of human sacrifice, just as Miller (Tom Hanks) can never explain it to his men. (General George Marshall decides that Ryan should be saved because all three of his brothers were killed.) What about all the other men who were not favoured? Or is the point precisely that life and death decisions are always made arbitrarily by those in the upper ranks?

It’s a shame because there is so much that is remarkable about this as a war film. In particular, the recreation of the Omaha Beach battle (part of the Normandy landings) is astonishing in the way it depicts the merciless brutality that both sides faced. Knowing that this slaughter actually happened makes it genuinely painful to sit through.

WarGames (1983)

Genuinely exciting thriller about a teenager (Matthew Broderick) who accidentally triggers the countdown to nuclear armageddon by hacking into US military computers. It’s fascinating to watch now, given how things have changed in terms of technology.

There are some unbelievable moments – hacker left alone in a room in a high-security military installation with access to a computer – but overall the story is surprisingly timely and plausible. In 2019 we are at the mercy of automated systems. And with Donald Trump as president, this sort of crisis seems all too possible.

It’s highly entertaining, with more of a nail-biting escalation than most James Bond films. The pacing is excellent too: it never lets up.

Apart from Matthew Broderick’s distinctly odd parents, the film is well cast. Ally Sheedy is appealing as Jennifer Mack, the hero’s school-chum-turned-girlfriend, and John Wood is effective as the eccentric, damaged Dr. Stephen Falken, who invented the WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) supercomputer.

There’s a happy ending, of course, but not before the moral – the futility of mutually assured destruction – has been firmly established.

The Big Short (2015)

This highly stylised account of the investment schemes devised in the weeks leading up to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 follows three parallel narratives featuring individuals who stood to gain by the collapse of the US mortgage market.

Complex financial concepts are often hard to grasp, so the film – being somewhat self-conscious and postmodern – has this terminology explained by walk-on celebs (Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain, Selena Gomez, etc) talking direct to camera.

It’s not as compelling as The Wolf of Wall Street, which was personality-driven and had the huge advantage of starring Leonardo diCaprio. This film is more about a situation, with the characters seeming secondary to the way it unfolds. That said, the semi-crazed actions of Christian Bale (as Michael Burry) are the most watchable element. Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt are difficult to empathise with. That’s surely intentional, but it does make for a less engaging narrative.

Ultimately, I think I would have preferred to watch a well-made documentary about the same events or a fully fictional account that could structure the story in a more satisfying way.

Touching the Void (2003)

Documentary film version of Joe Simpson’s 1988 memoir detailing Simpson and Simon Yates's 1985 climb of the 6,344-m (20,813-ft) Siula Grande in the Andes.

After reaching the summit, disaster strikes when Simpson breaks his leg on the way down. Yates heroically winches him down but when Simpson falls and is left dangling, Yates fears him dead and – about to plummet himself – considers he has no choice but to cut the rope...

The film tells the improbable story of how both men survived. It’s even more remarkable in the case of Simpson, whose leg was badly mangled and who was dangerously dehydrated as well as suffering hypothermia. He lost a third of his body weight during the ordeal.

It’s riveting to see the two climbers being interviewed about what happened, interspersed with convincing actor reconstructions of the climb. The psychology of their relationship is fascinating. They start out as casual friends. Then become colleagues who depend on one another for survival. When events take a darker turn, their relationship has to take on bigger ethical/existential aspects and seems to become simultaneously both intimate and remote.

The highlight, for me, was the section in which Simpson recalls being tormented by snatches of “Brown Girl in the Ring” going round and round in his head and remarking “I remember thinking, bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M.”

The DVD extras, unusually, are just as fascinating as the film – if not more so. One mini-film examines what happened next: the complex process by which they got down from base camp to eventual medical assistance. The other takes Simpson and Yates back to the Siula Grande as consultants on the making of the film and observes their reactions to returning to the site of the drama. Yates is very matter-of-fact about it all, or claims to be – you suspect he’s more affected than he lets on after all these years of notoriety as “the man who cut the rope”. Simpson, meanwhile, is profoundly disturbed by being forced to relive the moments in which he was absolutely certain he would soon die. It’s both moving and upsetting to watch him in this extraordinary situation.