B Movies For Men

So, here we are again.  I didn't think we would be, actually.  I've been in the process of changing Internet Service Provider (ISP), which resulted in my old ISP prematurely cutting off my broadband service yesterday.  As the new ISP's service wasn't scheduled to go live until tomorrow afternoon, I wasn't too happy.  However, a call to the new ISP this lunchtime sorted things out and I by the time I got home from work this evening, I once more had broadband.  Which means I can tell everyone about a truly magnificent development in terms of my personal entertainment.  On Friday I found that Movies4Men was finally available nationally on Freeview.  Why is this such momentous news?  Well, Movies4Men is one of several digital film channels which has its content provided by the Sony film library which, it seems includes some amazing low-budget fare, much of which forms the backbone of the Movies4Men schedule.  As the channel's title implies, it has a heavy emphasis on action-orientated movies - war films, westerns, thrillers, the odd science fiction film - most of which are either ancient and/or B-movies.

That, in itself, is great as far as I'm concerned but, even better, I've found that they also show the English-language versions of several Italian-made war movies from the late sixties.  I caught the last half hour of one on Saturday: it was magnificently bad!  Definitely my kind of entertainment!  These movies aren't always that easy to obtain so it's an Italian exploitation sub-genre I've never managed to get into.  Thanks to Movies4Men, I can now see at least three of them in a week!  But it isn't just these Italian war pictures which are exciting me - I've already set my digital recorder for Circus of Fear, a favourite barking mad sixties crime thriller I haven't seen in at least fifteen years.  I've also already had the pleasure of all three hours of the lurid early eighties French-US TV movie The Bunker, chronicling Hitler's last hundred days - apparently the upper echelons of the Third Reich consisted, primarily, of well-known British character actors, (including Anthony Hopkins as Hitler and, inevitably, Michael Sheard as Himmler).  Even Pat from EastEnders turns up in the kitchens of the eponymous bunker - was it any wonder Hitler went mad with her doing the cooking?  To be fair to Movies4Men, they also show some pretty decent movies of a more recent vintage: they had the 2002 Michael Caine boxing/crime thriller Shiner on last night, for instance.  Anyway, the arrival of Movies4Men has left me in seventh heaven, movie-wise!