Top 10... Movie Rabbits

Rabbits. Bunnies. Hares. Lepus. Conies. Floppy-eared, fluffy-tailed harbingers of chocolate eggs. Whatever you call them, their distinctive profiles, cute demeanour and oh-so-adorable little twitchy faces makes rabbits one of the many animals that crops up in films far more often than you might think. And seeing as it's Easter this is the perfect time to celebrate those bouncing bundles of fluff that are the rabbits of the movies. There's some notable omissions - I haven't seen the likes of Watership Down or Rise of the Guardians, haven't overly liked any version of Alice in Wonderland and couldn't bring myself to include The House Bunny on any list. Fatal Attraction deserves a place on a list of best scenes involving rabbits, but that is not this list, and the rabbit in question doesn't have too much of a personality, or even a name if I remember rightly, much like the dinner caught by Gollum in The Two Towers. And this has nothing to do with the quality of the films, it's just how much I like the rabbits in question. 

Honourable mention: Jack Rabbit Slim's, Pulp Fiction
Personally, I'm amazed it's taken me this long to wrangle Pulp Fiction onto a list. Technically there are no actual rabbits in this film, but then that's also the case for at least two other films on this list, but Pulp Fiction is the most tenuous link, hence why it's only the honourable mention. Also, it's a part of my least favourite storyline in the film, as I'm not much of an Uma Thurman fan, and could have done without the Mia Wallace segment. The club itself is pretty damn cool, even if the milkshakes cost $5.00, as the chance to be served by Marilyn Monroe, James Dean or Buddy Holly (Steve Buscemi) is just awesome. The only downside is the dance contests.

Top 5... Directors Who Haven't Yet Beaten Their First

Sometimes a director will knock a film out of the park on their first go. This is never a bad thing, unless of course the director then spends the rest of their career chasing a high they may never achieve again. Whether its a matter of a budget they can't handle, an inflated ego, troublesome actors or the interference of a pesky, meddlesome studio, these directors just haven't managed to get things together to relive those past, initial glories.

5.
Frank Darabont - The Shawshank Redemption

There are few people in the world who don't like The Shawshank Redemption, yet it was Darabont's first feature film after just a short and a couple of TV movies. Since its release in 1994 Darabont very nearly reached its heady heights again with the similarly Stephen King scribed The Green Mile, but it was overlong and a tad too depressing at times for my liking. The Majestic is under-appreciated but nowhere near as good, and though I really like The Mist, it can never be more than a slightly above average monsters-from-a-parallel-dimension B-movie. The Walking Dead had the potential for greatness, and is still very enjoyable, but it's doubtful whether anything Darabont makes will ever reach Shawshank-like levels of greatness.

Top 5... Movie Monarchs

Last weekend was Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. I've mentioned before that I'm no Royalist, but it got me thinking as to the cinematic world's greatest rulers, so let's have a look at the top movie monarchs. I've broken this down into real and fictional.