It is the swashbuckling 1800s and Zorro, or Don Diego de la Vega Swashbuckleo as his friends know him, is away at Swashbuckler Academy, swashbuckling. But all is not well back at home, in Swashbucklaville. It seems the powers that be have decided to become oppressive, so Don's dad sends out a request for a little help from his beloved son.

It would be unreasonable to continue to make fun of this movie, because Don's ensuing efforts to bring down the corrupt government, utilising a cunning charade of which Zorro is the major player, are actually a lot of fun. In addition, the final sword fight is even today, amongst the plethora of martial arts and kickboxing films, rather impressive. It is also rather humorous to contrast the fighting dialogue between the two characters with the grunts and lame one liners of modern action cinema - one guy is going down, but it is all still rather civil. All in all, this film is a lot of fun, and not as mindless as it first may seem. However, if there are any swashbucklaphobics out there, I am afraid you will be deeply disturbed, perhaps beyond the point of recovery, by this veritable swashbucklathon. There. A review of a Zorro film using only seven references to swashbuckling. Eight.

This classic film is said by many to be one of the best films ever made, although it is often left out of people's lists of the top ten films of all time. How Green Was my Valley tells the story of a Welsh mining family living in the not-always-so-good old days around the turn of the century. The movie is basically the now late Roddy McDowell, as a grown man about to leave his valley home, reminiscing on his life so far as the youngest of seven children. The family lives through a tumultuous series of events including mine tragedies, strikes, life threatening experiences and vicious town gossip over the relationship between the local priest and the only daughter within the family.

This movie is basically must see viewing for that weird sub-culture of people roughly held together by the term "film buff", as it is the film that beat out Citizen Kane for best picture and best director at the 1941 Oscars. Some claim this is a victory of general human interest over technicality, others say it simply reveals the priorities of the academy, for better or worse. Whether I personally think this film is better than Kane is irrelevant, but I can at least say that it is most certainly a worthy competitor, perhaps demonstrating that when making good classic cinema, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Go along and make up your own mind.