World War II movies have been staple Hollywood fare for nearly seven decades. Picking the best is

World War II movies have been staple Hollywood fare for nearly seven decades. Picking the best is hopelessly subjective, depending on whether you prefer intense personal portraits or epic battlefield dramas. Here are five options for this Memorial Day:

v “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957): David Lean’s wide-screen saga is very long, but worth the sit. William Holden, Hollywood’s favorite war cynic, is at his best as the reluctant hero. But Alec Guinness’ British commander is the film’s linchpin — a study on the power and blindness of pride.

v “Das Boot” (1981): War from the other side. This sometimes self-serving German film wrongly portrays many Germans as anti-Nazi. It nonetheless captures the claustrophobic, tense, dirty, terrorized world of underwater combat better than any movie before or after.

v “Forty-Ninth Parallel” (1941): Smashing story of sailors from bombed German U-boat attempting to make their way across Canada to the then- neutral United States.

v “The Great Dictator” (1940): Charlie Chaplin’s wonderful send-up of Adolf Hitler. He plays a Jewish barber who is the spitting image of dictator Adenoid Hynkel of Tomania.

v “Letters from Iwo Jima” (2006): It’s exceptionally rare to get a chance to see war from the enemy’s point of view, and the brilliance of Clint Eastwood’s film is that it humanizes the Japanese defenders of the rock in the Pacific without soft-pedaling the brutality and sometimes mindless regimentation that drove them to their deaths.

“The Bachelorette” (8 p.m., ABC): Another run for the roses begins on “The Bachelorette.”

“Ring of Fire” (9 p.m., Lifetime): “Ring of Fire” is a movie starring pop singer Jewel as June Carter Cash. The film covers her childhood in Virginia through her tumultuous relationship with Johnny Cash (Matt Ross).

TV listings, B6

entertainment news

Bridal gowns will be on display

WARREN

Sandra Sarsany, curator with the Upton Association, will host a free open house at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Upton House, 380 Mahoning Ave. NW. The event will feature bridal gowns of the 1920s and 1930s. For information call 330-538-3182.

Doo Wop concert at Civic Theater

AKRON

A Doo Wop Celebration VI will begin at 4 p.m. June 9 at Akron Civic Theater, downtown. The concert will feature a lineup of renowned doo wop performers, including Charlie Thomas’ The Drifters; Shirley Alston Reeves, original lead singer of The Shirelles; The Coasters; and Sonny Turner, former lead singer of The Platters.

The show will benefit Western Reserve Public Media and the Akron Civic Theater.

Tickets are available at the theater box office, by phone at 330-253-2488, and online atAkronCivic.com. Prices are $25, $45 and $65. A limited number of Gold Circle packages at $90 include best-in-house seating, a post-concert reception and a meet-and-greet with the performers.