Seeing as The Dude himself recently saw fit to strap on a guitar and bash out a few maudlin country tunes in the Oscar-bothering Crazy Heart, cementing his place (We’ll forget about ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys for now…and forever) in an illustrious list of wandering minstrels who haven’t always managed to pluck the heart strings of the academy committee. We decided to open our ears to some new vibes, man, so join us as we update our spotify playlists with…the best musicians in movies!

1: Beethoven (1770 -1988- 1827 ) Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Essential Ipod:The 1812 Overture – by far the finest example of cannon-based Germanic shouting to emerge from the classical era.

Eschewing the obvious choice of Mssrs B&T themselves, we’ve instead gone with the big-barneted Düsseldorf madman with a passion for Bon Jovi. The film may conveniently ignore the fact that Ludwig was stone deaf at the time the two west coast time travellers meet him, but then, Beethoven biographer Theodore Albrecht entirely ignores his close friendship with Billy the Kid too, so we figure it’s even.

2: Nigel Tufnell (1948 – ) This is Spinal Tap

Essential Ipod: Big Bottom.The only tune containing the words ‘Mud Flaps’ you’re ever likely to need on that ‘first date playlist’.

He’s a conundrum is ol’ Nige. Somehow he’s survived the barrage of sex, drugs, exploding drummers and diminishing returns to come out on top with Wembley arena gigs, marriage to Trading Places-era Jamie Lee Curtis, a peerage and infinite sustain. Managed to make lick my love pump’s horn section sound like Mozart rogering Bach.

3: Radio Raheem (1970 – 1989)- Fight the Power

Essential Ipod: Fight the Power, incendiary and poignant, Public Enemy’s justly legendary album isn’t quite juvenile enough for us-fortunately there’s an all-swearing version of NWA’s similarly themed Straight Outta Compton that is!

Not a muso in the traditional sense, Radio still manages to entertain the inhabitants of a 12 city block area with ‘his kind of music’, and looks damn good doing it in his classic Nikes. The fact that his chosen instrument is a gargantuan boombox running on enough D Energizers to drain half the city that also manages to spark a riot and ultimately kill Raheem is testament to its profound musical power.

4: Pierce Brosnan (1953 – well, his singing career died in 2008 anyway ) Mama Mia

Essential Ipod: Mamma Mia (Karaoke Version)

Having had a pretty decent crack at Bond, Pierce proved it wasn’t just exotically-monikered Russian agents he could murder, wrapping his vocal cords around Abba’s monster hits with all the deadly effectiveness of Xenia Onatopp’s killer thighs. Those who thought the Swedish superstar’s dollops of pure pop were impervious to cover version harm stood on astounded as Mr.Brosnan threw caution and years of Remington Steele suavity to the wind in a few seconds, burping out his lines in the manner of a rutting wildebeest.

5: Huey Lewis (1950-1985-1955-1855-1985…) Back To The Future

Essential Ipod: Hip To Be Square. Huey displays remarkable self-awareness, having a sneaky go at his legions of 80’s MOR fans a full decade before Kurt managed the same trick with Nirvana’s In Bloom.

Displaying a sartorial style that almost matches the musical genius that bought us..erm…the harp solo in Thin Lizzy’s ‘Sarah’…Huey dons plaid sports coat and turns down Marty’s awful band The Pinheads, despite the fact that they’re playing one of his own songs. Huey was of course quick to capitalise on this early celluloid success, appearing in Duets a mere 11 years later and belting out some truly shocking karaoke numbers that only appear acceptable because his main competition is Paul Giamatti’s pig-like grunting.

Nick Rivers – Top Secret (1984/Sometime in the 40s, 50’s or possible 60’s…)

Essential Ipod: Skeet Shootin’. The Beach Boys were fine, but they never really grasped the unique pleasure to be had from surfing…while firing a 12-guage shotgun recklessly in the air. The fact that Nick captures this and still finds room for some squeaky-clean west coast harmonies proves his lasting appeal.

OK, so he may be derivative of Elvis and Little Richard, but you wouldn’t catch those guys dressing up as a pantomime cow to storm a castle, let alone order flaming hog’s balls at a state banquet. Displaying the kind of confidence – and massive bouffant -that will get you locked up in cold war East germany, Nick wastes no time in getting to know the guards…and recommending a massive anal vibrator to them.

With Tarantino’s Basterds currently carving up critical opinion in the style of 1940s Berlin, we figured it was a perfect excuse to crack open the beers and watch a few two-fisted, boy’s own adventure WWII flicks. It’s all very well going on about Rambo and Arnie in Predator, but when it comes to kicking goose-stepping Nazi ass, you need a different calibre of hero entirely.

Join us as STS dons it’s goggles and fleece-lined RAF jacket, pops a pipe in it’s gob, and, in our very best BBC English, concocts some cockamamey mission to rescue Winston Churchill’s secret exploding cigars from a Bavarian castle. This type of who dares wins needs a very special set of protagonists, so join us as we bring you 6 of the best: Nazi Fighters!

1: Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Ark

Nazis. He hates those guys. In between all the religious iconography/claptrap and occasional subcontinental detours, we sometimes forget that those is Nazi faces getting melted off by Jesus, and Dr. Henry Jones Jnr is the ideal earthly apostle of two-fisted SS head cracking. He’s interested in history for it’s own sake, and is more concerned with filling a museum than winning the war, but that hasn’t stopped him from working as a triple agent in both World Wars, stealing a U-boat, disfiguring senior SD officials in bar fights, punching a bald Nazi Ubermensch through a plane propeller, and even banging into little Adolf himself at one point. Dr. Jones is a man of science, but that doesn’t mean he won’t shoot first,and commune directly with Jehovah later. His fedora-beheaded silhouette makes him the ideal operative for jungle and desert warfare, and he may even let you keep a few camels at the end of it all.

2: Nick Rivers – Top Secret!

OK, so a light blue high-school wind-cheater isn’t your typical choice of uniform, and neither is waiting until 1955 to get involved, but that doesn’t stop teen surf and song sensation Rivers from sticking it to the Hun in fine fashion. An innovative display of weapons (an enormous, high-voltage dildo) and a range of superb disguises (a pantomime cow) mean he’s perfect for deep cover work. Whether it’s ordering flaming Hog’s balls for dinner, or crashing a submarine into a castle, Rivers may not have much upstairs, but he knows exactly how to combat history’s most notoriously uptight armed force-with Rock N’ Roll baby!

3: Morris Shaeffer – Where Eagles Dare

Any STS readers -and a few ex-staff writers- who have a gun fetish will know that a standard German-issue ZK-383 submachine gun generates around 65lbs of recoil force per square foot. That’s enough to break your wrist. At one point during classic whack-a-fascist-fest Where Eagles Dare, Clint Eastwood’s Lietenant Morris Shaeffer holds one in each hand, and mows down an entire legion of sausage munching right-wingers in a hail of lead. Lets face it, on a mission this stupid, you could probably use an ultraviolent killing machine with a dry sense of humour, and Shaeffer gets our vote. Pause for a moment if you will to consider the film’s poster. Look at it! Where Eagles dare has absolutely everything a WWII flick needs, fist fights on the top of cable cars, Michael Redgrave shouting, beautiful double agents – it’s got it all. The fact that it’s got sod all to do with the realities of conflict, and absolutely everything to do with the blitz spirit makes it even better, and when it comes to wiping out truckloads of limping, eye-patch wearing SS fairies, Morris is the best there is.

4: Michael Redgrave – The Dambusters.

Every mission needs a commander, and when your squad consists of dangerous lone-wolves, then you need someone who can ignore unfortunate pluralisation and get on with the job at hand. Someone who reeks of quiet courage. Possibly someone who smokes a pipe. There’s only one operative who springs to mind: Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave. His knowledge of bouncing bomb trajectories is second to none, and his eclectic sexual practices make him perfectly suited to understand the perverse workings of the Nazi mind. The only man on the team to have an entire squadron of Lancaster bombers formed just to test out a crackpot theory he’s had. If it’s war winning you’re interested in, then the velvet-voiced, stiff upper lipped Redgrave’s your man!

5: Hellboy – Hellboy

An unusual choice to be sure, seeing as he is himself the product of obscure Axis technology and Satanic powers from beyond the veil of sleep, that doesn’t mean Big Red can’t be trusted. Fitting surprisingly easily into the Germanic pantheon -he has a penchant for LederHosen and comes equipped with his own Alpenhorn – the cigar chomping demonoid will come in handy when you need to punch through the wall of Castle Wolfenstein. Of course, it’s been widely and accurately reported – mainly on the ‘Fortean Times’ message boards – that Hitler’s stinking lapdogs were well into the Harry Potter side of things, so having someone who knows his Tuetons from his tentacles probably couldn’t hurt either.

6:Vasily Zeitsev – Enemy at the Gates.

If there’s an abiding lesson to be learned from history; “Don’t F**K with Russia” has to be up there. Vasily may or maynot believe in the cause, or uniting the proletariat, but he sure likes to shoot people in the head. Wether it’s taking Ed Harris down with a well-placed bullet to the bonce, charming the combat fatigues off Rachel Weiss’ perfectly formed Soviet issue bottom, or facing down an incensed Bob Hoskins, Zeitsev is a man who thinks fast in a crises. Every team needs a sniper, and with the addition of Jude Law’s ill-equipped peasant sharp shooter, this squad just got a whole lot better looking, and a whole lot more dangerous too.

Whaaaaaaat? No Virgil ‘Cooler King’ Hilts? No barking mad Edward Woodward? No Winston Churchill – circa ‘Churchill; The Hollywood Years’ natch- ?? There must be tons more to choose from right? Where the bloody hell is Richard Attenborough? Over to you then STS’ers; I expect a crack legion of highly skilled Nazi Bashers in my comments box by the end of the week – the future of the free world is in your hands; get on with it you ‘orrible lot you!