Family Film Fun.

My friend Derek came over for lunch today. It was good to see him, we had a good chat about various topics including our favourite films. He was shocked and disappointed to hear that I considered both Braveheart and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves to be films of dubious merit.

He asked me to explain myself at conversational gunpoint. As I thought about it I came to the conclusion that the thing I really don't like in those films is that the characters are all so unreal. They're either all good or all bad. Robin Hood is perfect, so perfect that even when he catapults himself over a wall he manages to land handily in a pile of straw. Similarly in Braveheart the Scottish are unfailingly noble, caring and loving, carrying out extreme violence only because they've been needly oppressed by the inevitably cruel and heartless English.

However I do really like films like American Beauty and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest because the characters are so much more interesting, they're neither all good or all bad. Also I really like Jack Nicholson and Kevin Spacey, top quality actors. Plus you don't have the guarantee of a happy ending.

And so Braveheart bad, American Beauty good.