Dean's World

I'm taking suggestions for good movies for Fathers Day. And offering a few. My criteria for inclusion in my list include 1) it must be a good, watchable, entertaining picture with 2) an interesting or compelling portrayal of a father and his relationship with his children that 3) doesn’t demean either the father or the children. Since Hollywood is so frequently belittling of fathers, that can be a tall order.

For my picks see The Glittering Eye.

Here is my favorite movie quote of all time regarding the status of fatherhood. It's from 1960's The Magnificent Seven (itself a great remake of a classic Japanese film). It was voiced by a scurrilous, no-account bachelor womanizer gunfighter hired to protect a small village beset by bandit raiders who hired these gunslingers to protect their families:

Village Boy 2: We're ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards.

O'Reilly: Don't you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards. You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility: for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it: this is bravery. That's why I never even started anything like that... that's why I never will.