Eldest Son, Second Daughter, and I watched the movie Gladiator tonight. It wasn’t too bad even though it was rated R. Very bloody, of course. And there was an incest theme that my children thought was “gross.” The main character, Maximus, was somewhat heroic, motivated by love of family and by desire for revenge–in about equal parts I would say. The bad guys were really bad, and the good guys were mostly good. Maximus believed that he would rejoin his family after death in Elysium, but that belief had no basis that I could see. His “faith” reminded me of that of most secular Americans. “God loves everybody, and so everybody except for Hitler and Osama Bin Laden will probably make it to heaven where we’ll all be happy forever.” I wouldn’t add this one to my list of 100 Best Movies, but as I said at the beginning it was not bad. (By the way, it’s rated R for graphic violence, not for sex or language.) Braveheart was better.