I want to talk about seven movies. I could have mentioned hundreds, but these seven,

why do men love them and why do we need more of movies like this?

So let's start with the last thing first.

Why do we need more?

Well, we're in the middle of an unprecedented crisis

in our culture, in America and the West generally. And it goes by many different names, you can call it the crisis of masculinity, the father wound, basic fatherlessness, the dearth of manhood, the death of manhood, many different ways to say the same thing.

Whatever you want to call it, owing primarily to the lack of strong fatherly models.

There are certain stories in these movies

that resonate with men in a profound way.

So in no particular order,

Chariats of Flab.

No, Chariats of Fire, winner of the 1981 Best Picture Oscar about the ragtag group of British

athletes in the 1924 Paris Olympics, led by real life Christian missionary Eric Liddell. Prius.

Now, Grand Turino, stirring the one and only Clint Eastwood as retired career in

war vet Walt Kowalski in suburban Detroit, whose strained relationship with his Asian

neighbors comes to a head in an ironic ending you did not see coming.

The OK stuff, I mean the right stuff based on the book by Tom Wolf and starring

Sam Shepard and Ed Harris. This movie tracks the training of the first generation

of Gemini astronauts whose testing of metal, M-E-T-T-L-E, form the basis of the Apollo program.

Safe Heart, I mean Brave Heart.

Mel Gibson's classic biopic of William Wallace full of memorably violent battle scenes and a love story women can enjoy too.

Gladiator, Director Ridley Scott's best picture film about a Roman slave named Minimus, no, Maximus, who comes back from exile and

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