Entertainment Talk

Watching films with my father, who only trusts 80s action heroes

My father is 68 and has a very clear rule about cinema: if there is no explosion in the first fifteen minutes, he goes to make tea and does not come back.

For years I found this frustrating. I would bring home something slower, a Malayalam drama or a festival film, and lose him by the first song. Lately I have started to see it differently. Those films were his escape after long shifts, the same way my own work leaves me wanting something simple at night.

So now we have a deal. One of his, one of mine. Last week it was Commando, and then a quiet family film from Kerala, and to my surprise he stayed for the whole second one.

Does anyone else have a parent with a fixed taste like this? How do you find films you can actually share?