Robin Williams Season

It's been Robin Williams month in our flat for films this April.  When Nico discovered I have never seen the holy grail of films for teachers - Dead Poets Society, he bought me it with Good Morning Vietnam (another gap in my film education up until now) for my birthday.

I really enjoyed Dead Poets Society although I can't say that it is entirely realistic.  It reminded me of why I got into teaching, so maybe it will be one to watch on the bad days.  It was a great story and I really enjoyed it.

Last weekend we watched Good Morning Vietnam.  Thinking this was just another war film, from an era whose war films I haven't really enjoyed, it's never been high on my list of priorities.  Boy was I mistaken.  Not only is it possibly the first war film I've watched with at least some sympathy for the 'enemy', it also has an inordinate amount of comedy for its genre and brings teaching English as a foreign language into the picture and also reminded me why I do my job.  I think it may have made it to the number one spot on my list of favourite war films.

In considering the work of Robin Williams, I had to resort to imdb to remind myself of all of his films.  It's quite amazing the range of genres in which he has worked.  I always consider him a comic genius but he has also covered war, children's, crime, sci-fi, romance and television.  I think Good Morning Vietnam and Mrs Doubtfire may be my joint favourites from his repertoire but then I am told that 'Good Will Hunting' is another huge gap in my Robin Williams' film knowledge...