"since when has fair and balanced, right down the middle been entertaining?"

Since ever for me, Jack. The movies I most appreciate are those that show the humanity of the protagonists on BOTH sides of a war or some other struggle in an equal fashion. Their deaths and their sufferings are then far more poignant and tragic and carry far more emotional impact...and they remind us of everyone's common, shared humanity.

That's far more moving than your standard good guys/bad guys nonsense that you see all the time.

A good guys/bad guys story is fine, though, for a fictional story that just gives us some lively action and suspense...that's basically just for fun. I've got no problem with that.

But when I see a film that is purporting to show us something about history...I do not want to see one side demonized just so we have a "bad guy" to detest. It's stupid, and it's usually inaccurate. It gives no respect to people.

A story where you end up understanding and caring about the people on both sides of a battle can just break your heart...and from that, you learn something.

You don't learn something from just watching another exercise in..."Oh, aren't they all evil? Now let's watch them all get killed and cheer when they do." That's just priming people to go out and fight the next stupid war is what it is.

Here's a movie that did show both sides quite fairly, I think: The recent Alamo film a few years back. It was by far the best depiction yet of that episode. Crockett was acted brilliantly in that film...not a cardboard hero, but a man who wished he could escape the burden of his popular legend, yet was willing to rise to the occasion on behalf of those around him. Santa Ana was shown as what he was...an extremely arrogant autocrat, somewhat out of touch with reality...but many of the other Mexicans in his staff and his army were shown with real sympathy by the screenplay...like the ones who pleaded with Santa Ana to spare Crockett's life after the battle...like the brave Mexican general who crossed his arms proudly and waited to die as the lines broke around him at San Jacinto. That movie honored both sides and treated them as human beings. I like to see that in a movie.