Taking Chance is a truly amazing movie. It doesn’t scream at you, it quietly gets under your skin. The films power comes from a simple word – Reverence. Yeah, I guess that one would have to be capitalized as well. Taking Chance tells a true story, adapting Marine Colonel Mike Strobl’s personal journal of his assignment escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps, killed in Iraq in 2004, to Phelp’ family in Dubois, Wyoming. Mike, who served in Desert Storm is now sitting behind a desk stateside and feels guilty for not requesting combat duty in Iraq. Living comfortably at home with his wife and children had been the choice. He often wakes in middle of the night and checks the KIA list. One night while Mike is perusing the list he sees a name listed from his home town. He volunteers to be Phelp’ escort home. It changes his life.

Director and Screenwriter, Ross Katz has done a brilliant job telling the story of one man’s coming home in death and another’s coming to life. It’s a delicate balancing act, keeping focus on both the mourning of Phelps and Mike’s personal journey, neither overshadowing the other.

Kevin Bacon, who plays Col. Strobl, is incredible. He does so much with just his facial expressions. Lean and chiseled, Bacon is the consummate Marine. Slow, deliberate and did I mention Reverent with his actions, Mike’s devotion lends the story great intensity, and his struggles lend it great honesty. This is probably Bacon’s best.

The film also shows how we honor our fallen heroes, a chore revealed in great detail. It is all very informative. From the time Lance Corporal Chance Phelps leaves the battlefield, packed in ice, to his arrival at Dover in the States, it’s an amazing journey. His body is cared for. His belongings are cared for. A new uniform was created especially for him even though it was a closed casket. No detail was left undone. We also see the custom of how the escort salutes the casket every time it is moved from one mode of transportation to another, all working to guarantee that what may look like a giant cardboard box being shipped cross country is truly a “pearl of great price.”

Don’t misunderstand; Taking Chance is no mere documentary about how military remains are transported. It is a story about grieving. It is a story about honor. It is a story of Americans at our finest. No political agenda—no “support our troops” platitudes—just Reverence with a Capital R from Dover to Dubois.

Once again, I invite and enjoy your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com or look for my movie archives on www.CarolynHastings.com.

In the movie, a group of misfit boys calling themselves the Goonies are lamenting the loss of their homes to a greedy developer to expand his golf course. With the foreclosure at hand and their eminent separation, they do what any group of young American boys would do, they go treasure hunting. There were tales aplenty of a map so they started by looking, where else, but in the attic where they thought they just might begin their adventure.

The Goonies didn’t miss a trick; it had crooks, bats, cobwebs, skeletons, a lovable monster, an underground grotto, and a treasure hidden by some of the most considerate, clue-loving pirates who ever lived. Spielberg knew how to put you on the edge of your seat, even 25 years ago.

The movie begins with an assortment of engaging boys, including a smart kid, a kid with braces, a chunky kid (called Chunk), an older brother and an Asian kid whose clothing conceals numerous inventions. Along the way they pick up a couple of girls, whose function is to swap spit and get bats in their hair. With the old treasure map from the attic, they blunder into the hideout of a desperate gang of criminals, two brothers and a mama ‘from you know where’. The third brother is the lovable monster I mentioned. The tunnels to the treasure begin under their hideout. The kids find the tunnels while fleeing from the bad guys, and then go looking for the treasure with the crooks on their tail. There are lots of special effects and among the set pieces are the same kinds of booby traps that Indiana Jones survived in Raiders (falling boulders, sharp spikes), and a toboggan ride on a water chute that will remind you of the runaway train in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

When I decided to take a second look at The Goonies I mentioned it to my thirty something kids. Whew, faster than a speeding bullet the DVD’s came out. Not the VHS that I might have had leftover from the 80’s but the new cut…the cult that never died.

Many of the kids that were in this movie went on to be stars. Josh Brolin got his start right here in The Goonies. Corey Feldman, Sean Astin and Kerri Green were just some of the young actors who rounded out this talented ensemble. The Cyndi Lauper scene is worth the cost of the rental!

You may be wondering, “Did they have a reunion”? Why just like the Thomas-Hastings clan heading to Oregon for their family room, yes they did and I hear that you might keep an eye out for the Broadway adaptation in the next couple of years.

Rent it and find out why, Goonies Never Die! Once again, I invite your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com. Visit my archived movie reviews at www.CarolynHastings.com.

Sportswriter Joe Warr (Clive Owens) has lived a fast-paced world of professional duty for most of his life, leaving beloved wife Katy (Laura Fraser) behind to tend to their young son, Artie (Nicholas McAnulty). When Katy develops cancer and quickly dies, a thunderstruck Joe is left to care for his grief stricken child, never having developed any parenting skills. He, at first tries “strict” and then when he sees that doesn’t appear to be working swings the pendulum to being his son’s best friend. Adding further stress is the arrival of Harry (George McKay), Joe’s estranged teenage son from a previous marriage back home in England. Joe and Artie live in Australia and “English Boarding School” Harry tries to acclimate to a whole different life… and lifestyle. Chaos reigns.

Joe is trying to juggle a demanding career, his homestead and his boys, neither of which he has known with any degree of intimacy. The house is a mess, he’s bordering on child endangerment with the boys and things just aren’t getting any better.

What you see peaking through the clouds though is pure joy, budding relationship between a father and two sons. The director (Scott Hicks) also doesn’t miss the opportunity to create a beautiful bond between two brothers of disparit age who had never met each other.

Hicks makes impressive discoveries in his two young supporting stars (both completely at ease in front of the camera), but there’s a lot to be said for Clive Owens’s performance. Known recently for gun-toting action heroes (Shoot ‘Em Up) and smooth tricksters (Duplicity), here he gets a role to sink his teeth into. There are many scenes, some happy, some sad that pack amazing emotional punches. Owens’s rises to the challenge every time.

Many of today’s movies are geared to young men and boys. We get science fiction, horror and babes, scantily clad, what we don’t get is The Boys Are Back, a quintessential boy’s film to admire with no explosions or action sequences. So, invite your dad, granddad or brother over and watch The Boys Are Back. It examines the unique connection between male family members and there’s plenty of bravado, mischief, tantrums and heartbreak to go a long way.

The Boys Are Back is a movie that celebrates life! As always I invite your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com or visit my archives at www.CarolynHastings.com.

Crossing Delancey (1988) is about Isabella Grossman (Amy Irving) a 33 year-old single woman who lives in a rent-controlled apartment in New York City’s Upper West Side. She has a fulfilling job at New Day Books handling a prestigious series where famous authors read from their works. Among them is Anton Maes (Jeroen Krabbe), an egotistical European poet who, smitten, offers her a job as his personal secretary. However, it becomes clear that typing and filing were not what Anton had in mind, and the beautiful Isabella is soon involved with him. On one of her regular visits downtown to see her Bubbie, (i.e. grandmother) played by Reizl Bozyk, Izzy finds out that her Bubbie has decided that Izzy needs a nice Jewish husband and she has employed a matchmaker. Enter Sam Posner (Peter Riegert), the pickle maker whom Izzy likes just fine, but at the moment she is infatuated with the arrogant Anton. Made today, this movie would be a predictable love triangle, in which one suitor was clearly unsuitable, but writer Susan Sandler (who adapted her own play) and director Joan Micklin Silver keep everything at street level; these characters act like grown-ups, with grown-up feelings. They are all excited about new love, but equally wary.

I love Amy Irving’s acting. She was born in Palo Alto, California and was raised in San Francisco. Her parents, actress Priscilla Pointer and influential theatrical director and producer Jules Irving literally raised her on stage. Amy was brought up in the world of theater, she was put on the stage from the time she was nine months old, her father the director and her mother the actress, they didn’t want babysitters for their children, so if she wasn’t performing, she would stay in the wardrobe department or her mother would put her in the second row center where she could watch her. And before she was 10 years old, she had already worked in several plays. At an early age, Amy Irving was trained at the American Conservatory Theater and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Although her divorce settlement from filmmaker husband Steven Spielberg was estimated at a cool 100 million, Amy went on to work in many movies and plays.

Crossing Delancey speaks softly but delivers some provocative observations on sexual politics, family pressures, loneliness, single life, love and romantic fantasies. So cuddle up on the sofa with a buttery bowl of popcorn and watch this delightful movie. As always, I invite your comments at www.CarolynHastings.com.

The Blind Side

Sandra Bullock is blonde, no I mean Leigh Anne Touhy is blonde. When you first see Bullock in this role as a blonde you think, that’s just not right but as the movie goes on she moves so flawlessly into the skin (and hair) of Leigh Anne you never see the transition. She is bold and sassy and I loved her. She manages to even make the gushiest bits of dialogue in writer-director John Lee Hancock’s script ring true.

Leigh Anne Touhy is a fervently-Christian housewife in Memphis, Tennessee, who enjoys a privileged life with her husband Sean (Tim McGraw) and children Lily (Lily Collins) and SJ (Jae Head). Driving home one night, Leigh Anne spots one of her daughters classmates, Michael Oher, wandering along the road and offers the homeless, black teenager a roof for the night. She takes pity on Michael and offers him a room and encourages the lad to improve his grades and chase the possibility of an American football scholarship.

A mama bear fighting to protect her cub has nothing on Leigh Anne Touhy. She’s a gun-toting, fearless woman who bucks convention to shelter, educate and love the homeless black teenager. This could have easily slid into melodrama, but instead is a charming, relatively unsentimental drama that focuses, in a straightforward manner, on how good deeds change lives at all levels.

Inspired by a true story, The Blind Side tugs every heartstring and ticks off every cliché including a moment over salads at the country club when one of Leigh Anne’s friends gushes, “You’re changing that boy’s life,” and she responds, with a choked up voice, “No, he’s changing mine.”

Michael has a bit of a hard time with his many blessings with the Tuohy family and his abusive past haunts him. He returns to the housing project where he grew up to try to track down his mother, running into trouble. Leigh Anne goes after him, not to drag him away from his mother but to help him in his search for a better life. She shows an amazing insight that carries Michael through this transition.

Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy does a surprisingly good job. You kind of keep expecting him to break out in a country ballad but he never does. Kathy Bates, stellar as always, makes the most of her role as the tutor who helps Michael to improve his grades to get into college.

All in all, there is a reason Sandra Bullock won Best Actress at the Oscars and the Golden Globes and The Blind Side was nominated for Best Picture. It’s not easy to take an unbelievable true story and make it completely believable.

Don’t miss this one. As always, I welcome your comments and invite you to my read my archived movie reviews at www.CarolynHastings.com.

So, now we have a different Streep—a Meryl who laughs, giggles and snorts. In Mamma Mia! she was almost silly (as were her co-stars). Mamma Mia! had lots of singing, dancing and laughing, but no one in the movie did the singing and dancing well. What they did well was the laughing and giggling. We have a Streep that can let down her hair. We have a Streep that, in the last few years, can touch your heart where you live.

Julie & Julia was beautifully made. It’s the story of two women separated by time and space. They never meet on screen but Julia has touched the life of young Julie Powell (Amy Adams) to the point that she decides to change her life by writing a blog.

Young Julia Child is living in Paris with her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci), a diplomat whose posting sparks her fascination with cordon bleu cooking. It’s the late 40’s early 50’s and Paris is a wonderful place to experience so she enrolls in a French cooking school. She sets out to make some friends. A tall woman, she towers over the petite and slender French women she meets at the school. Some are nice to her, some are waspish and critical but she eventually proves she can cook with the best of them.

Back to Julie Powell’s blog. Julie finished college considered to be the best and brightest. She gets stuck in a nowhere job listening to people complain all day. Her friends (yes, this movie is about friendships) talk her into writing a blog about her cherished Julia’s recipes. She decides to cook all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking written by Julia and her French collaborators and write about her experiences.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of my favorite writers, directors, producers. Nora Ephron is back and I, for one, am thrilled. The genius behind When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and so many more, is one of the most talented for her genre I have every encountered. The cleverness of this film, which shouldn’t work but does, proves she is one of the greats.

So there you have it; a very talented Amy Adams and the thoroughly marvelous Meryl Streep together…almost. I would give this a definite “must see” for everyone. Lighten up! Meryl figured out how to, and so can you!

As always you can email me with your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com or go on my website www.CarolynHastings.com for more reviews.

My movie pick is The Passion of the Christ. This movie was released on Ash Wednesday 2004 among huge hubbub. Mel Gibson created an impassioned (pardon the pun) view of the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In my estimation, Gibson created a masterpiece. The Passion is a composite account assembled from the four Biblical Gospels of the final hours of the life of Christ.

Filmed entirely in Italy, the outdoor scenes were shot in Matera. The rest was filmed at Cinecitta Studios outside of Rome. Forty percent of it was shot at night or indoors under wraps in order to get an effect of light fighting its way out of darkness, according to Gibson.

The costumes were meticulously researched and hand-crafted by award-winning designer Maurizio Millenotti. All of the characters in the film are heard speaking the languages they would actually have spoken at the time. This means Aramaic for the Jewish characters including Christ and His disciples, and “street Latin” for the Romans. Greek, which was commonly spoken among the intellectuals of the period, was not quite as relevant to the story.

Most of the cast were hired locally except Washington born, James Caviezel, who was cast as Jesus. Chosen for the role because he was willing to commit to this unique project wholeheartedly, the talented Caviezel spent several months preparing himself physically, spiritually and emotionally for the most demanding role of his career. It was a daily struggle learning Aramaic and during production he endured full-body make-up sessions that sometimes dragged on for 10 hours. He spent entire shooting days exposed on the cross in freezing temperatures and during the grueling scourging scene one of his shoulders was dislocated. He was even struck by lightening while hanging on the cross and walked away unharmed. Maia Morgenstern, cast as Mary is a famous Romanian theater actress.

I want to invite you to experience this amazing film. Its breathtaking images, incredible acting and truly inspired directing makes it a top pick of mine. So, whatever your religious views happen to be, this slice of history is definitely worth viewing. Caution: rated R and not suitable for younger viewers. My reviews are archived on my website at www.CarolynHastings.com. I welcome your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com.

No Reservations

One of my more recent favorites is No Reservations. Now, I’ll tell you right now, there were no Oscars; not even a nomination. We’re dealing with lowered expectations. If you go into this with that in mind, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I guarantee your girly-girl will love ya for it. She just might cuddle up on the sofa with you while you’re watching.

The second best pay-off of the evening will be that you get to watch Catherine Zeta-Jones. Now how painful can that be? Catherine plays Kate, a control-freak chef so tightly wound it’s a wonder she doesn’t pop in the steam of her own kitchen. Despite her position as reigning queen of the Manhattan foodie set, Kate has no joy; she does not really exist outside of her job and her employer-ordered therapy. She throws temper tantrums when anyone, customers included, questions the perfection of her meal creations.

There’s a big turnaround for Kate, however, when her sister dies suddenly, leaving Kate to care for her wide-eyed, mini-bohemian 10 year old niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin) at the same time that a larger-than-life sous chef, who impossibly seems to be able to cook well, endear the staff and customers and enjoy life, gets a job in Kate’s kitchen. Nick (Aaron Eckhart) pushes all of Kate’s buttons and instantly hits it off with Zoe, and thus begins Kate’s transition from uptight head case to romantic comedy lead. Making room for Zoe and just maybe Nick in her self-focused life creates an incredible challenge.

There is nothing here to strain your brain and the cast could do a wonderful job with this one in their sleep. Zeta-Jones goes from cranky to cuddly right before our eyes. Eckhart plays the sweetly endearing Mr. Perfect with visible ease and Abigail Breslin is a mini-master of the silver screen and she just keeps getting better and better. The talents of this cast are pretty much unnecessary but they make this funny movie incredibly easy to watch.

For all the times that No Reservations is utterly conventional and predictable, it is kind enough to sidestep the contrived complications that often litter the genre—Zoe is a little girl in mourning, but she isn’t acting like a devil child out to destroy Aunt Kate. The family plight is not a downer to this movie that it could be, and even the cookie cutter romance isn’t plagued by wacky, trite misunderstandings to veer it off course.

It’s not sappy, the acting is tight and the story line…well, at least it has a story line, so pick No Reservations up, order some Chinese take-out with a single set of chopsticks and enjoy. Once again, I welcome your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com and don’t forget to go to my website for my archived movie reviews.

Tea with Mussolini

The first story is about a boy named Luca (played first by Charlie Lucas), who is orphaned after the death of his mother and the abandonment and marriage of his social climbing father. Luca is taken in by his father’s secretary, a British woman named Mary (Joan Plowright). As the tension grows between Italy and the Allies, Luca’s father decides the English way is not for him. He sends Luca off to Austria to be introduced to the Fascist ideology. However, when Luca returns, he has not lost his love for Mary, and he shows this despite the fact that she has become his country’s enemy.

The second story is about the ladies of the British consulate, who are respected members of the community until Italy declares war on England. Suddenly these proper ladies (of which Mary is one) are considered enemy aliens and imprisoned by the government. A dowdy member of the group is Hester (Maggie Smith), the widow of Mussolini’s former ambassador to England. She is Il Duce’s biggest fan, and even meets with him where they have tea and he assures her that no harm will come to her or her friends. Though Hester’s faith in the dictator survives far beyond everyone else’s, she eventually comes to realize her tea with him was nothing but a placation.

Then there is the story of a wealthy American woman named Elsa (Cher), a perfect example of “nouveau riche,” who is despised by Hester and many of the other proper British ladies. Elsa is flamboyant, loud, and garish, all of which spells vulgarity to Hester. But she is also good-natured and full of spirit, and she dearly loves Luca, since his deceased mother was her best friend. Like Hester, she soon finds herself the enemy, and is undone by an Italian man in whom she placed her trust. Also present is Lily Tomlin as Elsa’s sister Georgie, a brash lesbian grudgingly tolerated among the stuffy British women, and Judi Dench as Hester’s eccentric friend Arabella.

But the real star, art, is the never far below the visual bounty or plot’s direction. The architecture of Florence and San Gimignano are the story’s stunning backdrops. The real story here is how easily our world can change if we don’t stay informed about what is happening! This is a luscious story set in an amazingly beautiful country. I look forward to your comments. chastings@rockcliff.com

It's A Wonderful Life

George Bailey, played superbly by James Stewart, is a noble man who oozes small town forthrightness. An adventurer at heart, wishing to trek to all parts of the world, he becomes a slave to sacrifice to the family’s business, the Bailey Building and Loan. When he was a young boy, George lost his hearing in one ear after saving his younger brother Harry from frigid ice water. Then, just as he was about to leave Bedford Falls, his father is stricken with a stroke and George is left to tend the piddling family business. Again and again George’s plans and dreams of leaving are thwarted with circumstance after circumstance. Finally, married with four children and no exit ticket in sight, George gives up. He hits bottom after a sudden loss of funds threatens to torpedo the business and send George to jail. Broke and disgraced, in a Christmas Eve outburst where all seems hopeless, he sets out to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. Before George can jump, he sees someone in the water so he does what George always does-he jumps in to save them. An angel sans wings named Clarence (Henry Travers) has been sent down to help George see that he is invaluable to Bedford Falls and George pulls him out of the river. Clarence is there to earn his wings so he transports George back in time for a glimpse of what his community would be if he had not been there to help them.

Without George, Bedford Falls had long since been taken over by the rich and miserly Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore). Through all of his sacrifices, George helped many people over the years and through the domino effect had helped even more. Bedford Falls would have been a very different place without George Bailey. In unskilled hands, this moral fable might have been dully preachy. Director Frank Capra’s inventiveness, humor and affection for human beings keep it glowing with life and excitement. Stewart’s warm-hearted playing of what might have been a goody-goody role is a constant delight. Donna Reed as Bailey’s wife Mary is incredible.

In 1946, when It’s a Wonderful Life was released, both Capra and Stewart were home from the war. Capra , an ex-Signal Corps colonel who bossed the making of wartime documentaries was one of Hollywood’s most talented moviemakers. Stewart, who worked his way up without a lot of fanfare from buck private to Air Force colonel (and bomber-wing commander) was home to return to his acting career.

Clarence is George’s guide on a journey that makes you realize how every life has great influence on all it touches. From George and Mary’s breathless first kiss to finding out that bank statements never can tell us how truly rich we are, you will love every minute of It’s a Wonderful Life.

As always, I invite your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com or go to my archives at www.CarolynHastings.com.