Carolyn Hastings

The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry – ALIVE at the Movies

February 13, 2011 by Carolyn Hastings Leave a Comment

You probably won’t find The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry in Redbox or Blockbuster Express. You will find it on Netflix and in the video store. It is undeniably Christian in content—a faith based movie that has a definite message.

The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry is unabashedly slow moving. This is for a reason. This movie is the story of young friends whose lives are changed through friendship with a man who does more than encourage them to study the Bible; he sets a standard for them to live up to in the way that he applies those Biblical teachings to his own life.

The movie is set in the 1970’s in a small town in the northeast. When you watch it, it actually feels like earlier because the kids are still saying, “Yes, Sir” and “No, Sir.” How long has it been since you’ve heard that from someone who’s not in the military?

It’s summer vacation of 1970 and the kids are hanging out. Jansen Panettiere (younger brother of Hayden Panettiere of Heroes) plays Dustin, a good kid who lives with a single mother, hangs out with his friends at the local diner and mows lawns for spending money. The parents of the girl (Bailey Garno) he has a crush on, own the diner. Of course, there is always a school bully, enter Nick (Taylor Boggan) who harasses everyone and just happens to like the same girl as Dustin. This is a coming of age movie of a different kind.

Jonathan Sperry (The Love Boat’s Gavin Macleod), a kindly neighbor, hires Dustin to mow his lawn. Sperry invites Dustin and his friends over for a Bible study and chocolate cake. What 12 year-old boy can resist chocolate cake especially when he really doesn’t have anything better to do? Sperry has a very special way of making the lessons compelling – and for showing the boys with his own behavior and his quiet counsel how meaningful the lessons are.

This very special film is a collaboration of the Christiano brothers, Rich and Dave. Amazingly talented, they wrote, produced and directed this beautiful slice of Americana. The cinematography is definitely above par and the musical score done by Jasper Randall is so entrancing, it makes you want to run out and buy it.

Often in faith based movies, the storyline carries the movie, almost metaphorically dragging the actors along. To my delight there was not one weak performance in Jonathan Sperry. The kids were incredibly engaging and the adults were rock solid. This movie is a portrayal of patience, kindness and forgiveness and is the perfect family movie for viewers of all ages. I truly don’t think you will be disappointed in this movie regardless of your religious persuasion. I invite your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com

Bright Shiny Ornaments on Your Tree! ALIVE Movie Review

December 7, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings Leave a Comment

I love Christmas and I love movies. I love Christmas movies! I have to admit that for years I recorded all the Christmas movies that came on TV to video, that way the day after Thanksgiving the Christmas movie marathon would begin. Every year I added a few new ones. Then came my precious DVR. I had been set free! I threw away all my old VHS tapes and cleared the shelves. This year has been especially great because the TV programmers are running all the Christmas re-runs at odd hours so they don’t conflict with prime time. Bless them!!

I tried to pick a favorite to review but found I had many favorites depending on my mood and who was watching with me. My grandkids and I have already watched Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Who Stole Christmas this year. I can do that with the kids because they don’t know about the “after Thanksgiving” rule and probably wouldn’t care if they did. It’s a great family movie with lots of action, fun and holiday sentiment. For the little ones, it’s not too scary and Jim Carrey is absolutely amazing as the Grinch who was an outcast as a little one because of his green hairy body. Why is the Grinch a grouch? Little Cindy Lou takes the matter into her own hands and turns both Whoville and The Grinch’s world upside down, inside out…funny side up in her search for the true meaning of Christmas. Kudos to Oscar-winning director Ron Howard for this holiday favorite.

When Tom and Laura, my thirty-something children, were young their favorite was Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas. This movie is so very sweet even the littlest will enjoy. It has a message about love and family that even the toddlers can understand.

White Christmas is one of my favorite classics. My sisters and I still sing one of the songs, and we’ve passed the love on to our daughters. How can you go wrong with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye? A more recent holiday tradition is none other than Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation, still funny after all these years!

Last decade brought us Polar Express with Tom Hanks. This cinematic miracle was brought to us in 3D and was truly amazing not only for it’s message but also it’s technical delivery. I also loved The Holiday, a quirky little movie with Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Jack Black and Kate Winslet. It’s a good “cuddle up with your honey,” watch. I can’t forget my favorite Hallmark Christmas movie, Season of Miracles, to get you in the holiday spirit.

Last but certainly not least is The Nativity Story. This movie is about the birth of Christ which is obviously what Christmas is all about. If you and your family have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas, I encourage you to buy it, rent it or look for it on your TV this season. It’s definitely worth the watch every year!

No matter what your culture or religion these are great feel good movies that lift the spirit and the heart. Once again, I encourage your comments at hastings@rockcliff.com. You can find some past reviews on the www.aliveeastbay.com.

Crazy Heart: ALIVE at the Movies

November 7, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings Leave a Comment

Okay, shoot me—I love Country music. So, when I heard about Crazy Heart my interest was mildly piqued. I watched as Jeff Bridges won the Oscar but I still waited seven months to rent it. I even had the DVD for three days before I put it in the machine.

Crazy Heart is about Bad Blake (no, I didn’t make this up), a broken down, hard living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages and far too many years on the road. But Bad’s real problem is too many drinks along that road.

You may be asking yourself right about now why I’m even reviewing such a clichéd film. One word…Jeff Bridges. Bridges fully inhabits Blake, slowly revealing the bone-weariness of this singer’s life. His very essence is beaten up by life—downtrodden, yet with flashes of arrogance. His “under acting” is brilliant.

Bad meets a journalist along the way. He’s 57 and playing dives. Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) knows who he was in times past and asks for an interview. This odd pair can’t seem to stay apart as she discovers the real man behind the musician. She has a three-year-old son that Jean wants to shield from Bad’s bad habits (couldn’t resist that one) and he has a twenty eight year old son he hasn’t seen since he was four. Along the way they fall into a semblance of a relationship, him trying to control his drinking around Jean’s son and her encouraging him to reach out to his.

Bad has music in the very core of his being. Even in a drunken stupor in a seedy hotel room, he picks up his guitar and writes the most amazing songs, saying, “the harder the life, the sweeter the song.”

At one of his lowest points, Jean walks away from him and he reaches out for salvation, not necessarily of the religious variety but the utter redemption of a man hanging at the end of his rope looking for the knot.

When I heard about the movie, I guess the real reason I didn’t run right out and rent it was that I intrinsically don’t like downer movies, but I didn’t get that feeling from Crazy Heart when I finally watched it. I somehow knew that this Bad boy (couldn’t resist that one either) was going to redeem himself.

Crazy Heart also went home from the Academy Awards with an Oscar for Best Original Song, The Weary Kind. But if you’re not fond of country music then Crazy Heart may sound like the kind of tear-jerky movie you should avoid. Bridges will change your mind. It took an Oscar chasing role tailored for Bridges to win him the belated respect; the movie is hardly worthy of him. It’s a small movie perfectly scaled to the big performance at its center.

I would be totally remiss if I didn’t mention Robert Duvall’s stellar performance as Blake’s best friend and mentor. Let me know what you think, did Bridges deserve the Oscar? The Academy doesn’t always get it right but in one woman’s opinion, this time they did Good! You can email me at chastings@rockcliff.com.

The Book of Eli: ALIVE at the Movies

October 7, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings

The Book of Eli

The whole basic premise of The Book of Eli intrigued me. I had seen and heard just enough about this movie to spur my curiosity but not enough to go to the theater and plunk down twenty bucks (it truly is all about the popcorn!). Let’s begin.

The Book of Eli is a reasonably violent post-apocalyptic tale. Loner Eli (an appropriately taciturn and always dignified Denzel Washington) has been on a thirty year journey across a devastated America, armed with a nasty looking sword, a gun and a mysterious book, and an almost otherworldly ability to kick people’s butts. The world has been thrown back into the Dark Ages after a barely discussed war “tore a hole in the sky” with Eli one of a select few who was alive before the catastrophe changed the earth forever. Eli wanders into a dusty town in the middle of nowhere and is thrown into a collision course with the mean through and through, Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who wants to bring civilization back to the world through domination. He has all his minions bringing every book they can find to him in hopes of finding “The Book.”

First things first, it’s no real plot spoiler to reveal that the book Eli is carrying and Carnegie is searching for is the Holy Bible. We eventually find out that after the mysterious war, all of the Bibles were destroyed because they were “what started it all,” obviously suggesting some kind of extreme Christian-Muslim Holy War. Eli is delivering the book to safety…Carnegie wants Eli’s Bible, the last in existence, because he knows that he can use it as a “weapon” to lead people to blindly follow its words and instantly attain power over them. They both understand the power of “The Word.”

If you like action movies you’ll probably love The Book of Eli. Eli appears almost invincible. His lightening quick reflexes are amazing. Here blood flies magnificently and Eli performs extravagant feats of karate, without breaking much of a sweat. He really is righteous in the religious sense but the righteousness is delivered with few words, never sanctimonious. He is a Saint…of sorts. Gary Whitta’s script seems set out to mimic the contours of a religious parable. It has simplicity, sweep, incredible last minute plot twists, mystical happenings and a fundamental belief in Faith, as in the Christian kind.

Early in the movie, when Eli is asked about the way things used to be, he says, “People had more than they needed. They didn’t know what was precious. People kill now for what we threw away then.”

If that isn’t a message, I don’t know what is. Maybe now is a time for us to get leaner, and simplify. Find out what is truly precious.

As always, I welcome your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com.

Taking Chance: ALIVE Movie Review

September 3, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings

I consider myself a Patriot (yes, capital P). I don’t usually cry at movies. I didn’t even cry during Beaches or Terms of Endearment. Now I know that probably comes off a little hard core, but before you judge me, I want you to know that I always cry during the Star Spangled Banner or when the American Flag in front of a marching band goes by.

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.

The Goonies

August 5, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings

I was recently visiting family in Oregon and the buzz was on. Since 1985, the Steven Spielberg produced movie The Goonies has thrived as an enduring cult classic. Yes, it was 25 years ago that Spielberg put Astoria, Oregon on the map by filming this endearing movie on their beaches and in their sea caves.

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.

The Boys Are Back

July 15, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings

There are many reasons why a person likes or dislikes a particular movie. Sometimes it’s as simple as the mood you’re in at the time you watch it. I viewed this movie with a friend who had lost her husband when her children were small and it brought feelings to mind that were probably better left in the past. Another dear friend at my office recommended The Boys Are Back and I’m so glad she did. Quite frankly, I missed it coming through the theaters last year, maybe you did as well.

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

June 3, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings

I was with my Troop Group today packing goodie boxes for our guys and gals in the war zones. In the middle of the small talk, one of the ladies asked what I was reviewing this month. I said that I had reached way back to 1988 and was doing the little movie, Crossing Delancey. Immediately at least three or four of my sorority sisters gave a collected, ahhh! Evidently, I am not the only fan of this wonderful, refreshingly simple romantic comedy set amongst a cozy Manhattan backdrop.

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

May 7, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings

When I first saw this movie in the theater, I thought, “I love this movie but it will never get the acclaim it deserves.” Wow, was I wrong! The Blind Side is an incredibly heartfelt drama based on the life of Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), who grew up neglected and impoverished but went on to become an American football star.

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.

Julie & Julia

April 6, 2010 by Carolyn Hastings

Meryl Streep has never been one of my favorites. This isn’t because she can’t act, quite the contrary, she’s amazing. It’s because for so many years every Streep movie I watched was a ‘downer’ with a capital D. I still remember the love/hate relationship I had with Out of Africa. In many ways, I’m a movie Pollyanna in that some movies I watch are great, but the movies I truly enjoy are the ones that just downright make me feel good.

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.