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For the person in your life who is impossible to shop for: Pure Country 2: The Gift

Despite having lived in Tennessee my entire life, I have never been a huge fan of country music. And I say this as someone who used to have snowball fights with a guy who has won over 20 Grammys in the profession. Keeping this in mind, I have a soft place in my heart for Pure Country, a movie that demonstrates no artifice whatsoever. It simply tells a nice story well, which is presumably the aspiration of most country music.

George Strait is someone with whom I had little familiarity prior to the first film and I still don’t know much of his music yet I very much enjoyed his performance in Pure Country. Surprisingly, I like the movie so much that it’s one of less than 100 features I currently own on Amazon Video, which speaks to my passion for the project. As such, I am quite excited about the sequel although I wasn’t able to catch it in theaters, something of a rarity for me. The fact that the screenplay was written by Superman himself Dean Cain is the only thing that gives me pause. He doesn’t strike me as greatly possessed of Southern sensibilities. Still, this movie costars Michael McKean, Bronson Pinchot, and Cheech Marin and the news alone would make me want to watch pretty much anything.

If you’ve ever had to tell a teacher that instead of homework, a shark ate your arm: Soul Surfer

Let me just say that the Christian book store on the corner is very excited about this release. They’ve had the billboard up for several weeks now. Apparently, this is their Avatar. Then again, in terms of popular Christian cinema, Soul Surfer is in that tier between Kirk Cameron and The Passion of the Christ. The movie has earned $43.9 million domestically, and the target audience on opening day gave it a rare A+ Cinemascore. Rotten Tomatoes critics are less enthusiastic about it, but they aren’t the target audience for this straightforward tale of a teen girl overcoming a nightmarish event to achieve her dreams. Soul Surfer isn’t going to surprise anyone with regards to its plot. A shark eats a girl’s arm yet she refuses to quit surfing. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you are not the target audience but I will say that faith-based cinema rarely has features of this quality. I think it’s well worth giving a chance as a teen girl’s answer to Rudy.

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