DATE REVIEWED: 3/3/23
TITLE: The Angry Birds Movie
BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This movie is not suitable for GOD’s children and is not PG!)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2016 Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures/Rovio Animation
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This animated movie takes place on Bird Island and is habited by flightless birds. It started with Red being late to deliver a cake to a young bird’s hatchday (birthday) party and to act as a clown. The dad lectured Red about it and told him that because he ruined the cake, it was on Red. Red took that literally and suddenly transformed into an “angry bird,” shoving the cake into the other bird’s face and asking if anyone wanted to eat cake off their husband or father’s face. Red then accidentally fell on the family’s unborn child in its egg.The parents were shown protesting in Bird Court and telling Judge Peckinpah that they had always practiced natural childhatch (childbirth) because the risks of having a scrambled infant were too great. Judge Peckinpah said all birds on the island lived their lives under the watch of Mighty Eagle (their protector and hero who they idolized as a statue because no one had seen the real Mighty Eagle in years). Red exposed the judge for his fake dress attire, so Judge Peckinpah sentenced him to the maximum penalty by law, which was anger management class. Outside the building where the class took place, there was a queer smiling scarecrow named Billy that annoyed Red so much that he angrily attacked it and beat it to a pulp. Inside, a female bird named Matilda welcomed Red to the Infinity Acceptance group. She took him to meet Terence, Chuck, Bomb, the three other angry birds in the class, and explained to Red that he would remain there until she notified the court that his anger issues were resolved. Chuck’s reason for being there turned out to be he was stopped by police officer Bill Beakins for running a stop sign. While Bill was writing out the ticket in a matter of seconds, Chuck used superspeed to trash Bill’s office at the police station, steal his wallet and use the money to buy everybody happy hour drinks at the bar, and sit on a tree branch dropping what looked like ice cream but might have been bird poop onto the police officer, and it splattered like bird poop onto his shoulder. Matilda was about to read from terrifying Terence’s file, but she couldn’t get the words out because whatever Terence had done (that involved police sirens and screaming) was just too awful to speak of. Bomb explained that when he got upset, he literally exploded like a bomb. After class, Chuck and Bomb followed Red outside. He didn’t want to go with Chuck to the Museum of Happiness, so he said he had a “thing,” which Chuck interpreting as Red having some kind of disease such as bird flu, chicken pox, or cardinal sin (one of the seven deadly sins in Christianity). Red honestly told Chuck the truth that he didn’t want to hang out with him and wanted to be alone. Bomb then lied that he had a “thing,” too and couldn’t hang out with Red anyway because he needed to be at a “brand-new luxury class reunion.” There were flashbacks of Red when he was very young and the other young birds nicknamed him “Eyebrows,” because of his bushy eyebrows. Also, during a school field trip, the teacher explained that Mighty Eagle was missing. Little Red asked when he was coming back, and the young mean birds told Red that Mighty Eagle wasn’t real, but of course Red wouldn’t know that because he didn’t have any parents or friends. As part of anger management class, the angry birds were supposed to write poems, but Red didn’t write one because he thought it was a waste of time. Chuck’s poem was about a hate crime because somebody destroyed his scarecrow, and he had a red feather to prove it was Red. Teacher Matilda announced that Billy the scarecrow had passed to a higher plane of existence, and they all (except Red) gathered around to say their goodbyes. Chuck said that Billy had always hated goodbyes, but nobody else got the chance to say anything before they went outside to join the hundreds of other birds on the beach watching the approach of a giant ship. The ship came up on shore and destroyed Red’s house. A strange green pig named Leonard got off the ship and announced that he and his first officer, Ross, were the only pigs to come from Piggy Island. The birds held a concert celebration to welcome the pigs, where Red said that the pigs didn’t have any feathers so they were just walking around naked presenting themselves. Chuck replied that was what he really admired about the pigs as he stared dreamily at them. The pigs gave two gifts to the birds, the first of which was a trampoline and the second was a slingshot. Leonard announced that he needed a volunteer from the audience. He chose Red, and Red was put in the slingshot and sent flying all the way to the beach, where he crashed headfirst into a rock. Red, Chuck, and Bomb then decided to search the pigs’ pirate ship, which had crates of TNT all over. They discovered hundreds more pigs hidden on the ship. Red returned to the party and told the crowd that there were more pigs that Leonard didn’t tell them about, so he lied. The crowd didn’t believe Red and started booing him. Leonard stepped forward and explained that he didn’t tell the birds about the rest of the pigs because they were his cousins and they were simple folk, so he didn’t want to risk their lives until he found out if the new world (Bird Island) was safe. The pigs put on a cowboy show and, wore chaps and showing their bare bottoms, danced onstage to Blake’s “Friends,” song. The whole town of birds dug it and partied it up with the hogs. As part of anger management, Matilda had the angry birds “Paint Your Pain.” Terence painted a picture of himself and Matilda as lovebirds, and she quickly dismissed the class.Red asked Leonard if he and pigs were explorers or were staying, because there were more illegal pigs coming in on another pirate ship and the birds had no way of knowing if the pigs were fugitives of the law. Red recruited Chuck and Bomb to figure out what the pigs were really up to. His idea was to find Mighty Eagle, who supposedly lived by the Lake of Wisdom in the Ancient tree on the top of the island mountain. They found the Lake of Wisdom, where Mighty Eagle emerged from a cave. The male eagle, like a human male, urinated off the cliff into the lake that Chuck and Bomb had just been swimming in and drinking from. Bomb started crying, and Chuck used a rock to clean his tongue because he had just drunk the water. The trio then went up onto the cliff, and Mighty Eagle said he would help them attain wisdom and brought them inside his cave. While the pigs were handing out free tickets to their upcoming pig party, Mighty Eagle starting singing his song about his own bravery, humility, and honesty. He asked the angry birds to join in, and they sang lyrics about Mighty Eagle having politeness, good sportsmanship, ambidexterity, pottery, and bankruptcy. At the cave, Mighty Eagle went outside and used his binoculars to spy on an elderly female bird taking a mud bath and Red realized that Mighty Eagle was not the incredible hero everybody had thought he was because he wouldn’t help save their island from the suspicious pigs.The trio of angry birds headed back down the mountain and discovered that while the birds were living it up at the party, the pigs were loading onto the ships all the eggs they stole from the birds. Red and Bomb jumped onto the net that held the eggs over the water. They couldn’t break the rope, so Red told Bomb to blow up the chain. However, before Bomb could explode, the pigs sprayed water at him to put the fire out. He and Red fell into the water below and the pigs sailed away to Piggy Island. The next day, a male and a female bird found their egg gone, and a female and a female were at another nest consoling each other because of a missing egg. Judge Peckinpah realized his earlier mistake of not listening to Red when he tried to tell them something was wrong with the pigs. Chuck announced that because the pigs stole their kids, they needed to replace the kids, so he told the ladies to get busy and they would all lay eggs that night. Red interrupted and said they weren’t going to replace the kids, they were going to get them back. All the normally happy birds got angry because the pigs stole their unhatched children, so they decided to build their own boat to follow the pigs and get the eggs back because they knew which way they went. Red said that he didn’t want any calm, happy birds, he wanted angry, flockin’ birds. He added “With every single feather of my being, I am not gonna let any of these eggs get taken from their parents.” On Piggy Island, the pigs welcomed home Leonard, who was their King Mudbeard. King Mudbeard (Leonard) pig announced that his relatives had searched for the eggs, but only Mudbeard had found them and now they were going to feast on the eggs. The birds arrived on Piggy Island, and Matilda told her original three angry birds to forget everything they had learned in her anger management class because now it was time to let loose. Red commented that was good because he hadn’t learned anything anyway, Chuck said he didn’t either, because he just came to socialize, and Bomb just came for the snacks.The birds launched Matilda into the city using the slingshot, and it turned out that Red’s teacher could shoot fireballs out of her butt. They continued catapulting birds into the city in an attempt to rescue the eggs. Mudbeard announced that they were going to eat the eggs for lunch instead of later like they had planned. Red, Chuck, and Bomb got into the castle using the slingshot. Mudbeard addressed his subjects and told them that the pigs tried to kill the birds with kindness, but because that didn’t work they were going to kill them with TNT. The Piggy Air Force dropped TNT in the city and the trio of angry birds found the net full of eggs. Mighty Eagle witnessed it from his mountain, and because he was the only bird on the island that could fly, he showed up at the castle to help. He carried the net out of the city with Chuck and Bomb dangling from it while Red stayed behind to save a lone egg that had fallen out of the net and was about to hatch. Red and Mudbeard battled each other for the egg. Red got it back and in the process set off the thousands of crates of dynamite hidden in a secret room in the castle. The castle and the city were burned to the ground. The blue egg that Red rescued hatched and contained triplet birds (one with blue, one with green, and another with brown eyes…like the eye color of Red, Chuck and Bomb). Red gave the hatchlings to the mom and dad birds. Mighty Eagle approached Red, Chuck, and Bomb and told them that he had to make them lose faith in him so they would learn to have faith in themselves. Of course, Mighty Eagle got all the credit for saving the eggs. The birds rebuilt Red’s house in the middle of the village. All the newly hatched little birds all sang a song thanking Mighty Red for rescuing them, and then the three males, Red, Chuck, and Bomb decided that they would all be roommates in Red’s new house. The budget for this movie was $73 million and worldwide it grossed $352 million at the box office. Peter Travers, Rolling Stones stated on the movie art, “An eye-popping animated joyride.”
DATE REVIEWED: 3/2/23
TITLE: Pride
BOX OFFICE RATED: PG (This movie is not suitable for GOD’s children, and is not PG!)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2007 Lionsgate/Cinerenta/Element Films/Fortress Features Production/Paul Haul Productions/L.I.F.T.
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This movie (inspired by true events) starts in Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1964, with Jim Ellis being the only African-American boy on the Cheyney school swim team. The crowd booed at him during the competition, and two white police officers approached Jimmy and his coach. One officer told Jim to get his black a** out of there, and Jim told the officer to shut up his white a** and let him (Jim) exercise his first amendment. The officers were doing their job by enforcing the laws (not how the police wrote the laws, but laws written by “We The People”). However, Jim wanted to have equal rights and not be discriminated against for his race, so he punched and attacked the officer. Violence is not the way! Ten years later, in 1974, Jim was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He tried to get a job as a teacher at Main Line Academy, but Richard Binkowski refused to hire Jim on the grounds that he didn’t think someone like Jim (black) would be able to communicate with their students (white). Jim managed to get a job cleaning out the Marcus Foster Recreation Center before the city shut it down. He went inside the building, which was covered in graffiti because it was located in a gangster-ghetto neighborhood. He met the head of maintenance, Elston Johnson, who gave Jim a very unfriendly reception because he interrupted Elston’s soap opera he was watching. Jim started cleaning out the building and slept the night on the floor. The next day, Councilwoman Sue Carter (who was also Elston’s city representative), showed up and told Elston that the rec center was being shut down because the city didn’t consider it to be of any economical worth since no kids had entered the building for the last six months or more and the property was a nesting ground for drugs and thugs. One day, the group of five black high-school boys (Walt, Reggie, Hakim, Andre, and Dre-T) who always played basketball outside the rec center discovered that a city worker took down their basketball rim. Jim witnessed the scene and invited the boys inside to play basketball in the pool. Jim gave Andre a tip on his swimming, and Andre made a sarcastic remark saying he was the expert and Jim was just the janitor. Andre and Jim made a bet to see who could win a race from one end of the pool and back. Jim didn’t jump into the water right away and he let Andre get ahead, but he won anyway and taught Andre a lesson in the process. Jim started coaching the boys to swim just for fun and games, but then they wanted to take it further and thought they were ready to start a swim team. Jim later announced that the boys were now the official representatives of the rec center, and he got them a swim meet that weekend against Main Line Academy. Jim went to meet with Hakim’s older sister and legal guardian, Sue Carter (the city bigwig). He asked her if Hakim (Sue and Hakim’s mom and dad were not in the picture) could be on the PDR (stood for pride, determination and resilience, as well as Philadelphia Department of Recreation) swim team, but she replied not unless he would get a swim scholarship or become a professional swimmer. She informed Jim that her little brother Hakim missed three weeks of school when he was practicing with PDR, so she didn’t want him swimming anymore and wanted him to focus on his education. Another day, a girl named Wilhelmina “Willie” Thompson showed up at swim practice. Jim and Elston thought she was a good swimmer and so she was accepted onto the team as the one girl with the five boys. Outside Main Line Academy on the day of the swim meet, Jim and Elston tried to give the boys swim panties, but one boy replied that he didn’t need to wear blue panties to kick the white boys’ a**es. Right before the competition began, the Main Line swimmers were badmouthing the PDR swimmers, and one white boy even subtly gave the middle finger to one of the black boys. However, PDR weren’t trained enough to beat the Main Line Academy. Not to mention Wilhelmina couldn’t swim as fast as the boys because she didn’t have their kind of muscle and she didn’t belong on the boys’ team, and Andre was matching the other team’s speed until one white boy kicked him in the head and the officials refused to call it a foul. Elston brought Sue a bribe at City Hall for her to get publicity for their team so they could keep the rec center open. When Andre showed up ten minutes late to swim practice, Jim made his teammates suffer for Andre’s mistake by doing hundreds of extra laps. Sue used her high city position to get the rec center sanctioned to hold a swim meet in the building. Before their first swim meet at PDR began, Richard Binkowski, the coach of the Main Line team, informed Jim that some of his boys came down with the flu on the trip down to the rec center and would not be competing that day. He said they weren’t forfeiting, they were just going to reschedule the swim meet, but Jim still called it forfeit. The PDR team continued training as if that incident had never happened, and they won ribbons at many competitions. They were headed to the National Swimming Championships at the University of Baltimore. Later on, a female news reporter interviewed Jim, Elston, and the team. She wanted to finish the interview inside the rec center, so the reporter kept taping as they walked into the building to find the place trashed and graffiti on the walls. Neighborhood gangsters were hanging out by the pool, with the ringleader, Franklin Pierce, urinating into the pool as his two-gang members destroyed the swimming equipment. Jim pushed Franklin, who couldn’t swim, into the pool and then started fighting the other two gangsters. As the news crew videoed the scene, Jim jumped into the pool and tried to drown Franklin by holding him underwater, but one of the boys jumped in and stopped Jim so Elston and the others could help Franklin out of the pool. The news people that had been present reported that the intruder Franklin was in stable condition at the Philadelphia Memorial Hospital. City worker Sue later showed up and told Jim that she defended him by telling the police that Jim wouldn’t hurt anybody, but the police told the city official Sue that Jim had a record of arrest. He admitted that when he was younger (in 1964) he hit an officer for a good reason. Sue called him a con artist and said he tricked everybody into trusting him. The next day, right before PDR headed to the swim finals, Jim told his team that because he made a lot of mistakes, he wasn’t going to coach them anymore and was putting himself on suspension. Wilhelmina was able to win one leg of the competition despite her not having the muscle of a boy, but it was thanks to Reggie that the PDR swim team won and walked out of the university holding a first-place trophy. Star Magazine said of this movie “Inspirational…will touch your heart.” OK! Magazine declared “This movie will inspire you,” and Claudia Puig of USA Today said the film “…shows how an ordinary man can do something extraordinary.”
DATE REVIEWED: 3/1/23
TITLE: Finding Normal
BOX OFFICE RATED: NR
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2013 Pure Flix Entertainment/UP Entertainment
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 2
REASON: For whatever reason, the movie packaging had a summary that this movie took place in Normal, North Carolina when there were conflicting bits of information making it appear it took place in Normal, Louisiana. Also, on the cover, not only was the sign for the town of Normal not the same one that was in the movie, but Lucas was portrayed as a farmer driving a tractor verses his attorney character in the movie. This movie starts in Los Angeles, California and is about a general surgeon named Dr. Lisa Leland.She planned to drive her BMW 3,000 miles to The Hamptons, Long Island, New York, to be with her boyfriend, Steve, who was also a doctor. Right before she left, Dr. Lisa was rude to her hospital patients and she even said it wouldn’t matter if one patient filed a complaint because Lisa would be out of California by the time it got through the court system. Dr. Lisa then added another unpaid parking ticketto her collection in the glovebox and hit the road. In Louisiana, Dr. Lisa was pulled over by a small-town sheriff, Officer Lester O’Toole for speeding. The officer dropped things clumsily in the street as he walked back and forth to his vehicle. He ran Lisa’s license through the system and discovered she had a warrant out for her arrest. Lisa wanted to settle things right there, and Lester asked if that was a bribe. She replied not unless the officer took Visa or Mastercard. Lester informed Lisa that she was going to jail because of her 23 unpaid parking tickets. Dr. Lisa was instructed to follow the officer to the courthouse but instead drove forward and accidentally knocked over the welcome road sign for the Louisiana town of Normal, population 321 with the slogan “It’s good to be normal.”Lisa then followed behind Lester to the courthouse, and in the very small town, the judge (who went by Doc Shelby) showed up in fishing gear and asked Lester to help him take it off in front of Lisa (he had regular clothes on underneath). She was clocked at going 90 miles an hour, and she told Doc that she had planned to pay the multiple neglected parking tickets when she arrived in New York. She started complaining because she didn’t believe she was going 90, and so Doc told her that he was going to make it easy on her. She was going to plead “No contest,” and he required $500 for speeding, $300 for reckless endangerment, $75 for the sign, and $1,125 for unpaid parking tickets. Doc announced that he would waive the court cost of $150, which would bring it to $2,000 even that Lisa owed. Doc told her to pay the fees and they could all go home, but she protested that she didn’t carry that much cash with her. However, because they didn’t take credit cards, nobody used checks where Lisa was from, and the ATM was broken, Doc sentenced Lisa to community service making house calls for sixteen hours, eight hours a day (two days). Lisa complained and Doc made it twenty-four hours (three days) of community service. Lisa said “oh my God,” and Doc (Judge) got onto her and told her that if she took the Creator’s name in vain, she would get a more severe punishment than anything he could ever hand down. Lisa was released ROR (released on your own recognizance) and the court was adjourned. In town, a man named Lucas stopped his truck and told Lisa to cross the street for a better cell phone reception, but Dr. Lisa badmouthed him and said he was Jethro and couldn’t understand what she was doing because she thought he didn’t know what a cell phone was. She crossed the street and got a signal, so she called her boyfriend, Steve. Dr. Steve told her that he always had appointments and couldn’t come down there. He told Lisa to leave the town and skip out on her three days of community service, but she replied that she couldn’t leave because they had her car and she would get through the three days and be fine. Lisa went into Ree’s hometown café, and Doc walked in and offered to buy Lisa breakfast as part of her rehabilitation process. He told Lisa that it was a small town he had many hats, meaning he was the town’s medical doctor, judge, coroner, regional disease control supervisor, chief coordinator for the local blood drive, and he used to be the mayor. Since the café closed at 4:30 (because the people in Normal ate dinner with their families), Doc told Lisa to stop by his house for dinner at six that night if she wanted to eat again before morning. The waitress, Carly, sat down at the table and explained to Lisa that she had to cross the street to get cell reception because otherwise the mountain blocked the signal from the satellite (kind of like what Jethro tried to tell her earlier but Lisa wouldn’t listen). Lisa didn’t want to eat her food because it was eggs, grits, and decaf coffee and Dr. Lisa craved her usual egg substitutions and a latte. She went to Doc’s (Judge) house for dinner, and he introduced her to his adopted daughter, Mandy, and Mandy’s young daughter, Kimberly (without a dad), who was homeschooled. Mandy’s brother, Lucas Craig, then arrived and turned out to be Jethro. Lisa and Lucas bickered, which made both of them leave the house before they hardly ate their meals. Doc spoke to God and said He answered Doc’s prayer for bringing Lisa there, but now they had to figure out a way to make her stay in Normal. As Lisa walked down the road in the dark, Lester with the lights on his car pulled up beside her. She wanted to know where the nearest motel was, but Lester replied that there was no motel for miles away so Doc called Lester and told him to fix her up a bed in the jail. Lester had taken Lisa’s belongings out of her car and put them in the jail cell to make it cozy for her. The officer asked Lisa if she was at suicide risk, because if she was he needed to take her belt and shoelaces. She said no and Lester left the cell door unlocked and Lisa slept in the cell. The next morning, Lisa walked to Jimmer’s Auto Repair. She ran into Lucas, and she thought he worked there at the garage but he was actually just fixing his truck. Because of the misunderstanding, Lisa apologized to Lucas and wanted to start over because she thought he was in charge of giving her back her BMW. He accepted her apology and drove off, and Lisa realized that Jimmer inside the building was actually the owner, not Lucas, who was just visiting. Lisa’s car was all repaired (after her run in with the sign), but since she didn’t have the paperwork saying she completed her community service, she couldn’t have it back. Lisa lay on top of the hood then because her car was her pride and joy. Dr. Lisa then went to see Doc, who told her she would be doing house calls and her first call was to Rita Caffey. Doc gave Dr. Lisa a kids’ bicycle to ride around on making house calls.Rita told Lisa that before Doc examined her, they always began with a prayer. At the next house, the female wanted Lisa to begin with her dog, Chester, and give him an injection because the two-legged mom didn’t want to give him the shot. Dr. Lisa wanted nothing to do with the dog. Lisa tried to figure out how to get back to the jail because there were no street signs to go by. Lucas showed up in his truck and she asked him to take her back to jail. He put her bike in the back of the truck. During their conversation, Dr. Lisa said that in the Hamptons, she would be making $2,500 a visit, versus getting nothing for the all the house calls she had already been on that day. She added that she didn’t like dogs, cats, or goldfish, and told Lucas she thought it was weird she had to pray for one of her patients. Lucas said that he thought when people prayed to God to be healed, God listened. Dr. Lisa replied that sometimes God’s process benefited from a prescription of Amoxicillin. Lester had left Lisa a note in her cell that Ree’s was closed tomorrow, so to go to the church for a pancake breakfast if she wanted food. Lisa showed up at the church and learned that Doc (Judge) was also the minister. After the service, Doc asked Lisa to walk with him. Doc said that he ministered to bodies, hearts, and souls. Lisa questioned if the AMA would approve of that, and his response, in his professional opinion, was “I submit that if you accept a patient into your care, you manage to treat his or her symptoms, alleviate all unnecessary pain, extend their days to the full extent of your art, yet leave them sad, lonely, and in fear of death, which comes for us all, you’ve not reached your full potential.” Doc also told Lisa to think about that in her medical career that she chose and didn’t include God in it. Lucas interrupted and brought Lisa a plate of food. They went off to together and he apologized, so they both called a truce. Lucas told Lisa that she had everybody else’s life figured out and she adapted to her patients’ different situations and was able to treat them, but he suggested that she start taking a bit of her own medicine and get her life figured out too. Kimberly Smith then had a medical emergency at the picnic table and mom Mandy asked for help because she thought her daughter was choking on a pancake. Doc was nowhere in sight so when Dr. Lisa didn’t see anything stuck in Kimberly’s throat and saw a sting below her ear, she figured it was an allergic reaction blocking her airways. She called out orders for Lucas to quickly carry Kimberly to the jail because she was suffocating and there was no time to call Doc. Lisa took the epi pen from her bag and stuck it into Kimberly’s leg, which saved her life. Doc appeared and Lisa said that the device was an epi pen that had epinephrine (artificial adrenaline). Doc added it would raise your blood pressure to counteract the drop in blood pressure from an allergic reaction. Lisa explained that she herself was allergic to bees, and she noticed the welt on the back of Kimberly’s neck from being stung by a bee. Lisa told Kimberly’s mom Mandy that she needed to carry an epi pen with her at all times because it would save Kimberly’s life if she ever got stung again, even though it had never happened before this time. Lisa called Steve and told him about the little girl which was somehow now different to her than the lives she saved back in L.A. Steve said that he couldn’t wait for Lisa to join him in the Hamptons because they were losing a lot of money in their doctor business with Lisa being stuck in Normal, but Steve was holding down the fort until she arrived. Doc took Lisa to the Rees café later that day for coffee and suggested that Normal could be her town too if she stayed on. Doc revealed that Normal wouldn’t be his town for long because Duke University’s Chief of Oncology diagnosed Doc with fatal cancer. Lisa wanted to know what kind of cancer because she knew doctors researching radio wave treatments and vitamin dosage therapies. However, Doc said that he wasn’t spending his last days on earth in bed hoping for a cure because he wanted to go fishing while he still could. Lisa told Doc that she was sorry for his condition but she didn’t plan to stay there because she had to get back to her life. Doc asked who had been living her life while she was there if she had to get back to it, and he added that perhaps she could live that precious life of hers right there in small-town Louisiana. Doc said he didn’t want Normal to die, because when doctors left small towns the towns didn’t make it. He told Lisa not to tell anyone what he told her about his medical condition because he had managed to keep it a secret from the townspeople somehow. Lisa gave him the Girl Scout promise signal that she wouldn’t tell. The next morning, as Lisa was wheeling her bike outside the jail to go on calls, Lucas showed up wearing a nice blazer with jeans. Lucas cleared Dr. Lisa’s community service time with Doc, and where they were going would count for her service time that day. In the truck, Lisa asked Lucas what he did for a living, and he replied that he fought crime. He then explained that they were going to Asheville for a session at Buncombe County Superior Court because the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seemed to feel that Normal represented a threat to our free society. The ACLU was determined to make the cross alongside the road in the town go away. It turned out Lucas practiced law without a law degree, because as long as you pass the bar exam in some states (including North Carolina and California), you were able to represent yourself as an attorney, so Lucas was doing just that and fighting for the cross. Lisa asked who would want an attorney without a degree, and Lucas replied that she was probably right because who would want a self-educated lawyer like Daniel Webster, Clarence Darrow, or Abraham Lincoln. That silenced Lisa from further comment. As Dr. Lisa sat beside Lucas in the courtroom, she looked over and saw the nicely dressed ACLU attorneys and didn’t know what to do so. Lucas told her to stack the papers nice and neat and to write small so nobody knew what she was writing and to scribble like a doctor, only worse. Judge Denton allowed Lisa to sit with Lucas because she was not speaking directly to the court and on advisory capacity only. The judge said that in the case of ACLU versus the Town of Normal, there was a cross that was lit by night and stood on public property, and Erwin Driscoll had filed a petition for its removal. One of the ACLU attorneys, Ron Woll, told Judge Denton that it would be inconvenient for Mr. Driscoll to attend the court session there in Asheville, North Carolina because he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Therefore, the ACLU attorneys were representing Mr. Driscoll’s interests. Lucas jumped in and said he would like a motion to dismiss on the grounds of 182 years of no complaints, except for one last week from Mr. Driscoll. Lucas presented a petition signed by virtually every citizen above the age of majority in Normal. However, ACLU Mr. Woll objected and thought the petition was irrelevant to the case. The objection was sustained, and Judge Denton said the case would proceed to trial on the tenth of that month. Lucas spoke up and said that basically the judge didn’t care a thing about the 300 townsfolk supporting the cross, he only cared about the opinion of Mr. Driscoll who lived faraway in another state. Judge Denton replied that as long as the cross was on public property, Lucas was correct. Lucas said that with all due respect, that didn’t seem American, it didn’t seem civil, and it sure didn’t seem like liberty. He thanked the judge and told him that the people of Normal would be ready by the 10th. After the judge left, Lisa and Lucas sat in the empty courtroom and talked it over. Lisa didn’t believe it was fair that somebody drove through town for five minutes and was going to remove something that had been there for almost two centuries. She said the key word was “public,” and if Lucas bought the mountain the land would be private and the town could keep the cross. Lucas replied that he couldn’t afford the mountain and neither could the whole town. Now that Dr. Lisa was close to a working ATM and had access to cash in a larger place than Normal, she took Lucas to a restaurant to get something to eat and expand his horizons. Lucas wasn’t sure about eating the sushi, and Lisa told him to trust her because she was a doctor. The conversation turned to why Lisa wasn’t married, and she explained that she and Steve had been together for five years. Lucas was shocked that Steve hadn’t proposed to Lisa yet, and she told Lucas to mind his own business. Lucas said that he would have asked Lisa to marry him by year two, or maybe year three depending on how much work she was. Lucas asked what wasabi was, and she advised that he shouldn’t eat it. He told her not to say that to a country boy, and he ate the wasabi. Within a few seconds, his mouth and throat were on fire and he was almost in tears because the wasabi was so hot. Lisa ordered him a glass of milk and a bottle of it for the road. On their way back to Normal, Lisa and Lucas discussed that Lisa could have her car back and didn’t have to worry about the three hours she had left of community service. She told Lucas that maybe he should join Doc on one of his fishing trips every once in awhile, and Dr. Lisa decided that she would finish out her hours because she finished what she started. Lucas told her to close her eyes, and they stopped alongside the road. He walked her down some steps with her eyes closed to a dock and told her she had seen the lights of L.A., and now he wanted her to see the lights of Normal. Lisa opened her eyes to see hundreds of fireflies/lightning bugs synchronizing over the lake. Lucas invited her to the Founder’s Day Dance because she was a celebrity. At the dance, Kimberly asked Lisa if she hated Kimberly’s uncle Lucas. Lisa replied no, and that sometimes when people didn’t get along it was because they didn’t give each other a chance. Kimberly asked Lisa if she was falling in love with Lucas, and Kimberly said that it wasn’t she couldn’t fall in love with Lucas, she was already in love with someone else. Lucas then danced with Kimberly. Mandy and Lisa talked about Lucas, and Lisa learned that all the girls in town were interested in Lucas, but he hadn’t sparked to anyone until Dr. Lisa showed up, but Lisa said she had to leave Normal. Lisa and Lucas then slow-danced together and had another conversation. She asked him what else he believed in, and he replied that he believed in promises, the ones that lasted, the ones that we made to God and the ones we made to each other. He believed somebody could say something in two seconds that they would regret for the rest of their lives, and that some folks were meant to bloom right where they were planted while others were destined for some other place. He said he could be happy spending the rest of his life by himself if that was what was meant to be, but he’d rather he didn’t. Lisa’s cell phone rang and she left to take the call from Steve, who wanted to know what the music was in the background. Lisa replied that she was at a barbecue with a dance, and Steve asked her if she understood how much it was costing them for her to still be in Normal. Lisa told him to bill her when she got there, and when he asked her what her issue was she replied she would finish out her sentence and she would be there by the weekend because nothing had changed. The next day, Steve drove to Normal from New York in his Mercedes-Benz (with a personalized “Dr Steev,” license plate). Lucas drove by and identified Steve immediately from his license plate and his high-dollar clothing and car. Lucas picked Steve up in his truck to take him to Lisa (think Sweet Home Alabama). Steve explained that he was a concierge doctor who made house calls to those who could afford them at $2,500 a call. Lucas thought that price was pretty steep and said that nobody wanted to get sick around Dr. Steve, that was for sure. Steve took the rearview mirror and tried to pretty himself up in it, but Lucas put it back in place so he could use it to drive. Steve said he and Lisa were getting married and she didn’t know it yet, and he and Lucas discussed how many horses they could feed with the carat-sized wedding ring for Lisa that he showed Lucas. Prisoner 137 (Dr. Lisa) reported to Doc’s house for her final three hours of duty on the rainy day. Doc explained that he was sharing his patients with Lisa because the Lord sometimes worked in not-so mysterious ways and her coming there was for a reason. Lisa told Doc that she wasn’t the one to replace him in the small town, and that she wanted a nice life. Doc agreed that wasn’t bad at all, so he, effective immediately, was commuting her sentence so she was free to go and find whatever it was she was looking for, come what may. Lisa and Doc hugged it out, and Doc told her that some of them were attached to her in Normal.He went inside, and then Lisa saw Lucas driving up. She spotted Steve in the passenger’s seat. Steve got out and went to hug his girl, but she wasn’t so happy to see him. She saw Lucas watching from his truck and felt awkward that Steve was there. Steve said he that Lisa needed a spa, mud bath, and a latte, and while she was laying there enjoying those things she could stare at this. Steve pulled out the wedding ring that he got her, and this was his way of proposing as he stood there having a nonchalant conversation with Lisa about marriage all of a sudden after five years. Lisa was in shock and didn’t say yes, so Steve decided to put the ring on her finger anyway to silence her protest. As Lisa still glanced back and forth between Steve and Lucas, he got back in his truck and waited to see what would happen and Lisa finally said yes. She walked off the porch to say goodbye to Lucas, and he said that he knew her life was in another place and she had to finish what she started. He drove off, and Lisa picked up her car from Jimmer. Officer Lester gave Dr. Lisa the potted plant from her cell that he had been taking care of for her and hugged her goodbye. Lisa drove to the Hamptons oddly without Steve in sight as he must have went on ahead of her in his own car so he could make some more money off his crooked doctor business. Meanwhile, Lucas reviewed the transfer/deed of land paperwork that listed Ouachita Parish in Normal, Louisiana (not North Carolina) for $390 as he ate alone at the sushi restaurant. In court, Mr. Woll told Mr. Craig that he was going to need more than a prayer to win this one (Lucas had his Bible on the table in the courtroom). Lucas, as the respondent, requested a motion to dismiss on the grounds of the cross no longer being on public property. When Judge Denton asked if the cross had been moved, Lucas replied no because he had in his possession a certified bill of sale for a plot of land 25 feet by 25 feet, that’s 1/80th of an acre, which just so happened to contain that cross. The judge looked over the paperwork and told Mr. Woll and his ACLU associates that his case hinged on public display of religion on public property, property that was now private, therefore it was the ruling of the court that ACLU Mr. Woll’s complaint had no grounds, and his MA petitioner (Mr. Driscoll) had no standing. Judge Denton told Mr. Woll to enjoy the little town before he went back to wherever he came from and the case was dismissed. At the Hamptons, in New York, Lisa was all glammed up in her wedding dress because she and Steve were wasting no time getting hitched so they could make their millions together. Steve, in his tuxedo, appeared to see the bride before the wedding. He told her that since nobody was there to give her away, she needed to follow his instructions on when to make her entrance down the aisle. However, Lisa didn’t respond and Steve asked her what was wrong. Dr. Lisa sat down and told Dr. Steve that she got a glimpse of the way her life should be, the way God wanted her life to be. She said she wanted to make a difference and have a life where she didn’t put materialistic things first, but instead put first God and His people who weren’t concerned with money and high-dollar lifestyles. Lisa wanted to be with the one she loved and who loved her, and she didn’t want it to be about a career, but genuinely helping people. Lisa gave Steve the ring back and told him the life he wanted was no longer what she wanted. In the next scene, Officer Lester was sitting in his car alongside the road waiting for a speeder and then Dr. Lisa raced by in her car honking as she made her entrance into town. Lester didn’t go after her but just said it was about time she got back. Lisa got out of her car outside Doc’s house and tried to get cell reception. However, she couldn’t so she shouted for Lucas Craig from the driveway. Lucas came outside and said that Lisa drove 2,000 miles just to call him stupid. He asked about her fiancée, and she held up her hand to show him there was no ring. He came down the porch steps, and of course Lisa and Lucas ended up kissing. Doc saw them as he came outside as he went to go fishing. Doc (the judge) said that he sided with Paul and quoted him from 1 Corinthians 13:13 as saying what we now know in part one day we shall know fully, and in the meantime, these three things remain: faith, hope, and love and the greatest of these is love. The Dove Foundation stated on the movie coverart, “An inspiring movie about following one’s heart.” Dove rated it five doves.