Amazing Grace and Chuck
Original post date: 19 May 1987
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
The events portrayed in this movie could never actually happen, but it’s nice to sit in a movie theater for a couple of hours and pretend that they could. Frank Capra could have made this movie, and he would have called it Mr. Smith Stops the Arms Race. This is your basic watering eyes, lump in the throat, feel good movie. But you don’t feel like a jerk for liking it because it doesn’t get excessively cute or sticky sweet. And it has a very definite point of view and doesn’t flinch, something you don’t see in many Hollywood movies. It’s about a kid named Chuck who is a star Little League pitcher in a small Montana town and an NBA star named Amazing Grace Smith who plays for the Celtics. They each decide to stop playing their respective sports until there are no more nuclear weapons. Gregory Peck plays the President of the United States and he is much better in the role than any other actor who has had the part in at least six years. This movie got a really positive reaction. (The only negative reaction was to a cameo appearance by Red Auerbach.) In fact, this is the only film I can recall off-hand that has gotten a standing ovation. The film was directed by Mike Newell who did Dance with a Stranger, but that information gives you absolutely no idea what this film is like. The writer/producer of this film, a nice man by the name of David Field, was there to answer questions afterward. He said that the film wasn’t particularly popular with the critics when it was test marketed in Dallas and Denver. (One woman wrote on her comment card, “That little boy should be spanked.”) Amazing Grace and Chuck opens in Seattle Friday, and how it does there will help determine if and how it gets released nationally. Go see this film. Then tell all your friends to go see it. Tell your enemies to go see it. Then go see it again. Someone asked David Field if he thought this could actually happen. He said, “You have the answer to that as well as I do. Look at this way. Who would have thought this film could be made?”
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
The events portrayed in this movie could never actually happen, but it’s nice to sit in a movie theater for a couple of hours and pretend that they could. Frank Capra could have made this movie, and he would have called it Mr. Smith Stops the Arms Race. This is your basic watering eyes, lump in the throat, feel good movie. But you don’t feel like a jerk for liking it because it doesn’t get excessively cute or sticky sweet. And it has a very definite point of view and doesn’t flinch, something you don’t see in many Hollywood movies. It’s about a kid named Chuck who is a star Little League pitcher in a small Montana town and an NBA star named Amazing Grace Smith who plays for the Celtics. They each decide to stop playing their respective sports until there are no more nuclear weapons. Gregory Peck plays the President of the United States and he is much better in the role than any other actor who has had the part in at least six years. This movie got a really positive reaction. (The only negative reaction was to a cameo appearance by Red Auerbach.) In fact, this is the only film I can recall off-hand that has gotten a standing ovation. The film was directed by Mike Newell who did Dance with a Stranger, but that information gives you absolutely no idea what this film is like. The writer/producer of this film, a nice man by the name of David Field, was there to answer questions afterward. He said that the film wasn’t particularly popular with the critics when it was test marketed in Dallas and Denver. (One woman wrote on her comment card, “That little boy should be spanked.”) Amazing Grace and Chuck opens in Seattle Friday, and how it does there will help determine if and how it gets released nationally. Go see this film. Then tell all your friends to go see it. Tell your enemies to go see it. Then go see it again. Someone asked David Field if he thought this could actually happen. He said, “You have the answer to that as well as I do. Look at this way. Who would have thought this film could be made?”
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