Morning Glory

Here's an ex-prisoner movie, but since it's based on a book by LaVyrle Spencer, you know it has a romantic bent. It's a made-for-TV film.

Set in the Depression era on the brink of World War 2, just-paroled Will Parker (Christopher Reeve) looks for work, and answers an ad from widowed farmer/mother Elly Dinsmore (Deborah Raffin, also a co-writer on this one). She’s known as a recluse and is looking for a “husband” to help her tend her farm, especially since she is pregnant.

Elly warns Will to keep away from the bee colony, it was managed by her dead husband and she considers it a danger now, but Will insists it can be a moneymaker and defies her. He becomes part of the family, first in a marriage of convenience, but then as these films often do, it turns into a more meaningful relationship with Elly.

The sheriff (JT Walsh), local waitress/loose woman (Helen Shaver) and other narrow-minded citizens make trouble for Will. Nina Foch plays a kindly librarian who knew Elly when she was younger and continues to be a helpful friend. In an unusually non-villainous role, Lloyd Bochner is a lawyer who helps them when Will is arrested for a serious crime.

Olympic Dreams: The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones

A historical biopic about Japanese surveyors trying to map Mt. Tsurugi-dake (Sword Mountain) in 1907.

The army uses triangulation of stone markers placed previously on other points to continue with their work.  When news that an amateur mountain climbing club is planning to get to the top first, the army wants badly to map the area and claim the mountain first.  They bully and coerce their chosen man, Shibasaki (Tadanobu Asano), pretty much giving him no chance to refuse this job, calling him a coward if he won't attempt this and succeed to boot (and in Japanese culture to lose face is a big thing).  In 1906, he consults a retired surveyor Furuta (Kôji Yakusho) who had previously tried climbing the mountain but was unsuccessful.

Shibasaki hires Chojiro (Teruyuki Kagawa) as his guide.  Chojiro used to work with Furuta.  (There is some unwritten political rule that implies Chojiro shouldn't be doing this, and he gets some heat for it, I couldn't tell what that was all about.  Perhaps Furata has more seniority so it was considered disrespectufl for Chojiro to be consulted like this.)

Shibasaki and Chojiro don't make it successfully in 1906, turned back eventually by bad weather and impassability.  They try again in 1907 with more men, and more pressure, as the army heads and the climbing club are both breathing down their backs.

Olympic Dreams--Invictus

Okay, this movie isn't about a team going to the Olympics, but I thought I'd check out some sports related films in the lead-up to the London Olympics Summer Games this year.

Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring a couple of big hitter stars in the lead roles, this story tells about a South African rugby team that was used as a public relations tool to help unite the country after the divisive violence of apartheid.

Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela, struggling to bring his citizens together, who still insist on personally dividing themselves.  Old staff who worked for de Klerk depart en masse when Mandela enters into office.  Members of his black security team grudgingly make room for white security men.  Now at his wit's end on what to do, he decides to take a back door approach.

The underdog rugby team, the Springboks led by Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), have little chance of going to the 1995 World Cup, until Mandela one day invites Francois to tea. They actually don't discuss much rugby, but Francois comes away with a feeling that Mandela thinks they can bring the nation together through its support of the team.  The Springboks do some unorthodox things like going to black ghettos to teach kids the sport (the team is all white except for the lone black who gets much love from the kids).

Meanwhile, Mandela's closest staff think he is spending too much time on rugby and not enough on his "real" job, thus not understanding his strategy. They warn him he will be accused of going solo when he should rely on his cabinet.