Love Story

Though this film is being hailed as one of the best films of the year, I wonder -- if it was of a man and a woman would it get the same reaction? Only at the beginning and end does anything interesting happen. The story is about two cowboys who fall in love while herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain. The problem is that they both have women back home waiting for them, and they are cowboys, the last stand of true American manhood. Years pass as they carry on their affair behind their wives' backs, hiding it from the world for fear of what others might think.

The theological truths in the Bible are vast. But I cannot help but focus today on one of the simplest, yet most profound. It is a love story; pure and simple. It is the account of a child born into this world to die for our sins, the description of a man who lived and walked this earth out of love for you and me. This season represents his birth -- the glorious occasion celebrated by Christians all over the world. One cannot forsake the beauty of this season, a time to remember and reflect on the son of God becoming incarnate, and residing among us; fully God and fully man. I wonder how Mary must have felt so long ago. The confusion and awe she must have experienced.

If you like the music of Johnny Cash, you will thoroughly enjoy "Walk The Line." Not a fan of country music? Avoid this movie and finish your holiday shopping. I'll send you my Christmas list. You're welcome. "Walk The Line" is based on Johnny Cash's autobiography and stars Joaquin Phoenix as the legendary musician. Reese Witherspoon plays June Carter Cash. The film chronicles Cash's rise to fame and his love affair with June. I'll take the cheap and easy way out to describe this movie.

Paul McCartney once wondered whether the world had had enough of silly love songs, but eventually concluded it wasn't so. The producers of the new film "Just Like Heaven" apparently have reached the same conclusion regarding silly cinematic love stories. "Just Like Heaven" is an old-fashioned and extremely sentimental love story starring two very likable actors, Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. Witherspoon plays Elizabeth Masterson, a capable but overworked doctor finishing her residency at a San Francisco hospital.

Have you ever been to a date movie without a date? I went to see "Just Like Heaven" alone, worried that not having my husband there to buy my popcorn could douse my enthusiasm for a love story. Without him, the romantic in me might accept anything this movie dished out. More on that later. I decided to forget all that and watch this movie as, well, as a Reel Critic. Screenwriters Peter Tolan and Leslie Dixon seemed determined not to make this film a cliche.

HAPPENINGS Hello, surf cat More wave action is on the horizon for the Huntington Beach Pier, and this time it's all for the wahines. B1 ALSO: Can a restaurant thrive after just a month? John Volo says yes. B1 A love story and a thriller provide good late summer movie-going. B2 CITYSCAPE Who's Surf City? The battle between Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz heats up, and this time a third city is involved: Sacramento.

Comedies using sexual humor as their central theme usually appeal to a very narrow audience or are willing to alienate a large portion of potential moviegoers. Two films have already been released this summer that were willing to suffer an R rating, rather than tone down the content enough to receive the more commercially viable PG-13. The first of these is the very funny "Wedding Crashers," which is hilarious despite profiling two rather despicable characters who curse enough to embarrass a longshoreman.

Darleene Barrientos What do you get when you mix a community theater group's actors and an Academy Award-winning star as their coach? Find out Friday when the Stepping Stone Players presents its production of "West Side Story," after weeks of coaching help from George Chakiris, who played both "Riff" and "Bernardo" in previous stage and film versions of the love story. Chakiris won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his performance as Bernardo in the 1961 film.

Cindy Trane Christeson "He loves each one of us, as if there were only one of us." -- St. Augustine "Guess what, Daddy? Guess what?" said a cute little voice behind me in the coffee line at church. "God loves everybody. We talked about it today and I colored a picture about it." "You're right honey, God does love everybody," a deep voice replied. "Guess what else?" the little girl said. "I give up, sweetheart, what else?" the man answered.