'Dear John' perfect for Valentine's Day date

DEAR JOHN

2 and a half stars

Rated PG-13

Channing Tatum (“Public Enemies” and “Step Up”) and Amanda Seyfried (“Mamma Mia!” and HBO’s “Big Love”) make a sizzling hot couple in this screen adaptation of the 2006 bestselling romance novel by Nicholas Sparks. Is their love meant to last forever or doomed by time, distance and forces beyond their control?

This marks the fifth time that a  Sparks’ page-turner has struck Hollywood gold following “Message in a Bottle” (1999), “A Walk to Remember” (2002), “The Notebook”(2004) and “Nights in Rodanthe”(2008).

John Tyree (Tatum) is a handsome, soft-spoken member of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces (also known as the Green Berets) visiting his father (Richard Jenkins from “The Visitor” and HBO’s “Six Feet Under”) in South Carolina while on military leave. Savannah Lynn Curtis (Seyfried) is a beautiful blonde college student from an affluent Southern family spending spring break at her parents’ beach house.

Although they are from different social and economic backgrounds, their paths cross when John dives off the pier into deep water to retrieve Savannah’s purse. They are immediately attracted to one another. Their chance encounter turns into a whirlwind two-week courtship.

Playhouse cast showcases classic musical tunes

Was famed Broadway songwriter Richard Rodgers (“The Sound of Music,” “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel”) actually two separate composers?

According to J. Kent Barnhart, Rodgers certainly “sounded” like two dissimilar tunesmiths.

Rodgers adapted his style to capture the feel of the lyrics, and the two lyricists he worked most closely with could not have been more different.

“Rodgers & Hart & Hammerstein” is the latest revue from director/pianist and emcee Barnhart at the Quality Hill Playhouse.

Mel Gibson returns to screen in suspenseful 'Edge of Darkness'

 EDGE OF DARKNESS

3 stars

Rated R

Multiple Oscar winner Mel Gibson (“Braveheart,” “The Patriot” and “Lethal Weapon”) is back in a lead role after a nearly eight-year hiatus since starring in “Signs” (2002).

He plays Boston homicide detective Thomas Craven, who experiences a father’s worst nightmare when his 24-year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic from “Drag Me to Hell”) is gunned down on his front porch. He cradles her in his arms and cries like a baby. This moment evokes empathy and puts the audience in his corner for the remainder of the movie.

After overcoming the initial shock, he doggedly investigates the murder.

Gibson has not lost his thespian touch. He is in virtually every scene. He uses the physical attributes of his weathered face and large frame along with a New England accent to embody this menacing presence that walks and talks tough. He wears a rumpled raincoat like the Columbo character made famous by Peter Falk and his favorite drink is ginger ale.

Despite feelings of grief and loss, Craven realizes he knows very little about his daughter’s life. He meets her frightened boyfriend (Shawn Roberts) and the sleazy CEO (Danny Huston from “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and son of Hollywood titan John Huston) at Northmoor, her corporate place of employment. He also crosses paths with a shadowy government operative (Ray Winstone from “Sexy Beast”) assigned to clean up this bloody mess affecting national security.

The fun of this brain teaser is putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. There are a few bursts of explosive action, but the spine-tingling suspense keeps you on the edge of your seat as Craven gets closer to the truth.

All-female cast experiments with ‘Boston Marriage’

Critics often complained that playwright David Mamet, the king of theatrical testosterone (“Glengarry, Glen Ross,” “American Buffalo”), never wrote any good parts for women.

In 1999, Mamet responded by concocting an uncharacteristic period piece called “Boston Marriage.”  An opus that plays a bit like a caustic reworking of an Oscar Wilde comedy, “Boston Marriage” features only three characters, all of them women.

A unique and engaging Kansas City Actors Theatre production of “Boston Marriage” is being staged in a second floor drawing room at the Webster House, a restored Romanesque Revival building erected in 1885.

Oscars likely for 'Crazy Heart'

CRAZY HEART

3 stars

Rated R

One of the most underappreciated actors in Hollywood is finally getting the recognition he deserves. After winning awards for best actor last weekend at the Critics Choice and Golden Globes, four-time Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges (“The Contender,” “Starman,” “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” and “The Last Picture Show”) is the odds-on favorite to finally take home the golden statuette.

In “Crazy Heart,” Bridges stars as Bad Blake, a grizzled, bourbon-guzzling, country music singer. This legendary songwriting guitarist with a tenor voice is the spitting image of Kris Kristofferson. At age 57, he drinks and smokes too much and needs to lose 25 pounds. He travels around the Southwest in Old Betsy, a battered 1978 Suburban Silverado, and plays one-night gigs in bowling alleys, piano bars and honky-tonk saloons with pickup bands and local piano players.

He has a blue-collar work ethic. “I play drunk, sick, divorced and on the run. I never missed a show in my life,” says Bad. His moniker is on the back of his guitar strap so the group playing behind him will never forget the once-famous star attraction warbling into the microphone.

Bad has been unlucky in love, having married and divorced four times. Things appear to change for the better when he is interviewed by Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal from “The Dark Knight” and “Secretary”), an attractive single mother who has a poor track record with men. They share a love of music and the hard knocks of life. They have a romantic fling. Bad spends time with Jean and her cute-as-a-button, 4-year-old toddler, Buddy (Jack Nation), even making them his world-famous biscuits.

This character portrait of a tarnished man full of regrets struggling down the road of redemption is based on the 1987 novel by Thomas Cobb. It marks the astounding filmmaking debut of writer-director Scott Cooper, a former child actor. Cooper acknowledges that Bad’s dramatic character arc mirrors the life of Merle Haggard. He also indicates that Bad could have been the fifth Highwayman, joining Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kristofferson.

Theater delivers laughs in story of ‘world’s worst singer’

Simon Cowell and the other “American Idol” judges often cringe when they hear the off-tune warbling of early round contestants.

It is obvious that most of the competitors have never bothered to listen to a recording of their own voice. Either that, or they are utterly delusional.

A few years back, a contestant named William Hung was so bad that he became a camp favorite, enjoying 15 minutes of fame and fortune with his ear-numbing rendition of the Ricky Martin hit “She Bangs.”

That brings us to a New York socialite named Florence Foster Jenkins, an American soprano who lived from 1868 to 1944. Like Mr. Hung, she operated under the false assumption that she could sing.