10/10
I Hear America Singing
2 July 2004
"America's Heart and Soul" is the movie Hollywood does not want you to see. 'What? A film that is openly patriotic and optimistic? Quiet! Someone might hear you and buy a ticket.' This movie should be viewed not only by all Americans but by all people who want to be free. In an amazing series of vignettes we see the people who make our country a continuous celebration of the human spirit.

Here we lift the man crippled with cerebral palsy and put him in a wheel chair, and with the aide of his father, he speeds past his fellow citizens waving flags and yelling 'you can do it!' Together they finish the Boston Marathon.

Here we decorate cars with bobble head dolls or make dinosaur statues from scrap metal or we hurl a flaming bowling ball into a stack of broken televisions. Here we don't just climb mountains we toss a rope to the blind man so he can 'see' the view from the top. Here a man can go from prisoner to captain of the Olympic Boxing Team after twelve months of training and exercise resulting in a well defined dream. Here a clarinet reverberates through a synagogue in Brooklyn and a choir shakes the beams of an old church building in Mississippi. Here a woman dares to enter the male dominated sport of acrobatic flying and wins two years in a row.

We are a nation that represents true cultural diversity in which free enterprise and the free mind are as essential to the human soul as oxygen and water are to the human body.

We don't just get lemons and make lemonade, we plant the seeds our Maker put in the lemon's heart and get a whole forest of trees whose branches provide homes for the birds and shade for the weary land.

"America's Heart and Soul" proclaims the beauty of freedom without resounding political jibes. It reminds us of Providence without being preachy. It makes you weep tears of joy.

For me the only melancholy tear I shed was when the camera soared across Manhattan's mighty skyline, and I couldn't help but notice what was missing.

Such is the price of liberty, when you want to be a shinning city on a hill there are always those with greedy hands and contaminated minds who want to blow out your candle. This Independence Day weekend while you are enjoying the barbeques and rocket's red glare, be sure to tell that grand Lady Liberty holding her torch in Hudson Bay that she's as beautiful as ever because millions of people out there want to fly a passenger plane into her pedestal.

In conclusion, take the time to say 'thank you' by supporting your local movie house with your patronage. Buy a big bag of popcorn and a Coke. In a small way you will be remembering the real life heroes, our friends who daily risk their lives to keep this land safe and self determined. Honor our values and buy a ticket for 'America's Heart and Soul.'
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