Great Family Entertainment

DVDs:


	• Christy - A New Beginning Lauren Lee Smith, Stewart Finlay-McLennan Lions Gate, 2001 average customer review:based on 61 reviews view larger image
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Great Family Entertainment

Great family series of life at the turn of the century with the hardships and trials of a rural setting. Romantic involvements and everyday problems are addressed.

great movie!

I loved the series and the movies. If you loved the series you have to see this movie.

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Wonderful end!

I loved the original Christy series and just had to buy the DVD set. I remembered seeing the movies they made years later on TV so I just had to get them too to finish the collection. Out of all them, A New Beginning is the best. I think Lauren Lee Smith is a much better Christy than Kellie Martin. Smith's appearance is more what I imagine Christy to look like and she had much more chemistry and presence with her two male suitors. Although Randall Batinkoff was superb and fantastic as Rev. David Grantland, James Waterston did a very good job. I love Stewart Finlay-McLellan, and he is the perfect Dr. Neil MacNeill. He is the reason I love this series. In a New Beginning, an older senior Christy returns to Cutter Cap with her daughter Catherine and tells her the story of how she decided to marry Catherine's father. It is three months after the typhoid outbreak and Neil's departure (A Change of Seasons). Christy is planning her wedding to David. She has a very strange dream obviously indicating her true indecisiveness about marrying David. Her mother keeps sending her packages/crates and calls everyday with new guests and plans. Also, Christy is worried about Jeb Spencer's unshakable deep grief over Fairlight's passing, and his teenage son John's plans to marry. David goes to El Pano to book rooms for their guests. Christy is clearly overwhelmed by everything (and is unsure if she is making the right choice) when Neil unexpectedly shows up. His colleagues are in El Pano to pick up supplies. Christy is clearly very happy to see him. She relates all her problems to him so he convinces her to take the day off and to go on a day trip/horse ride with him. Miss Alice (Diane Ladd is not Ms. Alice I have to say, only Tyne Daly is) is concerned about John Spencer and Bessie Colburn marrying too young. So she is trying to convince him to rethink his decision when a sudden storm hits. Neil and Christy are up on the ridge and she tells him how worried she is about Jeb. Neil accounts Jeb's anguish but it is his own because of his love for Christy. She is upset when Neil says he loves her and has come back to ask her to marry him. She blows up at him for showing up two weeks before her wedding to announce this and storms away to the horses. It immediately starts to downpour and the horses, scared, run off. So they seek refuge in an abandoned hunting shack Neil knows of. Meanwhile at the Mission, the mountain people are seeking shelter from the storm. Bessie is at the Spencers' cabin waiting for John with the kids, flipping out and is totally unprepared, as Opal (the original and best Dale Dickey) arrives to take them to the Mission. Jeb shows up and exclaims that he will wash away with the cabin that he and Fairlight built. David in El Pano learns of Neil's arrival and that he went to visit Christy. He calls and from Tom (another original from the series) is told that CHristy is off in the storm with Neil. David is determined to walk to Cutter Gap in the storm when an equally worried Dr. Jacob Ferrand accompanies him. They have a dangerous journey back including a small rest in a "haunted" cave where they discuss their love for Alice and Christy, and pull Bob Allen from the river. Meanwhile, Christy and Neil get into an argument about her feelings that he looks down on her, he kisses her and she runs away from the cabin in the pouring rain. He chases after her, but she falls and hurts her ankle. He finds her and they share a very touching and affectionate embrace in the rain before he carries her back to the cabin. Miss Alice, John and Ruby Mae are administrating to all the people coming in. Ruby Mae is worried about Christy and as Alice instructs, performs an "act of faith" by sewing pearls onto Christy's veil. When Alice asks John to help her get blankets from the bunkhouse, Neil's horse Duke runs in. As Alice is putting him in the barn, a tree falls on her. The mountain men including Birdseye Taylor (the original) help to get her out. As she is trapped, Opal chats with her to keep her calm. Of course, Birdseye and Tom have to put aside their feud to free Alice. She is alright and shares a moment with Birdseye, who is comforted by her that his dead son Lundy is with God. It is redemption for Birdseye. Well, poor Christy comes down with a terrible fever and Neil has to nurse her. She has a hallucination of seeing Fairlight and such. Neil has to take her out of her wet clothes and wraps her up in a blanket. They share stories of why she came to Cutter Gap and why he became a doctor to escape it. David and Jacob Ferrand arrive at the Mission. David wants to run out and find Christy but he realizes he is needed there to help his parishioners. Then the moment of truth. At the shack, as Christy is raging with fever, Neil sincerely gets on his hands and knees, crying and praying at Christy's bedside to God and admits his sins. The next morning, Christy wakes up well and sees Neil sleeping. He apologizes that this whole event was his fault. Christy looks at him very lovingly. The storm is over and many people have lost everything. Jeb is so happy to see his children and is somewhat changed as if he has been healed. As Neil is carrying Christy through the woods, they run into David and Tom who are searching for them. Christy transfers into David's arms. She looks back at a heartbroken Neil. David stumbles with her in his arms and Neil races in. Now they both got her and as she as an old woman is narrating, she makes her choice right then as she decides to walk on her own. In my opinion, this is the best part of the whole Christy series. Christy eventually gives David back his ring. Her wedding day is perfect as her mother assures her she has made the right choice. She marries Neil with all her friends and family present. Alice and Jacob talk about their own relationship. He will not give up on marrying her. Poor David watches the whole affair, saddened, from the back. Christy dances with her new husband and Neil tells her how he fell in love with her instantly when they met. Catherine, Christy's daughter will write her mother's story. It is a wonderful end and I enjoyed it very much.

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Want More Christy!

What a heartwarming story! Why can't we have more TV and movies like this!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Christy (Lauren Lee Smith) and the rest of the Cutter Gap community are just beginning to recover from a typhoid epidemic when a storm hits the rural alcove. In A New Beginning, the second of a two-part PAX production that began with A Change of Seasons, she gets stranded in the forest with Dr. MacNeill (Stewart Finlay-McLennan), and her fiancé David (James Waterston) risks life and limb to rescue her. Despite a loss of property, the town makes it through the storm relatively intact, but many have been changed by the experience. Christy, for instance, has come to see Dr. MacNeill in a new light, thus questioning her engagement to David. Will she marry the preacher or break off the engagement? Marriage is on the minds of several characters in this engaging recollection by the elderly Christy about her experiences as a young schoolteacher in the Smoky Mountains. Age 8 and older. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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