If you have a chance to catch SEABISCUIT, you really should. It has to be one of the best films that Donna and I have seen in the last year or so. The theatre was almost filled for a Sunday matinee at 12:30, with another screening at 1:00pm.

Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges and Chris Cooper are ALL absolutely fantastic. Bridges and Cooper age over twenty years in the film, and the movie allows us to see these guys years before they ever met. Unlike many films, it takes almost the first half hour to set things up, introduce each character and show their backgrounds. It isn't all backstory, where the character has to tell in monologue how they got to be where they were. Man, when they name the Oscar nominees this film is going to have dozens on that list!

William H. Macey steals every scene he's in as "Tick Tock McGlaughlin, a radio 'race' reporter who should have been real, if he wasn't! The races, even when you know what happened, are exciting and in those sections that were not widely known (unless you read the book, which I didn't) catch you totally off-guard.

I don't consider it a 'movie of substance', but rather a solid movie that entertains and touches you. I thought it did a fantastic job of using archival footage, actual radio broadcasts and re-enactments to create a feeling of what it must have been like in another era. David McCullough's narration (both Donna and I thought it was John Cancellor :-) also added to the feel, using at is did actual passages from the book. Bravo!

Great cast all around, even for small roles. Gary Stevens is really good as another jockey. He is initially Maguire's chief rival and later his good friend. I'd never heard of him before, but he certainly delivers.

Oh, it's also funny to see Elizabeth Banks (who plays Betty Brant in the Spider-Man films), as Jeff Bridge's wife. She and Tobey Maguire are certainly getting to know each other.

As I told a guy waiting to see the next showing, it is the most up-lifting movie I've seen in years. It just makes you feel good when you walk out of the theatre.

I've heard that the film wasn't the top box-office winner this past weekend, but I think that this is one of those films 'with legs' as they say. When many of the other movies have been pulled this one will still be getting folks into the theatre.