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Fly Away Home

Fly Away Home

List Price: $24.95
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Stupid Movie!
Review: This is such a .... and sad movie. One time our class was meant to go on a St. Pat's Walk but we couldn't because it was raining outside. So our teacher rented this from Blockbuster. I felt like running out of the classroom. This is a sad movie with sad songs and I'm NEVER going to watch this movie AGAIN! I would've liked to rate this movie no stars but I had to rate this movie so I rated it 1 star.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Maybe the best family film in a generation.
Review: This is very possibly the best "family film" in decades, by which I mean this is a film that parents and kids will enjoy watching together. It has an appeal that adults can relate to, and kids simply love it. My family has watched this movie together many times.

The story is about a young girl (Amy, played excellently by Anna Panquin) whose parents have split up; her father (Jeff Daniels) lives in Canada and her mother with whom she lives is in New Zealand. When mom is killed in an auto accident, Amy goes to Canada to live with her downright eccentric dad. She is unhappy and out of place until she adopts a flock of baby geese, and this is where the story really starts. The geese have lost their parents, and do not know how to migrate. Amy and her dad and their friends decide to teach them how. What a great story, and the cinematography of the flight scenes is breathtaking and astounding! This is a funny, touching, and entertaining movie that deserves every one of the five stars that most reviewers have awarded it. The story is out there on the outer edge of plausibility and this gives it a magical quality that sends the message that all things are possible with perserverence, intelligence, and luck. I cannot imagine any family not enjoying this superb film.

Fine performances by Miss Panquin, Jeff Daniels and the supporting cast. This is one of those films where everything came together very well, to make what has become a true classic. The storyline moves along smartly, the acting is consistently good, and the ending is truly touching. By the way, the scene where the baby geese are born in my opinion is one of the finest and most touching scenes ever to grace either DVD or the silver screen. Don't miss it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Jeff Daniels does it again
Review: A great family film. And a true story. This is one of those films that's a joy to watch, and leaves you feeling good afterwards.
Jeff Daniels is great as usual.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Finally, a movie for girls, without the beauty makeover!
Review: FINALLY, and inspiring movie for girls with substance! A great TRUE story, great cast, and wonderfully photographed. I highly recommend it for girls (and families) of all ages.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A wonderful story of the beauty of both animals and people
Review: A 13-year-old girl from New Zealand, Amy (Anna Paquin) ,after the untimely death of her mother, comes to live with her father (Jeff Daniels) in Canada.
At first suspicious, angry and uncommunicative, she discovers a new purpose and blooms beautifully, after discovering some goose eggs that hatch into a flock of baby geese.
She rears the geese lovingly, and when winter comes , and it is time to fly south , her father comes up with a fantastic plan to guide the birds south to their summer grounds , with the aid of a makeshift airplane/hang-glider.
A particularly beautiful scene is when we see the birds landing at their new destination.
A wonderful story of the beauty of both animals and people.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A family film even a curmudgeon will love
Review: The great thing about this film is the way they integrate two films in one. First is the story of a young teenage girl, marvelously portrayed by Anna Paquin, who is forced to move to Canada to live with her father, whom she barely knows, after her mother dies. The second story is how she cares for a gaggle of geese who have her imprinted as their mother, and how she and her father decide to help the geese migrate to the Southern United States rather than have their wings clipped and live as tame rather than wild geese. As the two of them first learn to fly the ultra light aircraft that they will use to transport the geese and then actually undertake the journey to lead the geese south, they too manage to bond, just as the girl has with her geese. The end, when the girl has to fly the final leg by herself after her father has sustained an injury, will bring a tear to the eye of even the most flinty-hearted individual.

This is one of those films that some film viewers might overlook that they ought not. Many films are driven by cinematics; some, like this one, are driven by a marvelous story. I think just about everyone should give this film a chance, but parents with daughters should especially search this one out. As a single father of a daughter, I know from experience that this is the kind of film a young girl especially will find inspiration in.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fly
Review: "Fly Away Home" tells the story of Amy, a girl from New Zealand who has to stay with her father in Canada after her mother dies. During her time there she finds some goose eggs that later hatch. As soon as the geese hatch the first thing they see is Amy and so they imprint on her, thinking she is their mother. Due to the geese natural instinct to fly south, and the fact that they don't have their real mother to lead the way, Amy with the help of her father attempt to lead the geese south in their own hang gliders.

This is a very simple story done well, helping to create a pretty much perfect family movie. Jeff Daniels as Amy's father and Oscar winning Anna Paquin as Amy are equally fantastic, and I'd also like to give a shout out to Terry Kinney as Amy's uncle who is really quite funny. The directing by Carroll Ballard is brilliant and the cinematography is breathtaking and makes you feel like you are flying with Amy, her Dad and the geese. Not to mention the truly inspirational score by Mark Isham that is helping us along on our journey.

The DVD special features which although not necessarily entertaining are appropriately informative. And also, "Fly Away Home" has been digitally remastered and is presented in widescreen, so it's the best you'll see this movie. I suggest you fly to the store or internet terminal so you can buy this, before it flies off the shelves.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 'Fly' to buy it today!
Review: This remains one of my favorite films for a variety of reasons. The cinematography, beautiful soundtrack, great acting are among these.

Fly Away Home is based on a true story, and let's face it, audiences love true stories. From Finding Fish to Catch Me if You Can to The Pianist, real sells. And why not? It's familiar, it's heartfelt and it's touching, as is the case of Fly Away Home.

The story is that of orphaned Amy's attempt to live with her father, and raise a flock of geese. She eventually teaches them to migrate. Anna Pacquin is stunning as Amy and Jeff Daniels displays surprising skills as her estranged yet caring father. The relationship between the two of them and Amy and the geese is hauntingly beautiful and so vivrant on screen. Mark Isham provides a sweeping soundtrack that will resonate in your mind for days. It's a shame Columbia never released the CD, but the DVD contains an option for the full score.

As well as the score, the Special Edition DVD contains enough features to hold your attention for hours. Documentaries, commentaries, featurettes, trailers and production notes bring together a fitting package for a captivating film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fly Away Home - a masterpiece
Review: I loved this movie and now own it for myself, smply because of the fact that it is such an aweing film. Along with th best, most inspiring plot I've ever seen in a movie, it also has a soundtrack beautiful enough to make you cry. Anyone who wuldn't like this movie would hae to be crazy. I haven't heard a bad review of it yet.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A slow-starting but inspiring movie
Review: My chief criticism of this movie is that it takes a while getting its feet under it, though it's understandable in light of the many personalities and situations that have to be established in the first half of the story: Thomas Alden (Daniels), an environmental activist and eccentric artist (mostly in metal) who lives in Southern Ontario; Amy (Paquin), his 13-year-old daughter, whom he hasn't seen in years, and who comes to live with him after her mother, a recording artist, is killed in a car crash in New Zealand; David (Kinney), Thomas's brother, and Susan Barnes (Delany), his lady friend; and assorted background information regarding the habits of Canada geese and the Dominion laws regarding them. Spurred by the threat that the local wildlife officers will clip the wings of the hatch of orphaned goslings she has adopted, rendering them unable to fly, if she tries to keep them as "domesticated," Amy resolves to find a way to help them migrate south each winter. It's Thomas's friend Strickland (Graham), a hobbyist in ultralight flying machines, who provides a possible solution, but it takes Thomas's inventive mind to make the final link: because the geese have imprinted on Amy, they will only follow *her*, so a plane must be built for her and she must be taught to fly it. ("You'll follow me," says Thomas, "the geese will follow you, and we'll get them there.") Complications are added by the fact that the wildlife sanctuary in Maryland where David and a professorial friend propose to settle the mini-flock is scheduled to undergo development if migratory birds aren't induced to go there within a very short timeframe.

The best sequences in the movie are those that show Amy interacting with her flock--dashing across the lawn or the nearby field (on an ATV) with the whole band galloping frantically after her, sitting quietly in their cage with them facing off against an invading wildlife officer--and, of course, the flight south. You'll gasp as Amy, Thomas, and their geese blunder into a downtown field of skyscrapers in a fog and go driving down the canyon between soaring high-rises, to the stunned amazement of office workers. You'll be on the edge of your seat as they unknowingly throw a USAF base into full alert by bearing down on it without making radio contact. The interpolated sequences featuring voiceovers and onscreens by assorted American newscasters add a sense of reality to the unfolding story. And then there's the triumphant climactic sequence when Amy, left to do the last part of the flight alone after Thomas crashes his plane and dislocates a shoulder, arrives at the sanctuary where birdwatchers and environmentalists are staging a sit-down strike in front of the threatening bulldozers. Besides sensitively addressing issues like divorce and parental death, "Fly Away Home" can also be seen as an allegory of growing up. Though not for audiences with a short attention span or a liking for non-stop action or suspense, it *is* an excellent family film and well worth seeing.


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