"Oranges and Sunshine" with Emily Watson and David Wenham (2010)

Emily Watson stars as Margaret Humphreys, a social worker in Nottingham, England who becomes involved in solving the disappearance of thousands of boys and girls who were illegally deported to Australia. This is a true story.

Most of the children were removed from their homes due to the inability of the parents to either provide adequately for them, or for any number of other reasons deemed appropriate by the social workers. There was no offer of counseling to help these people learn how to better care for their kids. There was no offer of financial assistance. There was just the arbitrary removal of the children from their parents. In many cases siblings were separated, never to see one another again.

Some of the children went to other abusive families in Australia, meaning that the child’s world did not change at all. There were just the lingering, faded memories of a past that would never fully go away. These children had been promised a life of “oranges and sunshine”. Instead they got abused, worked half to death and starved. The lucky ones went to state sponsored institutions where they were abused in a more regimental fashion.

As Margaret Humphreys digs deeper into this case, she comes to realize the full extent of this misguided and evil program. And then she sets out to make it right. Assembling all of the children that she can find who were deported, she begins to reunite them with the siblings they have almost forgotten, and restore their memories of the parents from whom they were so cruelly wrenched.

This is a very moving, and disturbing film. It highlights the problems of government sponsored social engineering; a process by which people who presumably “know better” get to launch whatever harebrained scheme they come up with. This is not a problem isolated to Great Britain.

Expertly directed and acted by all the players; and with an exceptional performance by Emily Watson; this film will affect you long after the credits have rolled off the screen.

The Cat

This is Midnight, the cat who has adopted me. We have settled into an easy relationship over the past month or so. He sleeps outside, by the front door, or in one of the porch chairs. He likes to be "talked" to in a soft manner and comes when called, just like a dog.

Clearly this is someone's housecat, and we have been trying to find it's owner. We have advertised on Craig's list and in the newspaper. We actually had one person come to look and see if it was their cat - but, no luck, they wouldn't have him, the eyes were different!

I have tried the shelters that won't kill him, but they are full. I have asked all the animal "lovers" I know if they would take this wonderful cat into their home. He has clearly been trained, and has most likely been nuetered, etc. But not one person has stepped up to the plate for "Midnight". I have allergies that prevent me from taking this little fellow into my home. All I can do is feed him and let him sleep on the porch chair. But it's getting cold out at night now and I worry about the winter coming up.

Midnight is a lot tougher now than when he first showed up at our door. I feed him at his pleasure - dry food several times a day, and canned tuna fish about twice a week. He loves that!

Well, I gotta go, Midnight is outside meowing for his breakfast. It was chilly last night, so I will give him some warm skim milk with his breakfast. He loves that, too.

"Saving Sarah Cain" with Elliott Gould, Lisa Pepper and Tess Harper

I must have passed this one by a hundred times in the library without picking it up. I put it in the "chick flick" category and ignored it. My loss, as I could have enjoyed this film a couple of years earlier.

Elliott Gould is the crusty, browbeaten editor of a newspaper in Oregon. His best columnist, Sarah Cain, played by Lisa Pepper, is having a writers block. Her columns have been reduced from real journalism to things like "6 Ways to Use Cheese." She is being outpaced by a younger and "foxier" reporter who has caught the eye of the editor. Things are looking down for Sarah until she receives a fateful phone call.

As a young girl, Sarah and her sister were close. They were more than that. They were one. They played at the shore and collected 10 perfect seashells each, vowing to look at them each day and pray for the other. They also promised never to leave one another. So when Sarah's sister gets married and moves to Pennsylvania and her new life in the Amish community, the ties between the two are broken.

When Sarah receives word that her sister, by now a widow with 4 children, has passed away, she heads for the funeral. With her job at stake this is no easy decision. But what happens when she gets there will alter her life forever.

After the funeral is over the Department of Social Services comes around. Their plan, in the absence of any other course of action, is to place the children in seperate foster homes. The community turns to the Elders of the Church for a decision. It becomes clear that unless Sarah takes it upon herself to become the children's Guardian, that they will be seperated and brought up outside of their faith. This poses quite a dilemma for Sarah, who is not Amish. She files a story with her paper and the response is overwhelming. Her editor is thrilled and wants more of the story.

Sarah, caught between a rock and a hard place, decides to take the children home to Oregon and a life wholly unfamiliar to them. Everything is new to these kids, who range in age from 6 to 16 years old. Sarah enrolls them in school, where they face predictable obstacles. And she keeps writing columns about the experience. As the kids adjust to their new lives, concessions are made concerning their religous beliefs, even as the children themselves begin to change.

With a "tear jerker" ending, in which everyone gets what they want, Sarah rediscovers her own spirituality, the children get the home they need and the people around them discover the joy and freedom that comes of diversity. But it is Sarah who learns the most valuable lesson of all - that sometimes things get lost for a reason. And that sometimes a loss can be a prelude to a larger gain.