When Lasse Hallström and I went out for funnel cakes three years ago, it was an alright time. Sure he paid for my cake, but he insisted I only get powdered sugar on it with strawberry sauce, This means he stiffed on the soft serve, which kind of turned me off. But I thought, what the hell, he’s a major Hollywood director, so I let him drive me home. His movies are okay, I don’t have much of an opinion on them, but if you’re a Hallström or a Nicholas Sparks fan (the gent who wrote THE NOTEBOOK and A WALK TO REMEMBER), then peep this. Lasse (not like the dog, that’s Lassie), has signed on to direct the latest sappy Sparks adaptation DEAR JOHN (it even sounds sappy).
The exciting thing is, the plot doesn’t sound like a typical Nicholas Sparks story at all. If anything, it reminds of John Waters meets Edgar Allen Poe meets Karl Marx. Channing Tatum (STEP UP) plays a rebel who joins the army, only to fall in love with a college student—a female one—while in North Carolina, and decides to settle down with her. But then Osama and his goofs muck things up on 9/11, and Tatum’s character is forced to choose between love and duty. Which would you choose?