• I really thought The Longest Ride was going to be a sappy movie based on a book by Nicholas Sparks. I was mistaken. Yes, it can be sappy but turns out to be a good story. A young couple, a city girl and a cowboy go out on a date only to discover they are too different for it to work. They drive up to an accident scene and the cowboy saves the driver while the gal discovers a lot of letters. This sets a path to a past love story and sets the course for the cowboy and city girl to have a little faith in finding love even though circumstances may point elsewhere. I believe this is a good date movie or just a feel good story. Long live cowboys.

If you're thinking that this film has a familiar look to it that's because The Longest Ride And The Notebook are both originating from the pen of Nicholas Sparks. This is the story of a seemingly mismatched young couple Scott Eastwood and Britt Robertson and an old man with his memories who cements their relationship.

Nostalgia is bursting all over the place with The Longest Ride. Scott Eastwood, son of Clint Eastwood is an aspiring bull rider competing in the Professional Bull Riders who gets dumped in the lap of spectator Britt Robertson. That's a plot gambit borrowed A Lady Takes A Chance where John Wayne made the acquaintance of Jean Arthur that way.

As her girlfriends tell her who wouldn't want to make it with a cowboy and I can agree there. But while the chemistry is there, they come from different worlds. Eastwood is the son of a bull rider and he lives on the ranch that he inherited from his dad with his mother Lolita Davidovitch. He knows his days as a professional bull rider are limited and he wants the prize money while he still can afford. He's flirting dangerously with permanent injury and death more than most bull riders as he's had a dangerous concussion already.

Robertson is an art history major and wants a career in that and may move to New York as that's the capital of the art world in the USA. Somebody is going to have to make a sacrifice.

One day both save the life of an elderly Alan Alda who kind of adopts the two of them and shares the memories of the wonderful married life he had with his late wife. Flashbacks give us big clues as to why these people were so right for each other and in his youth Alda is played by Jack Huston, grandson of John Huston and Oona Chaplin who has both Charlie Chaplin and Eugene O'Neill in her pedigree is his wife who was a refugee from the Nazis. For that matter Alan Alda is the son of Robert Alda speaking of nepotism.

Alda is really the one stealing the show here. As appealing and romantic as young Eastwood and Robertson are, Alda gives a really great performance and his introductory narrations really give flashback sequences some real poignancy. I hope there's some Oscar consideration for Alda in the Supporting Actor category.

Of course it all works out for the young people as you knew it would. But for it to happen young Eastwood hits the equivalent of a big lottery ticket. And I'm not talking about the PBR Las Vegas finals either.

For romantics of all ages is The Longest Ride.

Sophia Danko (Britt Robertson) is a Wake Forest senior set to work an internship at a Manhattan gallery after graduation. She gets drag to a rodeo by Marcia (Melissa Benoist) and falls for bullrider Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood) who is trying to make a comeback after an injury. His mother Kate (Lolita Davidovich) wants him to quit fearing another life-threatening injury. Driving back from a date, the young couple encounters a crash and rescues Ira Levinson (Alan Alda) with a box from the burning wreck. The box is filled with letters. At the hospital, Sophia reads them to Ira. There are flashbacks of a young Ira (Jack Huston) and his tragic love for Ruth (Oona Chaplin).

It's another Nicholas Sparks special. This one is not trying to be quite as clever which did throw me a little. I kept waiting for a family connection between Ira and one of the young lovers. It's good that he doesn't succumb to the temptation. Jack Huston and Oona Chaplin don't have quite the charisma. They are more character actors. Eastwood is really pretty but he doesn't have the intensity or the charm of his father. Robertson continues to be adorable and has charisma to spare. They are two young pretty people with limited actual chemistry. They make for a beautiful picture with little depth. Alan Alda adds weight to the proceedings. This Sparks adaptation isn't as overtly manipulative but that does not make it good. The ending doesn't make me roll my eyes and that's pretty good for Sparks lately. I simply don't feel for either romances in the two different eras.