CAROLINA KITSCH: NICHOLAS SPARKS JUST IN TIME FOR VALENTINE'S DAY

    Nicholas Sparks is a pirate who pillages small coastal towns. He started out in Cape Cod with 1999's MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE and old romcom icons, Paul Newman and Kevin Costner. After that success he moved on to the Carolinas where his forgettable 2002 Mandy Moore vehicle, A WALK TO REMEMBER, took place in Beaufort, N.C. He moved further south with 2004'S THE NOTEBOOK (Seabrook Island, S.C.); 2008's NIGHT IN RODANTHE (North Carolina's Outer Banks); 2010's DEAR JOHN (Wilmington, N.C.) and THE LAST SONG (Tybee Island, Georgia). Finally it was all the way to Louisiana and 2012's THE LUCKY ONE
            A Nick Sparks movie has provided employment for romantic leading men of all ages--from Richard Gere to Ryan Gosling--and on the distaff side, Diana Lane and Amanda Seyfried.
     
          Each Sparks effort follows the same theme: separation and letters, love lost and then found. There is often a soldier off to war who comes home to search for the woman he never knew or wants to find again. His novels, made into movies, are regularly savaged by the critics but mint big bucks at the box office. It's a simple formula, as easy to make as a margarita, but with Sparks at the word-processor, the tequila is, at least top shelf. Tears are guaranteed. (Pretty good for someone from Nebraska who has transplanted himself to the mid-Atlantic and morphed into the leading philanthropist of scenic New Bern, N.C.)

BOGO sale today at some multiplexes!

            His latest, SAFE HAVEN, will open tomorrow at--as they say--a theater near you. This one has DANCING WITH THE STARS vet Julianne Hough coupling with former fashion model and soap opera actor, Josh Duhamel. The flick is set in Southport, North Carolina which is so close to the border dividing the Carolinas, it could easily be dubbed Northport, South Carolina. SAFE HAVEN has familiar machinations: A mysterious woman arrives in a small burg carrying a dark secret and learns that love is the only true "safe haven."
             There. No need to put sugar in your coffee this morning, because to do, risks Type 2 diabetes. So, TPCers, you have a choice tomorrow. Stay at home and snuggle up with Jane Austen or enter a dark auditorium and deal with Nick Sparks.
              The mission, at least, is clear.



     The answer to yesterday's trivia question is THE READER. Today, Lasse Hallstrom directed SAFE HAVEN. What other Nicholas Sparks movie found him in the director's chair?