Strawberry Summer

How can you not adore this film! It has more holes than a block of swiss cheese but the cast is superb: Shelley Long, Cindy Williams, Meagan Fay and more represent the veterans of the craft with finesse. Trevor Donovan and Julie Mond are so delightful, young, and full of promise and talent just like the characters they play. The original song 'Catching Horses' sure is catchy and I love that it strikes to the heart of panic attacks and anxiety disorders, exhorting us to believe in ourselves and not the fear inside. This is an easy and fun watch. The message is an important one.

I loved the music and most of all looking at Trevor Donovan. Being true to yourself and following your dreams are the themes in this original Hallmark Movie Channel film starring Julie Mond and Trevor Donovan. Strawberry Summer takes place in a small Southern California community at Strawberry Festival time. The whole town focuses on all things strawberry - strawberry shortcake, strawberry spaghetti, and even plain old strawberries. At first you roll your eyes, because the whole deal is as corny as Kansas in August.

But after a while you figure hey, what the heck, everyone's having a good time, so why not just join in and enjoy the moment?

Everything doesn't have to be cool or even be art

This story has been done a few different ways on Hallmark and similar channels, but they are basically the same. In fact, I watched this on another channel one and a half weeks after Jessy Scram and Niall Matter premiered Country at Heart which has some distinct similarities. They include inviting the popular local girl up on stage to help sing a new song. There were other predictable and well used tropes as well. Trevor Donovan did the celebrity falls for small town girl less than a year ago in Nostalgic Christmas, but this movie is from 2012.

Yet I enjoyed this movie as much as most in the non-Christmas rom/com genre. I barely know Julie Mond (I remember her in Love Begins) but I was impressed by her chemistry with Donovan. I can't argue that she didn't look pretty silly as a Strawberry Queen, but I got the impression that was intentional since she was the only one that looked a little silly. This high school teacher, on summer break, still has enough relationship with her glee club kids to spend her time with them. Jason warmed up to Beth pretty fast considering how vocal she was in pointing out his responsibilities.

I wish the movie had made the mean girl's motivations a little clearer.

The story lacked any serious conflict. What conflict there was seemed pretty tame.

Later in the movie we hear some singing especially by Donovan. I was amazed by his voice and couldn't believe it wasn't someone else, but I can't find any evidence that it isn't and there are a couple of posts on different sites, including a fan site, that strongly imply it is his voice. Note to reviewer looking for "Catching Horses": the song is actually "Tame the Horse" and you can find it using that title. Pardon the pun, but the song is catchy.

This was a tolerable effort but I really came here to compliment Kelly Kwon on her bold and hilarious costume design. The Glee club and Julie Mond's over-the-top Strawberry Queen get ups were absolutely hilarious.

We prefer the original title. But here it is nine years later: Trevor Donovan's acting "chops" acknowledged- and his box office and fan base well established.

In spite of it's country fair redundant theme, we loved the movie. Many, many well known actors are here and a joy to watch.

The music, both from Trevor's character and the Glee Club, are great! ...Mr Donovan's beautiful voice. He sings very, very well. What a marvelous surprise!