Frequency is one of those movies you didn’t hear much about. It either doesn’t show up at a movie theater near you or else it comes and go in the blink of an eye. It’s a shame. I saw it after it came out on dvd, and it’s one of those movies I stop and watch whenever it airs.
Jim Caveziel plays John Sullivan, a homicide cop who still lives in the same house where he grew up. He tinkers with his father’s old ham radio equipment and because of freakish aurora borealis activity somehow manages to make contact with him 30 years in the past.
His father Frank, Dennis Quaid, refuses to believe John is who he says until his warning saves his life the next day. Frank’s survival creates a new timeline, one in which John’s mother was murdered by a serial killer. The two men, one living in the past and one living in the present, work together to find the killer before he can get to her.
One of the reasons I find this movie so touching is because of the relationship between the two men. The two actors did an excellent job portraying father and son meeting each other and reconnecting as grown men. John Sullivan gets to experience time spent with his father he never had when he was young, and Frank gets a second chance to tell his son how he feels about him.
It’s a twisty plot, and you have to pay attention the way you would if you were watching a mystery, but in the end I think it’s worth it.
HOT DOGS
In the movie, the characters have a cookout with friends. What better thing to serve than hot dogs. Nothing fancy. No difficult preparation, but there are a million ways to cook the “tubular steaks”. You can boil them, grill them, cook them in the oven or cut them up and serve them with pork and beans. And you can eat them with a hundred different relishes: chopped or grilled onions, peppers, sauerkraut, pickles, cheese, chili, all kinds of mustard.
Makes me hungry right now. I think I’ll go fix myself one for lunch right now.
Susan A. Royal 