When I said I like "Music of the Heart", I did. But perhaps had I a chance to explain in person why I liked the film, you may have realized that my reasons for enjoying it were different than your expectations of it's performance before your eyes.

"Music of the Heart" (or "Nightmare on Violin Street", as my brother affectionately dubbed it) is a film that explores something taken for granted in nearly every other film I've seen portraying teachers. It shows the conflict between teacher as parent and her real children - her inability to leave the discipline of teaching in the classroom when she comes home to parent. Growing up with a mother who's a teacher, this kind of parenting was part of my life from the very beginning. It was important for the film to portray that - and seeing it with my mother probably helped push that catharsis to the front of my consciousness. There were other things I liked about it - and there were things I didn't like about it (Gloria Estefan comes to mind).

Overall, though - I stand up for the film, but my favorable recommendation is based solely on the idea up top - the idea that teachers who are parents are different than any other kind of parents.

So, to Dani - I am sorry to have cost you $7.50 on this particular film. Sorry also that you had to hear secondhand that I enjoyed it - had I been able to blurt it out myself directly to you, I would have made it clear that I liked it, but with reservations.

Again, this is me apologizing.

Dr. Benjamin J. Trout, esquire