I don't know why I keep calling these "movie reviews" since I tend to just summarize the plot and not critique much. If you've been reading my movie reviews you'd notice that I tend to remain noncommital and I generally like every movie I see. I try not to go into a theatre expecting things out of a movie. The movies that you're most disappointed with are the ones that fail to meet your expectations. And occassionally I get caught up in that. But I try to go into a theatre and just be ready for whatever happens. View a movie with an open mind and you'll like most of them.

Summer Catch, the new Freddie Prinze Jr movie, is a more or less typical teen romantic comedy. Just the kind of vehicle perfectly made for Prinze. Now, I've said before that Prinze is one of my favorite actors, mostly because he's such a geek and the kind of guy I'd like if I knew personally. So I root for him and his career and his recent engagement to Sarah Michelle Geller (sorry Dave, Buffy is taken). He knows he's not the best actor, but he tries and he has fun and I like the movies he's in.

In Summer Catch, Prinze plays Ryan Dunne, local kid from the Cape Cod are (Chatham, to be precise) playing in the Cape Cod Summer League. This is supposed to be **the** premiere try-out league, where all the top prospects from all over the country play trying to look good and be signed my a major league team. Ryann has a gun for an arm and is a capable pitcher most of the time, but he lacks patience and he lets his emotions affect his game. This is Ryan's last chance, as he's been kicked out of Boston College and the local college because of his temper. If not this then he'll probably end up being a glorified gardener in his dad's landscaping business.

But what a business that can be! For Ryan gets to mow the lawn of the rich and wealthy of Cape Cod, such as the Parrish's. And that can lead to catching a glimpse at the beautiful Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel) as she uses their pool. Naturally, that leads to them meeting formally later on and having something in common to talk about ("I mow your dad's lawn"). But really, can a romance between a rich show princess and a poor gardener's son work out?

Perhaps, although Tenley has her own problems. (It's not easy being rich, you know.) Her dad has big plans for her, starting with her going to the City by the Bay (that would be San Francisco) to work at her uncle's law firm as an intern. Follow that with law school and a law degree and then a business of her own. Tenley though has other desires. She wants to be an architect (which comes up suddenly in the movie as if they'd talked about it before, bad edit there) and be her own person. And if that means falling in love with Ryan then so be it.

Alas, it won't be as easy as that. Not only is Tenley's father, Rand (Bruce Davison), dead set against her going out with some white-trash kid, but even Ryan's father, Sean (Fred Ward), thinks it's a bad idea for Ryan to go after that show princess. Ryan at least has his on-field troubles to take his mind off of the doomed romance. Although a good pitcher, he still can't seem to put together a string of good innings to win a game, causing Coach Schiffner (Brian Dennehy) to take Ryan out of the starting rotation. If that isn't enough, there are also the twin problems of keeping his catcher's spirits up (Matthew Lillard playing Billy Brukaker) as he struggles throughout a dispiriting hitless streak, and competing with Eric Van Leemer (Corey Pearson), the hot fireball pitcher with an attitude.

Naturally, I liked this movie. The romance was very nice and the comedy was downplayed a bit. Baseball is just a backdrop for the story, so there aren't that many good baseball scenes (just highlight reel stuff -- great catches and dramatic homeruns, not the kind of scenes that you can string together to make it look like a coherent baseball game was played). Jessica Biel is beautiful and pretty good in the movie. Not my favorite actress because of how she behaved trying to get out of 7th Heaven. But I'll try not to hold that against her.

Zena Grey is especially endearing playing Tenley's pre-teen kid sister (and I can't gind the character name anywhere). She wants to be the Chatham A's team mascot, which they don't have one. So she gets the job and wears a different costume to every game, trying to find the right one that will click with the crowd. It's childishly charming and a nice little subplot in the movie. Anyways, Summer Catch is the only teen romantic comedy that I see out there so go watch it if you like that movie genre.