The “Gee, you wouldn't believe how terrible some teens can be” movie has been done before and it has been done better. “River's Edge” gave us Crispin Glover and Dennis Hopper doing some creepy work, “Kids” makes you want to throw up with its authenticity and “Thirteen” makes you want to lock up every girl at the age of 11 and not let them out until they are 21. “Alpha Dog,” a worthy, if not outstanding entry into the canon, is based on a true story and apparently it was so close to the truth that it was affecting the real-life court case that started last year. So people were fired and parts of the movie were changed. I'm not all that familiar with the case, so I couldn't tell what was real and what was exaggerated. It didn't matter. The end result was the same and it was shocking and terrible.

This year’s Miss Sandy Creek Pageant  will be held on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Patriot Hall at Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone.

Creekside High School is pleased to be a part of National Mentoring Month 2007, a month-long campaign dedicated to recruiting caring adult mentors for America's youth. Research has shown that programs that rely on volunteer mentors can play a powerful role in reducing drug abuse and youth violence, while greatly enhancing a young person's prospects for leading a healthy and productive life.

Volunteers from Whitewater High School in Fayetteville are currently hunting for costuming and accessories which will be used by the many choral students during the upcoming March performances of the annual "Whitewater Spectacular" musical production. 

January is national “Get Organized” month sponsored by the National Association of Professional Organizers. To celebrate, The Orderly Touch, Inc. and

The 36-member Georgia Southern Chorale will perform Monday, January 22 at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Peachtree City. The concert, which is free and open to the public, will include works by Lars Edlund, CV Stanford, Mack Wilberg, Franz Schubert and others.

Bill Harrison of the Coweta County Development Authority spoke to the Newnan Kiwanis about his recent visit to China. The business trip was focused on nurturing relationships with growing Chinese companies and encouraging them to bring their operations to Coweta County. But, as Harrison recounted, he gained much more than just valuable business contacts during his travels.

With Peachtree City touting some 90 miles of golf cart paths, how does one take advantage of it on one charge?

Going the distance has long been the problem with golf carts. The first golf cart was invented in 1935 by Lyman Beecher, an electrical engineer from Clearwater, Fla. It looked like a rickshaw with two wheels and a seat and needed two caddies to pull it. Five years later, he created a four-wheel cart powered by electricity that used six car batteries intended to last eighteen holes.

• Army Reserve Pfc. Kiayanna Foster has graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C. During the nine weeks of training, the soldier studied the Army mission, history, tradition and core values, physical fitness, and received instruction and practice in basic combat skills, military weapons, chemical warfare and bayonet training, drill and ceremony, marching, rifle marksmanship, armed and unarmed combat, map reading, field tactics, military courtesy, military justice system, basic first aid, foot marches, and field training exercises. She is the daughter of Stephanie Bryant of Springdale, Ark., and granddaughter of Parry Foster of Fairburn, Ga. Foster is a 2006 graduate of Springdale High School.

Matthew S. Harmon attended the Air Force Junior ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) Aerospace and Technology Honors Camp at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and Robins Air Force Base, Warner Robins, Ga. The Air Force has nine other approved Aerospace and Technology Honors Camp sites for the high school cadets attending in 2006. Cadets attending the camps are in the top one percent of 110,000 Junior ROTC cadets worldwide; only 500 cadets were selected and actually attended the honors camps.

Matthew S. Harmon attended the Air Force Junior ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) Aerospace and Technology Honors Camp at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and Robins Air Force Base, Warner Robins, Ga. The Air Force has nine other approved Aerospace and Technology Honors Camp sites for the high school cadets attending in 2006. Cadets attending the camps are in the top one percent of 110,000 Junior ROTC cadets worldwide; only 500 cadets were selected and actually attended the honors camps.

The third annual Fayette County Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade is this Saturday. The annual parade, which is a celebration of the birthday and holiday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. begins at 10 a.m. at Fayette County High School in Fayetteville, Ga.  

“The goal in the planning for this year’s parade is to make it the best in the entire metropolitan Atlanta,” said Reverend Ed Johnson, chairman of the Parade Committee and president of the Fayette County Branch of the NAACP.

An artist with Fayette connections is making a colorful splash in Atlanta. Artist Laura Loving, from Fayetteville, Ga., is now exhibiting a selection or her original paintings and decorative ceramic tiles at Saks Fifth Avenue in Atlanta through February 9. Loving’s art has been featured in The Citizen on several occassions in the past.

The exhibit is a preview to The Trinity School's annual fundraiser, Spotlight on Art, sponsored by Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue is located at 3440 Peachtree Road in Phipps Plaza and open Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Some movies grab a hold of you quickly and don’t let you go until the lights come up and you leave the theater, if then. “Children of Men” is one of those movies. It will haunt you for days with its dark vision of a future gone mad and the flashes of beauty and hope that hide there.

It’s a film that would be deemed overly sentimental and unlikely if it weren’t true. The new movie “Freedom Writers” stars Hilary Swank as Erin Gruwell, the real life teacher who took a class of racially diverse, warring, inner city kids from Long Beach, Calif. and turned them into a family.

Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a Cinderella who has everything. Everything bad, that is! She has a list of chores, has to scrub the floors, and she gets treated like a slave. She’s got a wicked stepmother, Frieda, (Sigourney Weaver) and two gross stepsisters. But Ella also has a friend named Rick (Freddie Prinze Jr.) who is a dishwasher to the prince.

Volunteers from Whitewater High School in Fayetteville are currently hunting for costuming and accessories which will be used by the many choral students during the upcoming March performances of the annual "Whitewater Spectacular" musical production. 

Song and dance phenomenon takes Atlanta by storm

It started as a Disney Channel original movie and has become a hit sensation with people of all ages across the nation. Now a new full length musical adaptation of Disney’s “High School Musical” will make its world professional premiere in Atlanta.

The production is brought to Atlanta by Theater of the Stars and will run at the Fox Theatre Jan. 12-28. The production will run five more performances than originally announced due to the popularity of the show.

Greatest courtroom drama of all time unfolds in Atlanta

The national tour of the recent Broadway smash hit, "Twelve Angry Men," written by Reginald Rose, directed by Scott Ellis, produced by New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company and starring Richard Thomas and George Wendt will play Atlanta at The Fox Theatre through January 7, 2007. The show is presented by Broadway Across America - Atlanta.

I did not expect to like “Rocky Balboa” and I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing a movie the day that I went to watch this film. As I sat in the theater and waited for the film to start, I grew very impatient, thinking that a movie about an over the hill boxer taking on a modern day champion and being competitive was too improbable to believe and that the movie would never be able to get past that crazy scenario. Once the movie started though and once the familiar and still majestic fanfare was played, I was hooked.

The Rockhouse Riding Center in Senoia held a mini-camp Dec 27-29 for local students during the winter recess. Pictured are some of the kids and directors Mona Chapman and Lisa Eisele doing arts and crafts in between riding. The mini-camp was held at Rockhouse Riding Center, on Rockhouse Road in Senoia. For information on lessons and boarding call 770-599-8666.

Tyrone resident Drew Johnson and Peachtree City resident Michelle Baily, both exemplary students and community members, have been named the newest recipients of Chick-fil-A’s Leadership Scholarship, a national program that has awarded more than 21,000 individual scholarships to support restaurant employees seeking higher education.

As the Coweta County guardian and estate administrator for the past nine years, Mike Sumner knows a good deal about handling estates. He shared some of his knowledge and insights when he spoke to the Newnan Kiwanis recently.

Falcon Aviation Services, parent company of Falcon Aviation Academy and Falcon Air Charter and the metro area’s premier provider of professional pilot training programs, added two Diamond Twin Star aircraft to its fleet of aircraft on Dec. 14.

Army Reserve Pvt. Randall S. Tenney has graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C. During the nine weeks of training, the soldier studied the Army mission, history, tradition and core values, physical fitness, and received instruction and practice in basic combat skills, military weapons, chemical warfare and bayonet training, drill and ceremony, marching, rifle marksmanship, armed and unarmed combat, map reading, field tactics, military courtesy, military justice system, basic first aid, foot marches, and field training exercises.

A look back at all that happened in 2006

Christmas is over and everyone is busily finalizing plans for New Year’s Eve as 2006 comes to a close.

Larry Daley (played by Ben Stiller) is a down-on-his-luck guy who does not have a good life going. He is divorced, his ex-wife thinks he doesn’t have enough time for his son, and he is jobless. When his 10-year-old son Nick neglects to invite him to Career Day at school, Larry decides to get a job. Larry goes to a job office and is told to go to the Museum of Natural History.

The good shepherd tends to his flock, but the question for Edward Wilson, the character at the center of “The Good Shepherd” played by Matt Damon, is just who is his flock? Will his love for his family or his loyalty to his country win out? That may sound dramatic, and it is, but the crux of the story doesn’treveal itself until late in the film.

I had a harder time deciding on my top 10 films of the year than I expected. I enjoyed a lot of the movies I saw over the year, and looking back over my reviews I realized I had forgotten how much I enjoyed some of them.

I haven’t seen every new film to come out, and I haven’t written a review for every film listed on my top 10, but here they are from 10 to one:

I have had a chance to see a lot of movies this year, but I still haven’t seen some of the quality pictures out there - so my list may change come Oscar time.

Here is my top 10 list, in descending order: