Southport stars in latest role

Well, I did it. I saw THE MOVIE this weekend.

Now, I’m no movie critic. In fact, the last time I sat in a movie theater was to see Disclosure,with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore, back in 1994. The last time I actually visited the Surf Cinema in Southport, the theater was called Sea Three Screens, and the movie was Crimes of the Heart, also filmed in Southport,The year was 1986.

I’m sorry, but I digress. Let’s get back to THE MOVIE.

THE MOVIE, of course, is SafeHaven, an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ novel, set right here in my hometown,Southport – and filmed almost entirely in Southport during the summer of 2012. The movie stars Josh Duhamel as Alex, a Southport storekeeper raising two adorable, motherless kids  in the city’s Old Yacht Basin and Julianne Huff, as Katie, a good girl running from bad trouble and seeking refuge our quiet little seaside town. As you might suspect, the two meet, fall in love and work their way to a happy ending after some life-threatening moments involving fire and gun play.

There’s a plot twist near the end of the movie that will have you asking, “What did I just see?”

Like I said, I’m no movie critic, but Safe Haven has been nearly universally panned by professional critics and I think undeservedly so. Let’s face it: Safe Haven is not Gone With the Wind. It’s not Citizen Kane. It is undeniably light fare – a chick flick, a date movie. Safe Haven is a check-your-brain-at-the popcorn-stand-and-be-entertained kind of movie. And, against that measure, it succeeds.

That said, the star of Safe Haven in my book is the city of Southport itself. If it weren’t for the fact that I live in Southport, I’d want to visit here after seeing Safe Haven. The cinematography was gracious to Southport. The film opens with gorgeous aerial shots of the Southport riverfront, starting off shore of the River Drive area and moving south along the Cape Fear River coastline to the Old Yacht Basin and Alex’s general store.

The old-timey spirit of the Old Yacht Basin was beautifully captured on film and scenes from familiar places were great to watch. Locations made to look great in the movie included American Fish Company, Fishy Fishy and Wildlife Bait and Tackle.  Downtown starred in a parade scene and the Community Building and Cape Fear River served as a backdrop to a community dance. The really great thing about the movie that locals will appreciate is producers did not try to make Southport over into another mythical town.  The town remained Southport in the movie. The characters called it Southport.  It said Southport on the police cars and fire trucks. Northrup Mall stayed Northrup Mall. Alex and Katie went canoeing on Dutchman Creek and they called it Dutchman Creek. This alone made Safe Haven a comfortable watch for this Southport local.

I don’t know how Safe Haven will play in LA, New York, Houston or Chicago, but Southport folks were leaving the theater this weekend with two thumbs up.

Another Self Serving Real Estate plug: If, like Katie, you've stabbed your husband and want to seek refuge in a great little town, Southport is the place. Nearby Oak Island is great also.Why not give me a call  at 910-619-7207 and let me help you find just the right Safe haven, Or, even if you're just a normal person starting a well-deserved retirement, check me out at Atlantic Realty Professionals. 

Notes from the Coast: Of Small Towns and Tiny Red Bikinis

Notes from the Coast: Of Small Towns and Tiny Red Bikinis: Helllllllo, Dahhhlings. Greetings from Southport , or Hollywood East, if you will. Have you seen it yet? Yes sir, our own little hom...

Of Small Towns and Tiny Red Bikinis

Helllllllo, Dahhhlings. Greetings from Southport, or Hollywood East, if you will.

Have you seen it yet? Yes sir, our own little hometowns of Southport and Oak Island star in a very big way in newly released Safe Haven, a movie based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks, who calls nearby New Bern, North Carolina, home. (Disclosure: I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I will see it this weekend and write a follow-up for next Wednesday).

It doesn’t matter that critics have universally panned the production. Folks here in Southport and Oak Island are packing Southport’sSurf Cinema during continuous matinee and evening performances, blocking traffic up and down major thoroughfare Long Beach Road at each showing. In fact, the critics are being ignored nationwide, it seems. Safe Haven opened in over 3,000 theaters nationwide on Valentine’s Day and took in more than $24.5 million over last weekend. Bruce Willis and A Good Day to Die Hard was number one at the box office with a $29 million take over the weekend and Identity Thief with Mellissa McCarthyand Jason Bateman took second place in box office sweeps with $28 million.

Yeah, Safe Haven is a romantic chick-flick for the most part with the predictable boy-meets-girl and love-ensues theme and only one fairly unpredictable plot twist at the end. I won’t spoil that for you. But as microscopically thin as all that may sound, folks hereabouts know the real stars of Safe Haven aren’t Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough. We’re not out to catch shots of shirtless Josh or Julianne in her tiny red bikini. We’re out to see the locations – Southport and Oak Island where Safe Haven was filmed last summer.

The movie makers took over the town at the height of the tourist season, recreating Southport’s N.C. Fourth of July Festival Parade and evening fireworks display. In fact, the production company chose not to film the actual parade and fireworks display at our festival. Rather, the parade scenes were shot much later in the summer, as were the fireworks. Fireworks scenes were shot over a period of four nights, lasting from dark to nearly dawn and irritating the restless natives who couldn’t sleep while Hollywood made its magic. CityAldermen are still wrestling with opposing calls to tighten regulations on movie companies or to just leave movie makers alone to spend their money here.

Oak Island is the backdrop for making out and frolicking in the surf scenes where some of the best red bikini shots were taken.

Southport’s history as a movie venue dates back to 1986 whenCrimes of the Heart, featuring Diane Keaton, Sissy Spacek and Jessica Lange was filmed in town. Since that time, numerous movies of lesser note – I KnowWhat You Did Last Summer, Domestic Disturbance, The Butcher’s Wife – were all filmed in and around Southport and Oak Island. My favorite, Weekend at Bernie’s, was filmed across the river at Bald Head Island.

For the most part, the movie makers haven’t posed much of an inconvenience to the locals. Like everything else in this small town, we tend to take it all in stride. It’s fun to see our hometowns on the Silver Screen and it’s fun to see our neighbors playing extras. Whatever our city does, I hope the door will always be open to the movie production companies. The fun they provide and the money they spend in town is well worth the small inconveniences of fame.

Audacious real estate pitch: I can’t promise you fame or stardom, but if you’d like to explore real estate ownership in the greater Southport-Oak Island (Hollywood East) area, I offer my professional services and those of Atlantic Realty Professionals to you. Now is a great time to buy a primary, secondary or income-producing home or undeveloped property. Here’s my number, so call me, maybe. 910-619-7207 

The Humble Life of Buddy Brown

It’s totally reflexive. I can’t control it.

No longer can I cross the eastern Oak Island bridge -- Now the G.V. Barbee, Sr. Bridge -- from the mainland without casting my eyes to the south, down the bank of the Intracoastal Waterway, in hopes of catching one last glimpse of Buddy Brown and the humble, ramshackle home he shared with good wife, Ms. Emma.

Many of you with longtime ties to Southport and Oak Island will remember the couple and the home they kept literally under the bridge on the Oak Island side of the waterway. The Brown home and the old Ocean Ole’ service station was removed some years ago to make way for the complex that now houses Doodle’s mini-mart and Nay-Nay’s restaurant.

My good friend Tommy Robbins recently posted this picture of Buddy Brown on social media. His posting brought forth a mighty response from longtime Southport-Oak Island residents who, to a person, remembered Buddy and Ms. Emma fondly. Many of the men responding remembered how Buddy had taught them to fish and to respect and cherish the Oak Island environment. Ms. Emma was recalled as a gracious, good housekeeper who welcomed all to her humble home. Many responded to the post with stories of their personal encounters with Buddy and his bride.

As you might suspect, I have a Buddy Brown story of my own. It was March, 1982, and I was in the middle of my first week as the new staff writer for TheState Port Pilot, the area’s excellent weekly newspaper.

“You’ve got to get over there by two o’clock,” my source at the Brunswick County Government Center shouted in to the phone.  

“There” happened to be the Buddy Brown home where a love struck tourist couple from West Virginia had, on the spur of the moment, decided to tie the knot in Buddy’s front yard.

It turned out to be a festive occasion. Magistrate Phil Yount officiated. Seated Register of Deeds Robert Robinson was best man. Several other local political officials took the work-week afternoon off to attend. Buddy stood up for the couple and described the new bride as “A real firecracker.”

After the ceremony the wedding party and guests retired to the front door of the Brown home where the refrigerator had been mightily stocked with Miller Highlife beer by some anonymous benefactor. Buddy loved his beer, by the way.

I returned to the newspaper office and wrote of the affair as if it were a contributed wedding announcement. “The bride was attired in cut-off denim shorts with cotton tee shirt bearing the inscription ‘Sun Your Buns at Long Beach' on the bodice.” The piece was well received by Pilot readers and helped ease me into my new job.

I’m not sure when Ms. Emma passed, but she went on to her reward sometime before I arrived in Southport and Oak Island in 1980. Buddy lived on alone in his home by the waterway for years and spent his final days as a happy resident of Ocean Trail Convalescent Center in Southport where staff trimmed his untamed beard, occasionally took him fishing at the SouthportCity Pier, and allowed him a solitary beer each night with his dinner. There he passed peacefully, no doubt with memories of a simple and humble Oak Island life lived-well with a keen respect for nature and a love of fellow man.

Shameless real estate pitch: If you would like a ramshackle home by the Intracoastal Waterway, a modest home in the Oak Island woods, or a mansion on the oceanfront, why not give me a call at Atlantic Realty Professionals. I can help. I can be reached by mobile phone at 910-619-7207 or by email here. See my company profile.

We're all from around here

“Are you from around here?”

This question came at me a few years back as I stood in line at a Southport dry cleaning establishment. A lost traveler had bolted through the cleaners’ door in a panic, seeking help in righting his course. I had called Southport and Oak Island home for about 18 years at the time and felt competent to solve the traveler’s dilemma.

“How do I get to Holden Beach from here?” he begged.

“Right out of the driveway, about 16 miles to US 17 South, then follow the signs to Mt. Pisgah Road, take a left. You can’t miss it,” I assured him.

The wayward traveler thanked me profusely and left.

In a few minutes it was my turn to be waited on. Jo, a native of Brunswick County who had charge of the dry cleaning establishment that particular day, assured me I had done well reorienting the lost traveler.

“And, you’re not even from around here,” she added with a devilish wink.

Wait a minute here. Am I from around here or not? To the lost traveler, I had been from around here quite long enough to issue directions. To Jo, a lifelong resident, I hadn’t quite made my bona fides yet.

This exchange illustrates, in its own way, the best of all that is life in Southport-Oak Island. Until the beginning of the 1980s, Southport had been described by countless travel writers as “a sleepy” or worse, “quaint” little fishing village where the Cape Fear River empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The towns that now comprise Oak Island were called “undiscovered treasures.”  The area was populated by a number of indigenous families and one really had to watch what one had to say about any particular person – he might be talking to his third cousin twice removed.

When I arrived here at the dawn of the 1980s I was made to feel welcomed. My job – reporter for the local newspaper-- took me among the local politicians and community leaders, members of the indigenous families all.  Things soon began to change. The Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign touting Southport-Oak Island as “North Carolina’s Best Kept Secret.” Well the secret was out.  Brunswick County soon claimed its place among the fastest growing counties in the state and in the nation. The in-migration of transplants that ensued tripled the county population.  And, as the years passed, the line that separated those “from around here” from others grew fuzzy.

The qualifications for “being from around here” are a lot looser and less defined these days. We accepted the in-migration to our area and have become a happy blend of those born to this Paradise and those who found it later in life. The door is open to all who wish to be “from around here.”

So, if you’re looking for a great retirement place, a place for a second home, or even an investment property, why not look “around here” at all that Southport-Oak Island has to offer. I guarantee you will be welcomed and, in a short-time, you’ll be giving tourists travel directions just like someone who’s been “around here” for a lifetime.

Oh, if I can help you get here, please give me a call at Atlantic Realty Professionals. Mine is service from around here.