Aaron's Way

What is it about Hollywood and their obsession with bringing the Amish folks into the 21st century? Not content with For Richer or Poorer, Witness and The Outsider, this series, based on a TV movie of the same name, also pushes the question of what would happen if the Amish had to hang with the modern folk. Aaron Miller (Merlin Olsen) is your every day Philadelphia field worker. He refuses all modern things, does a little praying, wears the standard Amish garb, then one day his son decides to move to California and set up a winery. Dad’s pissed but you can’t fight the allure of LA, don’t you know. Fast forward a little to where Aaron’s son has started his winery and knocked up his girlfriend (Kathleen York), only for a surfing accident to take his life, right at harvest time and it’s up to the family to leave home for the first time, come to Cali and deal with life on the westside. Samantha Mathis and Belinda Montgomerymake up Aaron’s posse of daughter and wife (nice work, Aaron) and Jessica Walter plays the widow’s mom. Now, you can’t expect that anyone here is going to get naked (though in most Amish movies, someone invariably does) but if you have a major barn-raiser for Samantha Mathis, Belinda Montgomery or Jessica Walter, MrSkin has the goods for you. For Mathis, see her best bits in Pump Up The Volume and Attraction. For Montgomery, you’re going to have to track down 1970’s The Todd Killings and Walter fans will need to be quick with the freeze frame on Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty For Me.