Reviews

Here's the situation: Your wife leaves you alone with three young boys, you move on with your life, you find a beautiful woman who takes care of those boys as if they are her own, your mother-in-law takes your side, but then the mother of your children returns wanting you and the kids back into her life.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays the psycho mother who beguiles her eldest son into acting as a unwitting tool in getting her back into the family and getting rid of Dad's girlfriend.

Curtis does a surprisingly good job at playing the whacked out psycho mother using her children as leverage to get the father back and reclaiming her position in the household. Curtis' character is a culmination of various real women that the screenwriter no doubt pulled from newspaper stories.

Curtis' character will stop at nothing to achieve her goals including putting her children in harm's way.

This was an excellent film and one that you don't see too often. Normally, we are shown the father as the one who plays the deranged character leaving the mother to have to defend her children. Of course, the truth is that wives/mothers demonstrate similar despicable traits and the fact that this is revealed in the film probably disturbs people in the way that feminist's were outraged by Glenn Close's character in "Fatal Attraction".

All the actors played believable roles and the suspense was quite good and to the point. This is definitely a must see for any father/husband who has had to deal with a lying deceitful wife and a justice system that automatically sympathizes with the mother, short of her being a crack-addict. I would have liked to have seen the film expose this outrageous injustice that fathers face on a daily basis. Even so, if you liked "Fatal Attraction", this film is a must see.

I liked the first film, loved the second one, but was highly disappointed with the 3rd film.

The first two films went together. The third film is just spun out there for no reason other than trying to make more money for the studio. The magic of the first two films simply was not present in this film.

Martin Short did a good job but the plot was silly and stupid. The exclusion of David Krumholtz as "Bernard the Elf" left a big hole in the link between the Elves and Santa. He was definitely too old looking to reprise the role and Spencer Breslin as "Curtis" was sad too see considering how big he has grown and that cute little big boy is no longer there.

The attempt to bring a bunch of family members to the North Pole seemed to also take away from the formula that made the first two films so successful.

It was if the writers threw every conceivable plot device at the audience to try and make us laugh. Then, tie in some sentimental Christmas message to it. It's like a big box of bricks thrown at a Christmas tree. A real holiday mess.

This film was rarely funny, confused, poorly executed, and the only real escape clause should have been for the audience...to get out of the theater within the first 15 minutes.

This film would have been totally ignored if the title did not include the words, "Assassination, Richard Nixon".

The loser in this film was such a loser that it's almost impossible to believe anyone can be so stupid or so marginally mentally retarded. The writers took the sales profession because it's something they can't begin to understand and then portray it in the worst possible way.

Penn's character generates no remorse or sympathy or anything that can be construed as empathy towards his character. Personally, I wouldn't be able to stand one minute with this guy. He's a sniveling weasel that lacks any guts or brains to accomplish even the smallest things in life. How he managed to get married and have children could only have been concocted by the writers as part of a plot line device.

He's such a disgusting loser that he steals from his brother and allows his friend to go to jail for his larceny.

How many films do we have to see where the main character is a goofy loner loser? The only difference between this one and the others is what I said before, they used the words, "Assassination, Richard Nixon" to attract anti-Nixon audiences.

Harold is a bored, self-indulgent, spoiled brat who treats everyone like an inferior. With too much time on his hands, he's also obsessed with death. He finds, Maude, an elderly hippie with her own version of life and death and spirituality. Together they enjoy each other's company and end up having sex. Harold horrifies everyone by telling them he's going to marry Maude. The film makes everyone except for Harold and Maude look like complete idiots or worse. It insults religious faith and the military and society in general.

Of course, after all of Maude's exaltations of the wonder of life, she takes enough pills to commit suicide. Why? We are never told but it clearly conflicts with Maude's joy of life teachings. Anyway, Maude dies and Harold is so depressed about losing Maude, that he drives his car off a cliff, jumping out in time to dance and play a banjo on the cliff-side. Thus, celebrating life.

No doubt, this film is unique, yet the writer and director have a warped sense of life itself and as such are incapable of truly teaching the joy's of life. They attack religious faith and miss out how faith makes life all the more joyful. They attack the tradition of military defense against those that hate freedom and liberty. The very basis of our ability to enjoy life is achieved by those that have given up their lives so that others, like Harold and Maude, can squander it by belching their idiotic drivel.

Harold takes from society but gives nothing back. His family is wealthy and he chooses not to work but instead to spend all his time indulging in his morbid fantasies. Maybe if he got a job and became an active participant in society he wouldn't find his life so empty. He's a pathetic moron and Maude is little more than a senile lunatic that should have been committed.

This film misses the point by a long shot since the film-makers themselves have demonstrated that they couldn't possibly imagine what the real joys of life include.

There was nothing funny about this nonsense. The writers try and make everything so very different in the year 1998 that they include N. Dakota as a gay state. They make Arabs and Jews conspire to own the U.S. (well, actually that one was right on target), and are close friends. The American Indians have enough money to save us from bankruptcy. Considering that Indian casinos bring in billions every year, that may become a reality.

The jokes suck. The acting is awful. Ritter should have been ashamed to take any part in this trash. It's insulting and utterly stupid. This is the best they could do?

Just to think that such battles are going on everyday around our lives makes you think that there's a whole other dimension that is fighting tooth and nail for your soul. Your soul is so valuable that a war rages around you fighting for it.

If you are an agnostic, surely a film like this would open the door to the possibility of such a conflict.

Here's some background information on angels and demons that helps to better understand the motivations of the characters in this film:

Satan, the most beautiful angel God ever created, so much wanted to be ruler of the universe that he convinced a third of God's angels to join him in polluting the world God had created.

Satan showed these fallen angels the forbidden act of sex. And not with only with humans, but sex with every conceivable animal and insect. Satan promised them pleasure and to make them rulers of the universe. They could have and control whatever they wanted and didn't have to worship God any longer.

Satan failed in his mission to became all master and decided in taking it out on mankind, he did everything he could to drive a wedge between God and humanity. For every soul Satan gets, he celebrates and lets his demons (former angels) torment these souls night and day, hurting them in every possible way. Physical and mental pain.

God gave us a way out of Satan's tricks but few take the path. Films like Constantine remind us the horror that awaits us all if we choose the wrong path. While Satan is brilliant, he thought that God was sending Mankind's savior on earth and that if he could get the children of Israel to reject this person called "Jesus", most of the battle would be done and God would have to give up earth to Satan's control where he would own mankind and do with them as he wished.

But God is smarter. He knew that there's no way He could send Jesus to earth and allow man's freewill to accept Jesus. It just wasn't going to happen. Satan knows Biblical scripture as well as does God and felt that God was wasting his time.

The only chance God had was to allow Jesus to preach the word and and heal the sick and bring back the dead. Satan was ready for that. He drove the Temple Jews to ask the Romans to kill Jesus thus ending this whole problem.

But what Satan missed was that Jesus acted as a final sacrifice for all of mankind, forgiving them all of their sins and anytime the people of God sinned, they could call to God for his forgiveness as hi final act of mercy on earth.

Satan didn't see this coming and was beyond angry. Now, mankind had a way out and Satan would have to fight a new battle on a new battlefield, making his job much harder. Gone were the silly stupid phoney Gods of Zeus, etc. now he would have to square off with the Son of God himself.

The film had a lot of great visuals but veered from the Bible in a number of ways that could easily have been fixed. Gabriel should not have been portrayed in that manner and should have been played as a female.

The film is definitely better than the comic book with its' rambling storyline and theological universe. In the comics, Constantine lives in a world where all the gods and their pantheons exist simultaneously.

The film-makers came very close to making an excellent film. Nevertheless, it's still scary and I recommend it.

Here's the set up: Awakening from a long slumber, Gaia, the spirit of the earth, can no longer stand the terrible destruction plaguing our planet by evil Americans seeking profits and supplying energy to the country. In order to help destroy America and create communist dictatorships around the world, Gaia created five magical or Satanic rings, each with the power to control an element of nature. Gaia sent the rings to five demonic youths across the globe: Kwame, Wheeler, Linka, Gi, and Ma-ti.

These five were called "The Planeteers" and were given the task of ridding the earth of the free market, oil exploration, nuclear energy, and anything that veers from the idea of socialism and left-wing wacko environmentalism.

The series was pure propaganda aimed at children in a desperate effort to convince kids that America and the free market are evil while communism and environmental extremism is good. The show is clearly anti-American, as a good portion of the villains are American while the only American "hero", Wheeler, is often portrayed as ignorant or arrogant. In an episode where a villain turns a village in a developing country into an American-style suburb where disease is eliminated, there are fewer work hours, unemployment is substantially reduced, etc., the villagers lament how they used to live in paradise without knowing it.

One episode, "Population Bomb" suggested people should have fewer children lest they risk overpopulating the planet. The show is pro-communist and it was demonstrated that prior to the Soviet Union's collapse, Linka was the only character to have her origin specified by a nation instead of by a continent during the show's introduction. The show commonly depicted communist and formerly communist nations as pristine lands without many environmental problems, while in real life their environmental problems were devastating. The show frequently lied about the potential output of renewable energy sources. For example, the Planeteers travel in a high-speed, solar-powered aircraft that uses a mere fraction of the solar panels that would be needed to power a single-passenger car in real life. The show has also used caricatures; the villains' motivations have little in common with the people in the real world who cause pollution. Again, pure propaganda making businessmen appear evil and as the real cause of the earth's problems while making socialistic governments who have wrecked their economies and their environment's as the good guys. The writers of this show were clearly culled from insane asylums or found living in their parent's basements ecking out a mere existence working at McDonald's by day and typing their absurd scripts at night.

The actors who voiced the characters were all left-wing crackpots from the looney-bin in Hollywood. People who they themselves are the worst polluters of all with their huge energy-eating homes and limousines that eat fuel like crazy. They are hypocrites who work to twist the minds of vulnerable children. Certainly this can be construed as a form of child molestation and thankfully people woke up to this nonsense and stopped watching it as ratings dropped down into the coal pits of West Virginia.

The show was a disgrace and should have beared a disclaimer at the start of each episode that the following is communist propaganda and that parents should be aware that their children are being targeted by anti-American wackos.

According to IMDb, it states that KoH failed in the U.S. and Canada while being successful in countries where Islamic terrorists do their recruiting. Yes, Osama Bin Laden would be proud of Ridley Scott's Christophobic historically inaccurate piece of pro-Islam propaganda. I think there's good reason that Hollywood should not be rewarded for its' continuing efforts to portray Christians and Western activities as evil, barbaric, misguided, greedy, hypocritical, etc.

Anyone notice that priests or any Christian leaders portrayed in Hollywood films and other media these days are shown in the worst possible light? Case in point, there was not one single Christian clergyman in KoH that was portrayed as honest, kind, or good. All clergymen in KoH were total degenerates. Of course, historically, we know that this is no more true than trying to paint Muslims as all evil murdering rapists. So why did Ridley Scott create a Christophobic atmosphere in KoH? Because Hollywood is not filled with people who give any value to the Christian faith and would rather expend energy spreading lies and absurdities about Christian clergymen than show them in a fair light.

You get a sense that Scott was going to be exceptionally unkind to the Christian efforts to stop the Muslim onslaught that had by that time been going on for about 600 years. The title scroll refers to Jerusalem as having been "seized" by the Christians when in fact it was the Muslims who seized Jerusalem and the Christians liberated it. Jerusalem had been under Christian control for hundreds of years until the Muslims swept through the region, taking advantage of a weakened Byzantine Empire (who oddly enough, considering how important they were in the region, are not at all mentioned) who had spent hundreds of years defending Europe against any number of non-European tribes trying to sweep through Europe while pillaging and raping as they went along.

Ridley Scott decided from the outset that Christians were to be portrayed as invaders and bad people and Muslims as liberators and good people. It was that simple.

This film is another demonstration of Hollywood's obsession with playing fast and loose with the facts. The personal stories between the characters were of course pure fabrications. The film's suggestion that Saladin needed to be convinced to allow the people to leave the city unharmed is not true. Saladin offered to let the people go from the start, it was the defenders that wanted to fight on. Also, Saladin didn't let people leave for free as the film suggests. Everyone had to pay a ransom to get out alive, otherwise be sold into slavery.

The portrayal of the Knights Templar was inaccurate. They were not the villains that Scott made them out to be. In the film, Guy de Lusignan is portrayed as a Knights Templar. He's even wearing the surcoat of one. Historically, he was not a Templar Knight. Again, Ridley Scott was playing with facts in order to make the Templars look evil when in fact they were not.

I thought the costumes, sets, and special effects were very well done and historical, for the most part. The acting was relatively good and the actors well chosen for their roles.

In summary, I don't really know why Scott chose this particular moment in history to play out his Crusade story. There were far more interesting periods of time that Scott could have chosen that would have served some kind of point. This period was neither the start of the Crusades nor the end nor the most interesting period of the Crusades. By the end of the film, you're asking yourself, "So what?" Scott missed out on a great opportunity to use his budget and skills to create a Crusade film that would have been much more interesting and factual.

What was the point of this film other than to make Christians look like barbaric losers rather than the defenders of Europe from a vicious warring religion who is still to this day trying to overwhelm not only Christians but also the Jewish people with whom they once were allied against Christians? My recommendation is to simply watch this movie for the action and special effects and ignore trying to figure out what is truth and what is fiction. This is a film for guys since I haven't met any non-history oriented women that would even find any aspect of this film interesting.

This film had some great entertainment value and could have been a wonderful retelling of Joan of Arc's saga, but as usual, Hollywood went for the low-road and stripped Joan's story of the truth and fairness that was certainly deserved as published in the public record.

Things like Dustin Hoffman's role. Dustin Hoffman was Hollywood. Yes, Hollywood likes to twist true stories to serve their version of things. They tried to make Joan appear conflicted when in fact there is no evidence to suggest anything of the sort. She stayed true to her faith and died because of the betrayal of the King of France and by the hateful English at the time that saw her as a threat. The deck was stacked against her from the beginning of the trial.

There is no evidence that puts Joan in a bad light. In a subsequent and fair trial after her death, the findings were completely different and led to a fair opinion of her that was accepted even in England. And, to this day we do not know what "retraction" Joan had signed because it was only a few lines and would have taken a half-hour to read when not even given that much time to do so.

According to one source, "What was read aloud to Joan and was signed by her must have been something quite different, for five witnesses at the rehabilitation trial, including Jean Massieu, the official who had himself read it aloud, declared that it was only a matter of a few lines. Even so, the poor victim did not sign unconditionally, but plainly declared that she only retracted in so far as it was God's will." So the film and those with an axe to grind regarding Joan do not show this immense resolve of this young pious girl.

Her canonization in 1920 was quite appropriate.

The battle scenes were very well done and the acting superb. But since Hollywood is so Christophobic, they preferred to paint Joan as a deranged religious psychopath. You see, in Hollywood, the rule is that devout Christians must be portrayed as insane, child-molesters, psychopaths, evil, etc. Christians are not allowed to be shown in a positive light. Of course, every other faith does not share that condemnation.

So instead of following the public record of Joan's demeanor, they went with some bizarre idea of her as a lunatic.

That's how a great opportunity for a film that would have drawn a much larger audience simple by going with the true public record of who Joan was and how she lived her life.

This was a fun movie except for two things: (1) Oliver Stone's hatred of the free market; (2) The film had massive plot holes.

First, the free market, unlike what Gecko says, is not a zero-sum game. In the free market, people enter into agreements freely, exchange goods & services, and get what they want. Everyone wins. Yes, there are some cases where people lose but that's not the nature of the free market. In the socialist world, yes, life is a zero sum game. You work hard and the govt. takes whatever it wants. Oliver Stone doesn't understand something that simple because he's a hardcore left-wing lunatic.

Second, why did Gecko meet Bud at the end and not assume that he's not wired? And biggest of all, why did the Unions at Blue Star not get an agreement from Gecko that he wouldn't liquidate the company? I mean, this is exactly what Gecko is known for doing so why not put in a simple clause protecting the company? Why? Because the deal would have been perfect and would have ruined Stone's film.

Thirdly, Bud Fox would not have gone to jail at the end of the film. Any good lawyer would have gotten his client off by handing Gecko to the Feds at the end. Frankly, in reality, Bud would have gotten off, got an executive position with Blue Star and enjoyed the financial success he dreamt of for so long. But Stone wanted to end the film on a tragic note and send a message about insider trading.

As usual, Stone mixed facts with fantasy to tell his story and his heavy-handedness ruined a fun story.

What many people didn't appreciate about SNF was the lifestyle and environment in which this story is set. People don't understand that to be known throughout the neighborhood was a prevailing desire for its' inhabitants.

As a resident of Brooklyn, the highest honor was and is, is to be known by people all around your neighborhood and beyond. I remember chatting with just such a person who kept insisting that if I asked anyone one all around the area, they would know who he is. This may seem foreign to most people but in the neighborhood in which Tony Monero grew up, this was paramount.

Of course, this way of living escaped those audiences that were critical of the film. In all, this was a brilliant expose on life as a Brooklyn youth in the '70's who radiated around their weekend temple of hedonism, the Disco.

SNF works on so many levels that Travolta should easily have won Best Actor for his contribution in his film. SNF was not only a great drama but also a brilliant semi-musical with songs that will last forever.

Folks, please ignore the silly left-wingers who have decided to post their hateful remarks about this great film.

Speaking as a Greek-American, who's father was a partisan in WWII, the story as shown in the film was exactly as it happened. Yes, there was a terrible civil war following WWII but it was an attempt by the Soviet Union to extend its' power into the southern Balkans. The Soviets backed communists in Greece and the Allies backed non-communists. After a long and bloody conflict, that also resulted in thousands of Greek children being stolen from their parents and shipped to Eastern Bloc countries, the war ended with the non-communists as victors.

Now, be sure that like in every bloody civil war, there were atrocities committed on both sides. But fighting against the communists was the right course of action since they did not favor free elections, would have instituted a tyrannical govt., and would have dragged Greece into the Eastern Bloc for 50 years.

As for the kidnapping of the children, the blow to Greece's manpower was tragic. It would be the equivalent if millions of children were taken from American parents. Truly a nightmare. But a nightmare that could have been averted if the filthy communist scumbags had been stopped early on. It was Churchill that wanted to land troops in Greece for just such a reason during WWII but the Soviet dominated alliance nixed such an idea, leaving Greece wide open for chaos and an atmosphere for civil war.

Anyway, the film was truly accurate in its' portrayal of the political climate of the time, the brutality of the communists, and the end result of this horrendous period. I highly recommend it as a lesson in what many countries of that, and later periods, encountered with communist insurrections. I also highly recommend it as a powerful testament of a mothers' love to protect her children from the ensuing chaos of war and tragedy.

How anyone can watch this awful trash and enjoy any aspect of it amazes me. The acting was bad, the sets were bad, the script was bad, the subject matter was ridiculous, and the plot was absurd.

Other people here who posted their comments saying that the film was "camp" or "good fun" or "one of my favorite films", clearly are so numb to violence against women that they readily accept garbage like this and enjoy it. What is wrong with some of you people? Have you no shame to actually come out and say that you enjoyed this psychotic idiocy? Where is your sense of decency? I think the final scene where the slaves break into the house and rape all the sleeping women is utterly disgusting. How can anyone "enjoy" a film where a whole host of women are violently raped? People actually find this entertaining? My suggestion is that some people need to get therapy as to why they would enjoy a film that ends in innocent women getting beaten and raped. Go to a therapist and tell him or her that you enjoy films were women are beaten and raped then find out the root cause for your disorder. Get help soon before you start acting out what you see on the screen.

Clearly, the film was deplorable. There is something for any decent person to dislike. If a script for this film were to be submitted today, this movie would never get made. Don't even bother to watch this junk because there is not one single redeeming aspect to it. I mean, absolutely nothing. Of course, if you enjoy seeing women violently beaten and raped, this may be the film for you. And if it is, go get professional help.

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS!! The Masada story is interesting only as far as so many cultures, societies, religious groups, etc. have all had some sort of similar experience, especially under the yoke of the Roman Empire.

The bizarre thing about the uprising surrounding Masada was the simple numbers involved. How the Zealots thought they could defeat the most powerful military in the civilized world is unclear.

While no group was thrilled with Pax Romana, at the very least, the Jews had a great deal of control over their internal affairs including their religious matters. In fact, Judiasm was a protected religion in the Roman Empire. This was in great contrast to Christians who were persecuted throughout the empire, were not a protected religion, and blamed by authorities for all sorts of things. Sadly, because Christianity was considered a cult of Judiasm, the Jewish authorities gave orders to all Synagoges around the empire to support the local Roman authorities to help hunt down and slaughter every Christian that could be found.

When the Romans were not actively persecuting Christians, the Jewish authorities still gave the order to kill as many Christians as possible.

So, what the heck does this extra info have to do with Masada? Only that you can't feel a lot of sympathy for the Zealots. Here they had a relatively semi-autonomous existence, working with the Romans to eliminate "enemies of the state" by finding and killing Christians, and running the govt. without much interference from the Romans. Then, the Jews decide to break their agreement with the Roman authorities, slaughter the garrison, fight a protracted war where innocent civilians are killed by both sides, and at the end of the Masada battle, everyone commits suicide.

The Romans destroy Jerusalem, including Solomon's Temple, and the population is sold off into slavery. Not a very well-crafted strategy by the Zealots. Actually, just plain stupid and the more you think about the innocent loss of life, the more you think that not only was the mini-series bad but the very premise of the story was idiotic.

I remember seeing this mini-series when it came out on TV and it was bad back then and it's still bad after all these years.

I always have to laugh when I see these pathetic "Jesus" films made by people who are not Christians or have no understanding as to what Jesus was here for in the first place.

This idiotic and PC film was just such a piece of trash. It tries to excuse the Jewish Leaders for their complicity in their actions in the execution of Jesus and try and lay the entire blame at the feet of the Roman goons who who were trying to placate the growing mobs which were being drawn to agitation by the Temple Leaders who had an agenda to fulfill. That is, to keep their power hold over the Jewish people intact and refuse to recognize the Man of God who came to redeem Israel from bondage. Sadly, these people were not ready for the Messiah and have paid for their idiocy by years of separation from Solomon's Temple.

The only real attempt to put on film the suffering that Jesus experienced was the Oscar-ignored "The Passion of the Christ" which truly deserved Oscar awards but was purposely rejected out of hand because of calls by some in the hate-mongering PC community to ignore it. Sure it got some pathetic nominations, but it was not going to win because the people in charge would not let it happen. Unfortunately for these sickos, "The Passion" was chosen for the "People's Choice Awards" for top honor and received some other nominations and awards from other film groups.

Anyone who saw'"The Passion of the Christ" but missed the brilliance of "The Passion" was in fact trying to miss the greatness of it or purposely trying to attack it on a PC level which calls into question their ability to truly rate a film without resorting to negativity or unfairness.

And anyone who thinks "Jesus of Nazareth" was fair to Christians or actually presented the Gospels correctly either needs to read the Gospels or stop lying to themselves. Truly a pathetic piece of junk. This is no more fair than having the story of Israel being written by the KKK. Yeah, that's about how factual it gets.

Jack Finney's book which makes a brilliant allegory to the infiltration and fifth column activities of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union's mission to destroy freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, etc. by making a "new Superman" in the image of the new Soviet.

The story is told in flashback form as we now live in the 21st century looking back to the preceding decades when communists infiltrated govt., the media, etc. Slowly but surely, these "alien form of life" dedicated to destroying our way of life.

As the character of Dr. Miles J. Bennell was screaming at the end about the fact that the aliens "communists" were already here among us and that they won't stop until they control all aspects of our lives. Liberals didn't appreciate this film because they knew exactly what this film was talking about and it really incensed them that their plot to takeover the planet was being exposed in such a simplistic manner.

The good news is that the real threat of communist takeover has been subdued and is only relegated to communist China and other outposts of tyranny.

It was great films like this one that brought to the limelight the reality that the communists had every intention of destroying our way of life and replacing it with their tyranny.