Reviews

For a TV movie, I thought it was pretty good. This was the first movie depicting the Manson family with all its group dynamics. There was the allure to Charlie Manson - along with the control and manipulation. The drugs, open sex, Beach Boy ties, dumpster diving, creepy crawler nights, and of course, the murders. The movie showed they all arrived to the bad psychological places to produce murder. Seems like it's Linda Kasabian take on it all - and it feels genuine.

I think this was an HBO movie back in 2000. At the time, I thought it was a true story of Lennon and McCartney getting together after the Beatles split. Then I learned it was a fictional account.

Lennon could be such a nasty guy at times. Paul was a lot nicer. Both are portrayed authentically in this movie. It's really an amazing, long, fictional sketch of how a meeting between them might have played out.

One can easily imagine Lennon and McCartney having these conversations and goofing around like this. Incredible writing by "Mark Stanfield". Don't know how he came up with the dialogue. Really amazing.

You can tell that David had his hand in this and spent some time on it.

I liked the "real" take on things (relationship with father, the concerts, all the chicks, drugs, etc) instead of the other bubble gum versions.

Everyone seemed to get their characters down well. Andy did a great job of mimicking David's gestures, speech patterns, the sighing, etc. He had to have spent time with Cassidy getting all of that down.

This is a good version of behind-the-scenes Partridge/Cassidy. All in all, I've got a better impression of Cassidy...he has lived through what very few people ever get to go through. It must have been surreal to live through that.

This is the only movie in my life where I literally fell out of the chair in the theater because of hysterical laughter. I had vapor-lock (I couldn't breathe) a couple of times to the point where my friend thought I was having a heart attack.

Pound for pound this is the funniest movie of all time. Period.

I think I understand why the critics have been harsh on this movie and movies such as "Gettysburg". First, a lot of critics and the general public don't appreciate history laid out like this.. add the fact that the director focuses less on entertainment (which the public wants) than on authenticity.

In my opinion, this movie is top-notch.. very well done. They lean a lot on the military side of things (which further turns mainstream movie-goers off).. but others (myself included) appreciate it. I mean, how can you not appreciate a movie that literally drops you into an important part of our history. I don't remember seeing a movie depict (historically or otherwise) the first part of the Civil War. (Whereas how many action adventures are there that come out every weekend that look basically the same??)

Stephen Lang really does a great job in this as does the woman who plays his wife. Duvall plays a pretty good Lee (better than Martin Sheen), and hopefully he will return for "Last Full Measure".

I have read other comments in the imdb and I don't understand some of the critiques. Choppiness and unevenness? No. the soundtrack being less-than-good? no, the soundtrack is excellent. Costumes being 'silly' or 'bad'? This person must have been high.. all the production teams focus on is authenticity! Civil War buffs will really enjoy this movie while the mainstream will find it too long.

I give this movie an 8 out of 10.

In my opinion, this is the best motion picture of all time! While it's a mini-series, I believe it matches up favorably (and surpasses) the best movies...Shawshank Redemption, Seven Samurai, Star Wars, Citizen Kane, and so on. The story, sets, acting, character development, music,....all amazing.

The production is as if you were plopped on a horse in the middle of a cattle drive in the old American West. Every detail was as if it was 1880...including dialogue, character depth...and the utter chaos and randomness of life.

While there are a couple special effects that might have been a little better, this work of art adds to life. When you have a block of time, watch it.

I thought that this next-Clancy installment was 'OK' to 'pretty good'. It was at the same level of Clear and Present Danger, which was itself not as good as Patriot Games, which was not as good as Hunt for Red October.

Affleck does a good job and the dialogue is top-notch as one can expect from a Clancy film. However, for some reason, the film-makers decided to hold back on the special effects of the nucleur bomb (why I can't explain.. I know I'm not giving anything away because it's shown on the TV commercials.)

Additionally, I always find it to be cheap-looking when you can't recognize the uniforms of the football teams who are playing during the movie.. why couldn't they just have suited up players in official NFL regalia such as the Baltimore Ravens rather than two teams that look like they play for small colleges passed off as professionals?

At times a little tough to follow, but overall I'd recommend a trip to the theater for this one.