Reviews

I recorded this a few nights ago, and I just got done watching it this evening. I have to say that I didn't like this film in the beginning. It's all about a homosexual man throwing a party for his equally homosexual friends, and his heterosexual friend Alan unexpectedly drops in. Unexpectedly, but not accidentally, since Michael did tell him that he was throwing a party for his friends that evening. There seemed to be a lot of stereotypes about gay men in this film, but this was made in 1970, so I can let that slide. I didn't really like this film in the first hour, but it got better in the second hour, when Michael comes up with his vicious little game. I compare it to this board game I had when I was 12 years old called Girl Talk. Girl Talk was sort of like this game: The players were dared to do things for points, and if they didn't do them, they got a 'pimple' sticker (no revocation of points). I remember having to suck on a slice of lemon and drink water out of a dish like a dog but moving on. In this game, every party guest has to call someone they've always loved and confess their love for this person. I guess like Girl Talk or Truth or Dare, but this was more like Truth and Dare. As each man calls and professes or tries to profess their love for this person, the talk about love between calls becomes deep and almost philosophical. The climax is at the end of the movie, when Michael and Alan are arguing about whether Alan had sexual relations with a male friend in college and Alan is dared to call that man. Well...what happened? Did Alan have personal relations with this man or not? The call Alan made seems to indicate that he did not, but whose story is true, Michael's or Alan's? I know that I shouldn't put importance on something like that, but I like resolution. Also, what about the last part when the party is over? How was Michael 'better than he used to be'? As in not the stereotypical gay man of the times? Maybe I don't understand it fully because it was before my time; I was born in 1979. I also feel that at the end of the day, we all have to be who we are. The end of this movie seemed to relay the opposite of that, that Alan 'won', and Michael 'lost'. Or perhaps, as we hear from Harold about Michael's desires and in the final minutes with his roommate, Michael is a very confused man. It is a thought-provoking movie in the second hour. It's neither a good nor bad movie, although I suppose it was the first movie of its kind back in 1970, so it deserves a little credit. If anyone out there has an explanation, I'd be happy to read it.

It's difficult for me to sum up how I feel about this movie. Here's the summary: James Krippendorf has spent his grant money intended for use to explore New Guinea. He was supposed to find some kind of lost tribe but was unsuccessful and lost his wife on top of that. He knows that he's going to be in big trouble if the university finds out, so in desperation he invents a tribe and lies his way through his presentation. To his surprise, everyone wants to know more about this tribe, and he has to maintain his hoax throughout the movie. He encourages his children to join him in this deceit by decorating the back yard with plants and grass huts, stealing some animals, and playing Big Happy Family by shooting some 'home movies'. No, this is not okay with me. I mean, yes, spending some quality time with your children is great; but this man is teaching his children how to lie and steal, all so that he doesn't go to jail! The lie just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and in real life, a lie like this gets exposed one way or another. But here's the difference between real life and a movie: James Krippendorf gets away with his lies and deceit because his daughter, who actually frowned upon this plan at the beginning of the movie, follows his lead and invents a whopper of her own to save all of their hides! I've said it once, and I'll say it again: Not okay! Now, I'm not saying that this is the worst movie I've ever seen, because I have seen worse, much worse. But if you really want to know who will like this movie, my guess is the 13- to 17-year-old age range, no more and no less. See it if you must, but don't say I didn't warn you.

I rented this movie from my library yesterday and got done watching it about an hour ago. I don't watch modern movies, but I heard about this and decided that I really wanted to know Tonya Harding's side of the story. I have mixed feelings about this movie. As I said, Tonya never had a chance, the whole world was against her except for her original skating coach. I mean, what was wrong with her mother? It's no wonder she felt like she was never good enough, her mother was such a dragon. Later in the movie, we find out that she was an abused wife, too. It's so easy to say that she should have left her husband the first time he laid hands on her, but often it's easier said than done. The sentence Tonya received at the end was too harsh, I believe. She had no other skills than ice skating, and it's really a shame that her life ended up the way it did. I really do sympathize with Tonya's plight. I don't think Tonya was ever a bad person, I think she was just frustrated and made a bad judgment call. Yes, I believe her when she says she is a good mother to her son, too. I hope that she has found peace and some kind of happiness in her life. It's past time to forgive her.

I saw this episode about one year ago. I don't watch The Twilight Zone on the regular, and this was the first episode that I saw in its entirety because I was intrigued when I saw the description of the episode. I don't know why I was caught off guard, but I was, and I turned it off before I saw the whole thing because I thought the doctors and nurses killed Janet. But I saw that it was on again a few months later, I gave it another chance, and now that I've seen the whole thing, I realize that there were no villains in this episode. Think about it: Wouldn't we do the same thing to someone who doesn't look normal to us? Yes, we would; and yes, we have. I understand completely why what happened, happened. It's a great piece of science fiction that hits the point home.

I neither like nor do I watch horror films often. I've given this a high mark, not because I liked it, but because it was truly frightening almost every single minute. I should have known what was going to happen, but for some reason I was totally caught off guard when the truth came out. I'll be honest with you, I fully expected this guy to die; I did not see a way that this man was going to survive. I don't even know if you can say it was a 'happy ending', because didn't he get arrested and taken to jail after this ordeal? Anyway, do not see this if you're weak. Only a hardcore horror movie addict should see this movie.

Empty Cradle is my favorite Lifetime movie, but this movie is a close second. I mean, wow, that woman was a lunatic! I realize she loved her daughter, but she took it way too far trying to 'protect' her (if that's what she was doing). My favorite part was when Celeste thought she could trust the ex-con, but he cooperated with the police instead, and she got caught! I haven't seen this movie for a long, long time, and I wish I could see it again.

I watched this for the first time on Halloween, when my son was at his cousin's Halloween party (I'd never watch a film like this with him around). At first, it seemed boring and working harder on being offensive than it was funny. That was my first impression. But I'll admit that it got better as it went along. See, I felt that the "Star Wars" idea has been used too many times and I was going to stop watching. But then they came up with using the coffee bar as their set, and that was different. Well, it's still offensive, but I'll admit that I'm impressed with their originality. If I have one complaint (and this is minor, really; it doesn't make or break my review), I do wish that Zack and Miri had just stayed friends. I did enjoy the ending, though. Good for them. So yes, this gets a passing mark from me.

I saw this movie when it was new back in 1993, when I was just a teenager. What a great movie. It stars Lori Loughlin as Jane, a woman with two children who is told her third child was stillborn due to narcotics found in her bloodstream. But she knows that's impossible because she never did drugs and the baby kicked in the car on the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, nobody believes her, not even her husband or best friend. But we find out shortly after that Jane is telling the truth: Nurse Rita Donahue (played by Kate Jackson) drugged her and stole her baby girl in an effort to get her boyfriend Frank to marry her. Then we find out Frank is married with three daughters and desperately wants a son, so Rita makes plans to steal another baby soon after. This movie is full of suspense, and it's truly shocking and disturbing to see just how far Rita will go to get what she wants. The most astounding part is that she almost gets away with it! But thankfully, the truth eventually comes out and Jane is reunited with her child. See it at any cost. It's one of Lifetime's best TV movies.

I originally reviewed this 7 years ago. I gave it a generous three stars at the time. I recently saw this movie again (I was watching because of Alyson Hannigan, who I always thought was cute), and this time I will not hold back. This movie was terrible! Nobody in this movie was an admirable person: Not Julia, not Grant, not Julia's father, not Grant's parents, not Andy, nobody! We're supposed to make fun of Julia when she's fat and ugly, but she really wasn't much improved when she got thin and gorgeous, either. Was I supposed to laugh when Grant committed mass murder to the tune of The Price is Right? Because I didn't, that was appalling. Of course, he didn't shoot Julia, she's the star! How can I explain the humor in this movie? Gross? Immature? Totally not funny? No, even those words are inadequate to describe this. I didn't laugh once this last time. I won't watch this again, and I may never watch another movie Alyson Hannigan is in. What was she thinking?

I just saw this movie last night (rented from my local library), and I was not amused. Let me list how many things are wrong with this movie. Jay Mohr as a divorced man visiting his son for Christmas...actually, that's okay. What is not okay is, he doesn't care enough about his son to get him a decent Christmas present (He says at the store, "I'll have whatever he's getting" without even knowing what it was the other man was buying...how uncaring is that?). He rejects his son's invitation to go camping, not because he has work or something, but because he doesn't feel like spending time with him. He's rude to his ex-wife's parents (who didn't have to invite him, but did so that he could see his son for the holiday), he's rude to his ex-wife and her boyfriend, and when he gets the chance to 'right his wrongs', he actually does worse. He attacks a Santa Claus, attacks a Nativity Scene couple, pigs out on holiday pies, steals his wife's boyfriend's Christmas present to his son, and other things I will not mention here because it's all too insulting. If you can believe it, this schmuck actually gets his way at the end of the movie; he sends his ex-wife's very caring boyfriend packing and wins her back, after all the devious things he did! I realize this was a family film (ha!), but this man didn't do anything to deserve a happy ending. I give this three stars because it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen (in fact, it's not even the worst Christmas movie I've ever seen), and because I feel generous as I write this. But I do NOT recommend this movie because it achieves nothing in the learning department about the Christmas spirit.

I, like everyone else, have seen Home Alone and Home Alone 2, and I liked them plenty (a little violent, but they kept me laughing). I've even seen bits and pieces of Home Alone 3, but because the premise was so dumb, I wasn't interested in seeing the whole thing. Now I realize that it was more of a Kevin McAllister-inspired movie. That was the reason I avoided it, but at least now I can see why they didn't try to make an actual sequel to the second movie.

To sum up: Nine-year-old (He was 8 in the original, and 9 in the sequel. He's supposed to be at least 10 by now!) Kevin McAllister's parents have split up (How? There was never any indication of disagreement in the first two films), his mother has custody of their three children (There were originally five children, as well as six cousins from his Uncle Frank and Aunt Leslie), and his father lives in this ritzy mansion with his fancy girlfriend, Natalie. The miss on these fundamentals alone make the movie bad, but it actually gets worse. Marv what's-his-name from the originals (This time played by French Stewart; Daniel Stern wisely declined the part) now has a lame-brained kidnapping plot afoot with his wife (Wife? When?) Vera (Missi Pyle), and...well, I'm sure you can guess the rest from here. It rips off the lip-syncing scenes from the first two (this time to James Brown...and it's not funny anymore, thanks for asking) and of course once again, Kevin foils the bad guys, with a little help (again). Seriously, the now-bratty Kevin tripping up the bad guys is not even funny this time (The most annoying one: "Open Sesame...Faster Sesame...Maximum Speed Sesame!"). Of course there's the obvious happy ending, but by the time that happened I didn't even care anymore.

This movie has no right attaching itself to the "Home Alone" movie series. In fact, I'll go so far as saying that it has no business being in existence. The next time someone wants to make a sequel to "Home Alone" (and I sincerely hope that no one ever does), their best bet would be to stick to the facts of the original (no deleting members of the family or bad guys) and come up with an actual, original premise. The manner in which this was handled was just wrong on all counts!

Having read the original Lewis Carroll book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass" (a gift for my 22nd birthday), I had been looking forward to seeing this adaption of the story. I can honestly say that this movie's adaptation is a far cry from the original story of Alice. *Warning: This is more a criticism of the overall movie than an actual review, so you may not want to read any further if you plan to see it*

I knew upon seeing the commercials and movie poster that the costumes would be overly freakish and nothing like Lewis Carroll would ever have imagined, but the movie itself is not like the book at all. In fact, the place where Alice goes is now called "Underland", thus completely disavowing the title (Then again, who would have gone to see "Alice in Underland"?)! The movie is about a grown-up Alice (19 years old and being proposed to by an idiotic lord) returning to Wonderland (Underland) to defeat the Red Queen and slay the Jabberwock on the Frabjous Day. This is where I'm going to get nit-picky: The plot itself is wrong. For those not familiar with the original book, I'll explain: 'Jabberwocky' was a poem that Alice read when she first entered the Looking Glass. It's about a little boy that is warned about the Jabberwock (a freakish-looking dragon), the Jubjub bird and 'the frumious Bandersnatch' (also incorrectly portrayed in this movie). It ends with the boy slaying the Jabberwock, and the cheer is "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!". 'Jabberwocky' is all of a page long, yet here it's the surrounding plot of the movie! Tim Burton also gets it wrong with the actual characters. None of them are portrayed honestly (Alice's gentle nature comes the closest, but again she's supposed to be a young adult, not some naive child), but the one that stands out the most is how the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts (as played by Helena Bonham Carter) have become the same person. In all fairness, The Red Queen was the one character in the movie that 'got noticed', and Bonham Carter certainly tried. Still, the two characters contradict one another: The Queen's soldiers are red playing cards, yet none of them are Hearts and there are a great deal more than ten; nor are they chess pieces, yet the battlefield is a chess board. Her character is understandably callous, but there's one important detail Burton forgot to research about the Queen of Hearts: While it's true that in the original "Alice in Wonderland" novel she constantly yells "Off with their heads!", the White Rabbit informs Alice that she never actually beheads anyone (nor does the Red Queen in "Through the Looking Glass"; she's more of a mischievous know-it-all). This wasn't brought up in the 1951 Disney movie either, but I bring it up here because this bit of trivia makes the Red Queen's bloodthirstiness (particularly the scene with Alice using severed heads as stepping stones through a blood-filled moat to break into the Red Queen's castle) completely moot! This, like many other happenings, was totally inappropriate to include into the body of a children's movie. I don't know how it got a PG rating.

All in all: I didn't outright hate it, but it could have been so much better if Tim Burton had stayed closer to the actual story. I give him credit for unlimited creativity and for avoiding the common mistake of trying to copy the Disney classic, but he really ought to stick to making movies aimed at teenagers and adults. This one is so outlandish and needlessly violent, it might give younger children a case of the frights. I suggest the original 1951 movie (I've never cared much for it, but my nieces love it) or the book for milder illustrations and some relatively harmless frippery.

There are only two good things I can say about this movie:

a.) I managed to get through the whole thing

b.) I just saw the first ten minutes of the movie "Postal", and turned it off, making it, and not this, the worst movie I've (n)ever seen.

I had to watch this movie in two sittings because I'd had my share of gross by the time it got to the part where Lucy's tongue got ripped out of her mouth and turned it off, but as I said, I did see the whole thing. I don't know what I can say that nobody else has said about this rancid stream of garbage juice, but I'll try. It was tasteless, unoriginal and just outright BAD! The script was horrible, the jokes were overused and not funny in any way, and the climax (the defeat of the White Bitch and her army, along with the supposedly funny ending)...well, talk about anti-climax! "Date Movie" was another one that I had to watch in bits and pieces because of the gross-out factor, but even that was better than this (and considering that it too was a Friedberg/Seltzer movie, that's hard to do). DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE!! I am not using reverse psychology; I am asking you to save your curiosity to see a more worthwhile film than this puddle of street sludge.

With all the hype, I was hoping that "The Pregnancy Pact" would finally be able to put a realistic spin on the seriousness of teen pregnancy. I can give it credit for almost succeeding.

It starts out well enough. The school nurse (Camryn Manheim) has administered over 150 pregnancy tests during the school year, with 18 positive results. Her answer is to administer contraceptives, but head of the church committee Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis) says that contraceptives at school only encourages sex. Little does Lorraine know that her teenage daughter Sara has agreed to be a part of a 'pregnancy pact': She and her friends agree to become pregnant deliberately when their friend Rose becomes pregnant on accident 'so that our babies can grow up together'. Before long, a young reporter named Sidney (Thora Birch) returns to her hometown to get the scoop on the pregnancy spike. Then, we find out that Sidney has a skeleton in her closet, as well.

It's not that this movie is that bad, but it isn't great. The cluelessness of the teenagers is accurate, and so is Mrs. Dougan's optimism that her daughter would never get herself into such a predicament. Thora Birch's Sidney is a welcome breath of fresh air as the enterprising reporter who reveals the ignorance of these girls and the importance of 'choice'. The fact that this movie dared to touch on the option of abortion was what I thought made this movie different, because whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, abortion is just as open an option as keeping the child or putting the child up for adoption.

What brought this movie down was that it copped out halfway through on everything that could have made it stand out. By the second half, when the truth finally comes out, it becomes very predictable: Sara's relationships with her parents and boyfriend hits the skids; the town is scandalized; Rose, the 'bad girl' who hatched this crazy scheme, gives birth to a sick baby; Sara drinks herself into a near-coma after her boyfriend Jesse says he wants nothing to do with a 'liar' like her; and Sidney reveals to her boyfriend and the world that what he thought happened all those years ago with them, didn't. The closing shots (Rose and Sara as teenage mothers...they didn't include the fates of the other participants of the pact) were what irritated me most. Even though the voice-over from Sidney was about the difficulty of choices to be made and the rigors of teenage motherhood, the message on the screen seemed to be "Bad girls get bad babies; good girls get good babies", and that is at best misleading since even people who follow the baby books to the letter get babies with problems. See it if you must, but don't expect any Emmy-nominations for this one.