Change Your Image
tperry-indiana
Reviews
To Die For (1995)
Based on the murder of Greg Smart by his scheming wife Pam
Gregg Smart was murdered in 1990 when his wife, Pam, convinced high school students, one of whom she was having sex with, to kill him for her. Billy Flynn though he & Pam were in love with each other and she convinced him that they could be together forever if Gregg were dead. When Billy Flynn testified, he described the actual killing of Gregg Smart. He stated in his testimony that he said "God, forgive me" and pulled the trigger. This is word for word what Joaquin Phoenix's character said before he shot Matt Dillon's character.
There are many similarities between real life and this movie. Young wife, unhappy in her marriage, seduces and has an affair with a high school student while working on a video project with high school students. Gregg had given a Shih Tzu to Pam, just as Matt Dillon's character gave Nicole Kidman's character a dog. Gregg Smart worked with his father in the insurance business, Matt Dillon's character worked with his family in the restaurant business. Both Pam and Nicole Kidman's character had aspirations of becoming a famous news reporter. Both Pam and Nicole Kidman's character jumped right in front of every camera they could after the murder. Both Gregg & Matt Dillon's character were shot & killed in the foyer of their home.
There are a few differences between the actual murder of Greg Smart and this movie. The main difference is that this movie is kind of a black comedy and there was absolutely nothing funny about what actually happened to Gregg Smart and his family. One other difference is that as shallow as Nicole Kidman's character was, she managed to make it to her first anniversary with Matt Dillon's character...Gregg did not live long enough to make it to their first anniversary. In the movie, only two boys & one girl are involved in the plot & murder. Pam ended up having involved, directly or indirectly through Billy Flynn, five students, four boys and one girl in the plot & actual murder. The main difference is that, in the movie, Matt Dillon's family gets an eye for an eye justice. Nicole Kidman's character disappears but is shown at the end frozen in a lake, dead! For Pam Smart life goes on. Yes, she is in prison, where she deserves to be but she still gets to further her education and visit with family & friends. Gregg is gone, his family has only a tombstone to visit.
Deadly Betrayal (2003)
Completely predictable and therefore thoroughly boring
Sorry...I hate to disagree with some of the other comments but this story has been done to death. Briefly, a spouse (in this story it is the wife who cheats but it has been done with the husband being the unfaithful party...what comes to mind is 'Fatal Attraction') gets involved in a very brief affair with either a nut case or, in this case, has seduced the person in hopes of accomplishing their main objective. In this story, the seducer is a school teacher who seduces the mothers of his students. He has sex with them in his apartment, which of course, he tapes without their knowledge. He then burglarizes their home and sends her husband the tape. He goes to the police before she does and makes them believe that he broke off a short affair and now, because he is so great, she is stalking him. Anyway...I found it to be obvious and boring. I knew from the first ten to fifteen minutes how the whole thing was going to go. Of course, she ends up killing the bad guy, but only after he has picked her child up at school (just to terrify her) and he has killed her friend and stabbed her husband who survives.
Designing Women: Friends and Husbands (1991)
Just a BAD episode of a GOOD show!!!
This episode, without doubt, is probably my least favorite that still had Charlene (Jean Smart) in the cast. First, at the beginning of the episode Bill (Doug Barr), Charlene's husband, is still away on military assignment. Charlene and Mary Jo (Annie Potts) had written, or had the idea for, a children's book. Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) had a publishing friend that she pitched the idea to. The publishing friend wanted them to submit a written version to her for review with a deadline of only a few days. Mary Jo had been planning on spending the weekend with her children and Charlene, since she was alone, wanted to spend the weekend working on the book. So, after Mary Jo sends her kids to her ex's house for the weekend, Bill shows up back home as a surprise. Here is where it just gets ridiculous and bad...first, Charlene isn't honest with Mary Jo about the fact that she and Bill would like sometime alone. Both she and Bill keep encouraging Mary Jo to come over and even spend the night in their spare room. This is after Mary Jo says something to the effect of "I'm sure the two of you want to be alone". With the deadline only two days away, Charlene finally tells Mary Jo that she and Bill need to be alone and they will just have to forget about the book (even though they had committed to Julia's friend to do it). Mary Jo decides, since she is alone for the weekend, to go ahead and finish the book herself. She proudly takes it over to let Charlene look at it and gets mostly criticism as Charlene starts crossing out and changing different areas. They end up in a huge argument before Bill comes down stairs and makes them make up. They both then decide to blow off their commitment and not finish the book by the deadline.
First, Charlene should have been honest about wanting some time alone with Bill. Second, she & Bill could have easily spent the nights alone together, fulfilling their desires and needs, without needing to spend the entire weekend in bed. They did, after all, make a commitment to Julia's friend to write the book AND deliver it by the deadline. After, they finished the book, Charlene and Bill could have spent the week in bed if they so desired. This show is supposed to be about successful career women and successful career women simply don't blow off such a unique opportunity just to spend the weekend in bed!!! After all, Charlene and Bill are married and presumably will have their whole lives together.
No successful person would opt to pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity just to spend the entire weekend in bed! I truly believe that most women, if capable of writing a book in the first place, could have accomplished both writing the book AND being able to be intimate with their husbands over the span of a weekend! Add to all of this that Charlene was not only throwing away the opportunity for herself but also for her best friend.
As I said, in my opinion, this was just a VERY BAD episode!
The Brady Bunch: Every Boy Does It Once (1969)
Really a great episode
Some people criticize the Brady Bunch and it has been made fun of in movies...however especially the early episodes were great for those of us that were kids at the time. This episode, in particular, shows how a TV show can help kids see that things may not be so bad after all. When you are a kid, everything takes on a larger than life, forever kind of tragic turn! I think about some of the things that upset me when I was young and wish for those simpler days now! It never was as bad as it seemed at the time...not even close!!! One time, I got so upset, I too was going to run away from home. So, crying the whole time, I packed my little bag and started to leave...sure my parents would stop me! To my surprise, my dad wished me luck & told me to keep in touch. I got as far as the sidewalk in front of our house. I went out by the bushes and stood there crying not knowing what to do. Of course, I didn't know it at the time, my parents were watching me the entire time and would never have let me go very far..I mean I was probably all of five or so! I ended up coming back in and asking if they wanted me to stay...which of course they did! I love the Brady Bunch. It reminds me of a time in my life when things were so much simpler & happy. I lost my dad when I was nineteen years old. If only we could know then what we know now...it would probably make us enjoy and appreciate those times all that much more!
Three's Company: Maid to Order (1982)
With friends like that....
I'm a Three's Company fan but this episode is ridiculous. First, they hire Cindy to be a maid. Who, of course, makes more of a mess (breaking things, etc.) than she does clean. Then the whole episode ends up being about Cindy finding $250 in Jack's lamp...after she broke the lamp. She tells Janet & Terri that she found it and they immediately accuse Jack of being a liar. Now, my grandma always said that a liar was worse than a thief...because a thief can be locked up and you can't do anything with a liar. He tells them he is holding the money for Larry (which he is) and if they don't believe him they can go to the Regal Beagle and ask Larry. If I had friends that, one accused me of being a liar without even trying to find out what was going on and then two actually had to verify what I told them. To make it worse, they did go ask Larry and since he was wanting to hide the fact he had any money (from someone he stiffed on a car) he lied about it. So Janet & Terri being the wonderful friends that they are run right back to Jack, who by this time has a date in the apartment, and to his face and in front of his date call him a "liar". With friends like that...who needs enemies???
Premonition (2007)
Bad, bad ending!!!
I agree with the comments that say this movie had a bad ending. What would be the purpose of having premonitions if you couldn't really do anything to change the outcome? That would be terrible...to know what is going to open and when...but you can't do anything about it.
Plus, in the end, I don't think one single changed from what happened in the beginning. At the start, when she listens to his message on the answering machine the first time, he says "someone is beeping in, is that". And, at the end, he says "someone is beeping in, is that, that is you". So, from the very beginning he had the conversation with her and the girls in the living room the night before (where he told them all how much he loved them) AND he had already decided NOT to have the affair AND he was turning around on his way home.
Her "premonitions" were for naught. I don't see how having her end up pregnant, with a third child, in the end changed anything. Of course, each child is special, but she already had two of his children. So it wasn't like, if Demi Moore's character had been pregnant in "Ghost" and she then would have some part of him. I hope that makes sense.
It would have been much better had she actually stopped the accident from happening. It would have given the premonition value. As it is, the only possible value of the premonition was that he tripled his life insurance. That's the wrong "value" message to send. The "value" would have been the continuity of the family and not having him get killed in a such a ridiculous way!
Paranormal State (2007)
PARANORMAL STATE is disappointing
I have to agree with the other two comments. I waited over a month to see this great new show A&E had been hyping. What a disappointment!!! The show is pretty much all about Ryan Buell. His voice-overs are campy, not creepy. It sounds as if he is talking into a can. As of the second episode, which is roughly 30 minutes or so (if you take out the commercials) he is being chased or followed by something that he knows is demonic. He can't say the name, anytime someone needs to convey that name, they write it on a piece of paper and hand it to someone else. Not particularly informative or entertaining or believable for the rest of us. Why can't he say the name?...supposedly it would give the demon more power. Funny, I always thought demons wanted to hide their true identities. If you know the exact name of the demon, doesn't it make it easier for you to cast them out. Now the next episode, which airs in just a little while is titled "exorcism". So is Ryan in need of an exorcism already? Not to say that it couldn't happen but the show so far has not given any evidence or proof of anything. I can tell Ryan that if I were a small child, hell if I was an adult, and someone gave me a little bottle of holy water to chase away something that was terrifying me, I would look elsewhere for help!!! Besides which, if you don't use holy water & blessings, etc. in the right way don't you risk just further infuriating whatever is already mad at you? I will probably watch tonight but if these episodes are as ridiculous as the first, it will probably be the last time I watch it!