ajfrazer

It's kind of hard to leave your bias at the door for these kind of films, especially in the political environment we have today. I will admit, I am a conservative and that goes hand in hand with harboring feelings of admiration for the gipper. So I tried my darnedest to keep that in mind when watching on the big screen. With that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the film! The main reason for liking this is obviously Dennis Quaid's top notch performance! He does a wonderful job as Reagan, his mannerisms and passionate, quick witted delivery are top notch and I thought it to be a very believable portrayal. The movie itself, I thought was directed well and encompassed Reagan's career throughly enough for the allotted theatrical run time. Almost all of the crucial moments in his life are here, including his "Rendezvous with destiny" and "Gorbachev year down this wall!" Speeches. The film also did a wonderful job of showing just how crucial Nancy was in being Reagan's rock and the relationship between them shines bright in the film. I thought It was great to see small subtle things portrayed in the film, that show us Reagan's true character and Quaid displays he really did his homework for this role. Now, if your not a fan of Reagan's politics I can see where this movie can come off as overly biased and a bit hokey in some regards. To be fair they do cover Iran-Contra, but opponents to Reagan might have a gripe, and feel it was just grazed over. The film was never aimed towards that audience tho, and I doubt many on the opposite side will watch anyway. As for me.... I thought the whole Jon Voit Russian side narrative was a bit over the top and not really believable. I understand what they were trying to do, but somehow the Russians looking at Reagan objectively doesn't jive with me. I think that's a minor complaint tho and I was very pleased with it for the most part. With that being said and despite me trying to take my political hat off, I might still be a little biased in the score here. Even so, if I was watching this as a non partisan I'd probably still give it a 6 or 7. Worth a watch if your into political biopics!

I remember watching this flick on HBO years ago when I was a teenager, and it scared the living crap out of me. The premise is an interesting one... A man moves from family to family and brutally murders them when they fail to meet his ideal family profile. That bone chilling opening scene is quite honestly one of the best I've ever seen in this genre or any, and hooks you to the screen right away..... A man covered in blood, showers and changes into a whole new person before our very eyes. He then proceeds downstairs where we see the absolute massacre that happened mere hours before. The mother is shown brutally stabbed to death and he even killed a little girl with a teddy bear in her vicinity, conveying just how brutal this guy really is. The best part tho is the subtle touch the director conveyed by making the guy pick up a toy sail boat before we see the brutal murders. This makes it clear that this guy has major scruples about order and as we will see later tight knit family values that are impossible to live up to. It's really a brilliant idea for a thriller film, unfortunately it's not executed all that well, and contains some pretty big plot holes. The brother in law in the film was completely unnecessary and everything overlaps way too conveniently in a good amount of spots here. The ending is also way too predictable and I feel as tho it could have had a "Halloween" type of end in which the guy escapes and makes the viewer wonder where he's lurking now to find his next victims... O'Quinn makes up for it though by giving us an absolute masterclass in acting. Throughout the film he flips a switch in personalities brilliantly and really comes off as a truly disturbed man who has a very warped sense of how life should be. I highly recommend it on his performance alone, but be prepared for the 80's predictable schlock that bogs down the script a bit. I truly believe if they would have given O'Quinn a better script here, this movie would have been up there with other slasher/horror classics such as Halloween and The Shinning. He deserved better, but unfortunately he stars in a second Stepfather film that is absolutely horrible and never really takes off as an actor like he should have.

I feel as tho the producers of the show were trying very hard to cast Dan Schneider as this really bad guy in the first 2 episodes, but were short on actual evidence of it. Was he a saint? No, and he absolutely did some very weird and inappropriate things on set, but nothing that I saw in this doc made my jaw drop, especially when it pertains to Hollywood. Again, There is no excusing the behavior, but when you consider the environment back then and the fact that Dan is regretful for his actions at the time, I think it was a bit over the top. Some of the gags that they were calling sexual were a bit of a stretch to. Getting squirt in the face, comparing pickles to male genitalia? Not everything is secretly nefarious in nature. And no sexually deviant evidence is ever brought up that would suggest Dan Schneider was sexually abusing kids on the set. Certainly there were things that were over the top and repugnant in the writers room, like the example of the lady being coerced into acting like she was being sodimized as part of a gag in the writers room in order to get laughs. That made me cringe for sure and there is no excusing that behavior. Former actors and actresses that they brought on gave some decent insight and I can sympathize with them to an extent, but I also felt some where jilted about not having as much success as they would have liked in a cutthroat business where few make it to stardom. I definitely felt for them, because when you are that young you are obviously going to be naive and believe fame and fortune are heading your way, but not everyone can be center stage unfortunately. Thats just the business and I feel as tho their parents or guardians weren't relaying that to them at the time which is unfortunate. Learning about the sexual predators on set was by far the most gut wrenching aspect of this documentary, and they did do a great job of pointing that out and letting Drake Bell tell his story. It was also revolting to learn that the man who abused him was set free quickly and was very briefly allowed to be back on a children's tv show. Truly disturbing.

Overall, it's a decent documentary that could have been better if they just would have stuck to the facts and not tried to make Dan into this nefarious villain who traumatized the children he worked with. Again, there were definitely some bad things he did, but the constant portrayal of him being a bully tyrant who couldn't care less about the kids actually made me sympathetic toward him a little in the end. If they would have stuck with the facts and hard evidence on hand it would have made for a better documentary j my opinion.