Movie Review: *** Superman III

 This is the only Christopher Reeve Superman movie without Lex Luthor.  Instead he goes up against Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) who is an entrepreneur.  He teams up with a computer expert, Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor).  He also has a couple women helping him, Vera (Annie Ross) and Lorelei (Pamela Stephenson).  They access a satellite and with that they manipulate the weather.

There is also less Lois Lane and the newspaper characters as Clark Kent returns to Smallville for his class reunion, and rekindles a flame with Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole) and out duels Brad (Gavav O' Herlihy) for her affections.

So Gorman designs a super computer, but the three villains take it over and kick him out.  In bread into the computer is it analyzes an opponents weaknesses, and is able to counter.  When superman confronts the computer, the computer takes over one of the women and becomes self sufficient.  It is no longer dependent on electricity and becomes independent.  Superman has to trick the computer to save the world.

Christmas Movie Review: ****The Christmas Box.

"The Christmas Box" is a 1995 made for TV movie.  This movie is based on the Richard Paul Evans book of the same name.  It Stars Richard Thomas as Richard, father of a young family, Annette O' Toole as his wife, and Maureen O'Hara as Mrs. Parkin, the widow who needs someone to live with her in her old age.  Mrs. Parkin asks Richard, "What was the first gift of Christmas?"  Much of the Movie revolves around this theme, the first give of Christmas.  There are also dreams of angels, and a Christmas Box containing old letters.  These lead to the discovery that the widow had a daughter, who died at five years old, and angel child.  It also leads to the realization that the gift of Christmas was a baby.  The mystery seems to be overplayed, and not that much of a thing, but the theme of putting priorities on what is important is something which comes home to me.

Movie Review: *****The Dreamer of Oz (1990)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMjwMkpcXw
Every once in a while you find something very good and so unexpected, you want to let everyone know about it.  If you follow this blog, you know I am a fan of l. Frank Baum, and the Oz series, and his other books.  I found this made for TV movie very enjoyable.  This is the history of L. Frank Baum, and the history of his writing the stories of OZ, starting with “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”  Baum was a delightful teller of tales, however they were not well received in the publishing community at first.  John Ritter stars as Baum and Annette O'Toole as his wife, Maude.  Baum was a regular character, with business ups and downs, and a heart condition, until age 40. His first break was "Mother Goose: in Prose" followed by "Father Goose: in Prose."  However the Oz book was his first love.  No one wanted to produce it.  He went from publisher to publisher and still no luck.  He was at his wits end.  He finally proposed self publishing the book, and that was the turning point.
This is a motivational movie about a relationship, but also about a very gifted and creative man.  This is a great family movie.