Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: Take a pinch of GOODFELLAS, mix it with THE GODFATHER, add some Roman mythology and plenty of lowbrow comedy, and you have THE SOPRANOS, about a mob clan operating out of northern New Jersey. It's almost as entertaining as pro wrestling. I am not the biggest fan of this show, but I do admire James Gandolfini's very complicated Tony Soprano, a psychopath with an occasional glimmer of conscience. I also have come to admire te contributions of folks like gravel-voiced Dom Chianese as the bewildered but murderous Uncle Junior, silver-haired Tony Sirico as the perpetually perplexed Paulie and the very beautiful Edie Falco as the duplicitous, tough-as-nails Carmela Soprano. The violence is sudden and graphic, the body count steadily climbs each season, but it is often the small moments that matter most here. Watch Paulie and Tony's nephew Christopher (Michael Imperioli late of LAW & ORDER) as they get lost in the Pine Barrens and sit out a bitter cold night in an abandoned trruck, both convinced they've had it.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: It's a good thing The Score came along for Marlon Brando as a farewell performance because I'd hate to think of him going out on Free Money. Not what his fans ought to remember him by.

Brando in his last years is looking more like Orson Welles and Free Money is the kind of film Welles would have done looking for financing of his own work. Brando is the warden of a local prison which in America, when it's located in a small rural setting is usually the largest employer in the area. That gives one who is in charge a lot of clout.

Unfortunately he has one weakness he indulges, his two twin bimbos otherwise known as daughters. Even when they get simultaneously pregnant by a pair of losers, Charlie Sheen and Thomas Haden Church, their hearts still belong to Daddy.

Not to fear because Brando's willing to give them jobs in the prison where they work under conditions not much better than the convicts have. What to do, but commit a robbery of a train which goes through the locality every so often carrying used money to be burned by the Treasury.

Although Free Money has some moments of humor, for most of the time it's quite beneath the talents of all those involved. Some of them would include Donald Sutherland as an equally corrupt judge and Mira Sorvino as his stepdaughter, but also straight arrow FBI agent.

Of course these people and the rest of the cast got to work with someone who many rate as the greatest American actor of the last century. Were it not for Brando's presence and were it some 40 years earlier, Free Money would be playing the drive-in circuit in red state America where the populace could see how they're being satirized.

Or a feeble attempt is made to satirize them.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: I've seen all four of the movies in this series. Each one strays further and further from the books. This is the worst one yet. My problem is that it does not follow the book it is titled after in any way! The directors and producers should have named it any thing other than "Love's Abiding Joy." The only thing about this movie that remotely resembles the book are the names of some of the characters (Willie, Missie, Henry, Clark, Scottie and Cookie). The names/ages/genders of the children are wrong. The entire story line is no where in the book.

I find it a great disservice to Janette Oke, her books and her fans to produce a movie under her title that is not correct in any way. The music is too loud. The actors are not convincing - they lack emotions.

If you want a good family movie, this might do. It is clean. Don't watch it, though, if you are hoping for a condensed version of the book. I hope that this will be the last movie from this series, but I doubt it. If there are more movies made, I wish Michael Landon, Jr and others would stick closer to the original plot and story lines. The books are excellent and, if closely followed, would make excellent movies!

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer:
Yes, he is! ...No, not because of Pintilie likes to undress his actors and show publicly their privies. Pintilie IS THE naked "emperor" - so to speak...

It's big time for someone to state the truth. This impostor is a voyeur, a brat locked in an old man's body. His abundance of nude scenes have no artistic legitimacy whatsoever. It is 100% visual perversion: he gets his kicks by making the actors strip in the buff and look at their willies. And if he does this in front of the audience, he might eve get a hard-on! Did you know that, on the set of "Niki Ardelean", he used to embarrass poor Coca Bloss, by telling her: "Oh, Coca, how I wanna f*** you!"? She is a great lady, very decent and sensitive, and she became unspeakably ashamed - to his petty satisfaction! And, as a worrying alarm signal about the degree of vulgarity and lack of education in Romanian audiences, so many people are still so foolish to declare these visual obscenities "works of art"! Will anyone have ever the decency to expose the truth of it all?