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<p>The oldest rule of Hollywood must be that nothing calls attention to a product quite like controversy. So it's surprising that Reagan loyalists leaned so heavily on CBS to reject "The Reagans" last month, thereby creating much anticipatory ado about an average docudrama that certainly accentuates the negative about the former president and his wife.</p>

I spent three hours -- two hours and 53 minutes to be exact -- on Sunday night watching The Reagans on Showtime so I could spare you the pain: The movie, originally produced as a two- part mini-series for CBS, was every bit as awful as conservatives feared with a belittling portrayal of Ronald Reagan. The movie delivered a cartoonish Ronald Reagan, played by James Brolin, who read words fed to him by others, seemed capable only of uttering short quips about "commies" and "big government" and followed the orders of others -- mainly an all-controlling Nancy Reagan, played by...

POLLDid you watch The Reagans on Showtime? Did the movie change your opinion about the Reagan Presidency? How do you think the movie will influence other people's opinions of the Reagan years? How would you characterize the point of view of the movie? How warranted was the controversy over the movie "The Reagans?" How much do you agree with CBS's decision not to run the movie? Did you vote for Ronald Reagan in either 1980 or 1984? To delve into the polarizing issues surrounding the hotly debated movie, SHOWTIME will present a special round-table forum, CONTROVERSY: "THE REAGANS." The forum...

<p>If it was about the three-hour miniseries I just watched - "The Reagans," which finally hits the air tonight at 8 on Showtime - then the people who made such a big stink about it look like a bunch of loony, paranoid alarmists.</p>

Please post your thoughts/observations on the Reagan movie on this thread.

November 30, 2003TELEVISION REVIEWHatchet Job? Reagan Movie Is Run of the MillBy ALESSANDRA STANLEY here is no reason Showtime's version of "The Reagans" could not have been broadcast on CBS earlier this month. Tonight's made-for-television movie incited conservatives to threaten a boycott, which led the network to cancel it. Consigned to Showtime, a premium cable channel owned by CBS's parent company, Viacom, "The Reagans" turns out to be neither a liberal screed on Reaganomics nor a character attack on former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy. It is a movie. More precisely, it is a made-for-television movie that squeezes...

Reagan Movie Depicts Controlling First Lady, Often Befuddled Former President By David Bauder The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) - If admirers of former President Reagan didn't like a television movie about him after reading leaked snippets of a script, their opinion isn't likely to change after seeing the final product. "The Reagans," which premieres on Showtime on Sunday, depicts the former president as amiable but often confused, controlled to a large extent by his wife, Nancy, and presiding over a dysfunctional family. The movie is being aired on Showtime after CBS refused to show it earlier this month, following...

Actor James Brolin Breaks His Silence on "The Reagans" Movie. (New YOrk, NY) - Actor James Brolin has broken his silence about the controversial movie "The Reagans." The film, which has not yet aired, began to generate heavy publicity after Brolin's famous wife, Barbra Streisand, issued some harsh words against CBS for pulling the plug on the movie. During an interview, Brolin defended his wife by addressing the rumor that Streisand's Hollywood weight played a role in the tone of the script. Brolin said, "She was only on the set a short time and had not read the script. They're...

The Real Story Behind the Reagan Movie By Cliff Kincaid November 25, 2003 Some opponents of the entertainment industry believe they scored a victory with the announcement by CBS President Leslie Moonves that the network was transferring a movie smearing former President Reagan from CBS to the Showtime cable channel. One of several controversial aspects is a depiction of Reagan as someone who believed that people with AIDS get what they deserve because "they that live in sin shall die in sin." The rest of the article is below.

It is a sign of the times that a major controversy has developed over putting words into Reagan’s mouth that make him out to be unsympathetic to homosexuals. In this case, of course, it is unfair to attribute such a statement to Reagan because he never uttered it. Newsmax reported that CBS’s decision to pull the plug on its miniseries came on the heels of a letter to the network from Marc Christian, described as Rock Hudson's "ex-lover," who complained that the film’s portrayal of the 40th president as anti-homosexual was false. In a letter to Moonves, Christian said, "The...

<p>The director of "The Reagans" complained Monday that CBS butchered his made-for-TV movie, ultimately making it too incoherent for the network to air.</p> <p>"We were, in a sense, banished" from the editing process before CBS ditched it, director Robert Ackerman said.</p>

Re-examining Reagan Posted: November 25, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Make no mistake, it wasn't the letter from Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie that got CBS to pull the plug on its "The Reagans" miniseries. It wasn't the raft of recent books, such as "Reagan in His Own Words" and "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life," either. The "amiable dunce" view of our 40th president, which these books set out to dispel, was largely dead before either went to press. It wasn't even that the biggest stink made over the series pertained to scenes the producers fashioned out of thin...

<p>November 25, 2003 -- THE president of Show time had some strong words yesterday for the chairman of CBS about the ill-fated miniseries about Ronald and Nancy Reagan that was cancelled by CBS, then dumped on Showtime by their parent company, Viacom. "If [CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves] didn't know what movie he was getting, that's not the fault of the producers, the director or anyone associated with the film," said Robert Greenblatt, president of entertainment for Showtime Networks, in a telephone news conference yesterday with TV critics.</p>

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- The director of "The Reagans" complained Monday that CBS' butchered his made-for-TV movie, ultimately making it too incoherent for the network to air.</p> <p>"We were, in a sense, banished" from the editing process before CBS ditched it, director Robert Ackerman said.</p>

Associated Press Showtime will air "The Reagans," the made-for-TV movie that CBS scuttled, on Nov. 30. The cable channel's announcement Monday was unexpected, since it had originally planned to air the movie next year. "We just thought it didn't make sense to prolong this and bring it on next year," said Robert Greenblatt, Showtime entertainment president. "I'm just tired of people making judgments on this when they haven't seen it. Let them see it." Fans of the former president, accusing CBS of distorting Ronald Reagan's legacy while he's sick with Alzheimer's disease, had mounted a furious protest. CBS denied it...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS pulled a Michael Jackson music special planned for next week, saying it would be "inappropriate" to air given the new charges that the star molested a child.</p> <p>Authorities in Santa Barbara, Calif. issued an arrest warrant for the pop star on molestation charges. Jackson has denied the charges.</p>

Showtime plans to air the controversial movie "The Reagans" without commercials on Nov. 30, rather than in 2004. "We just thought it didn't make sense to prolong this and bring it on next year," said Robert Greenblatt, Showtime's entertainment president. "I'm just tired of people making judgments on this when they haven't seen it. Let them see it." Michael Paranzino, who set up the Web site boycottcbs.com to fight the TV movie, originally scheduled to air on CBS, told the Associated Press, "I think that Showtime realized they have a turkey on their hands, and turkeys don't last much beyond...

The cable network Showtime, eager to capitalize on the controversy surrounding the movie "The Reagans," announced yesterday it plans to premiere the show much sooner than expected. ADVERTISEMENT "The Reagans" will now air Nov. 30 at 8 p.m., just four days after it was originally scheduled to be broadcast on CBS.

U.S. News & World Report says the fight over Viacom's TV movie "The Reagans" will "look like crumbs on the table of the Last Supper when the coming fight over Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of Christ' hits full stride early next year." Of course, as we've been reporting for months, the attacks on the movie have been nasty for some time. The New York Post had five people review "a copy" of the movie and printed their comments Monday. Four - a priest, a rabbi, a professor and the paper's movie critic - called it everything from "appalling" to "unfair"...