The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

The next time you feel overwhelmed by apocalypse hysteria coming at you over the media, rent this film and sit back and have a good laugh--this film forcasts massive worldwide earthquakes in 1988, world war by 1994 (27 years of it!), apocalypse by 1999, blah, blah, blah....This is a magnificent illustration of how selling doom works as business, and having these predictions to watch from the comfort of the late '90s is a marvelous tonic against wild claims made by all manner of 'experts.' Have some high-cholesterol popcorn (with lots of salt), fire up the ozone-depleting air-conditioning, and let this film fill you in on how the world ended! Enjoy!

Nostradamus. One of the most recognized historical figures of all time obviously did nothing in his life but make dire predictions about the world and its famous occupants. A high majority of his writings and sooth-sayings are never talked about because they were mindless babble that never took place. Other vague writings, many believe, tell of circumstances and events that did indeed occur decades and centuries after he walked the Earth. Yawn. "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" is a dumb and immensely stupid documentary that recreates Nostradamus' dull life and also uses stock footage for past tragedies and potential events of the future. Yeah, Nostradamus' prediction of Ted Kennedy winning the 1984 U.S. Presidential Election was right on target (rolls eyes). In this day and age, this guy would likely be one of those morons who would get run over by a train while he was trying to foresee his future place in the world. Golden-voiced Orson Welles, at the twilight of his career, narrates effectively. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

I remember this being on Cinemax all the time back in the early 80s, I taped it, and when I was in high school, I mentioned it to a teacher, and she had me bring it in and the class watched it, and then the school library borrowed it and made a copy. I wonder if they still have it, they should be ashamed of themselves if they show it to any more classes, I was just a teenager, but these were educated adults taking this nonsense seriously. I saw it again recently, I remember being absolutely mesmerized by it at the time, I'm almost embarrassed that I was ever naive enough to take this for anything more than base entertainment. The whole production is just so cheap and silly looking, and most of the predictions haven't panned out, I'm sure Nostrodamus was a slick talking con man of his time, sort of like Sylvia Brown now, just say a lot of vague things and hope people overlook it when your wrong. All of that being said, Orson Wells has a great presence, and he almost makes this tripe seem plausible, if you close your eyes. If you saw it way back when, it's kind of fun to revisit it and goof on it, but you've never seen it, there's no need to.

Of course this documentary is now viewed with a certain amount of hilarity. However when it came out in 1980 it was received quite well. Chock full of stock footage from David L. Wolper past productions it tells the tale of the legendary Nostradamus and his predictions of the future. The tale of the three anti Christ make up a bulk of the film. The third (and yet still unknown) is the mysterious Blue Turbaned man from the middle east who will cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war in the 90's. The film is entertaining in it's own little way even though it is now obviously riddled with predictions that didn't happen. Then again who knows maybe the dates of the predictions are wrong. Orson Welles adds his special touch

I can't understand why people feel the need to have a controlling influence in their lives, be it God or any other channel. Why can't you take control and responsibility for your own actions and make the world a better place with a positive influence.

Bad things happen, they have always happened and they always will. Any event in our recent memory will be served as a spectacular event but looking at events in our time they are all insignificant compared to historical events.

Hitler is always vaunted as an anti-Christ when (obviously he was a despicable tyrant) Stalin was responsible for far more suffering.

Live your lives and take control of them or someone else will at your behest.