Robert Weiss Movies

After spoofing disaster films in Airplane!, police shows in The Naked Gun, and Hollywood horrors in Scary Movie 3 and 4, producer David Zucker sets his satirical sights on the superhero genre with this anarchic comedy lampooning everything from Spider-Man to X-Men and Superman Returns. Shortly after being bitten by a genetically altered dragonfly, high-school outcast Rick Riker (Drake Bell) begins to experience a startling transformation. Now Rick's skin is as strong as steel, and he possesses the strength of ten men. Determined to use his newfound powers to fight crime, Rick creates a special costume and assumes the identity of The Dragonfly -- a fearless crime fighter dedicated to keeping the streets safe for law-abiding citizens. But every superhero needs a nemesis, and after Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald) is caught in the middle of an experiment gone horribly awry, he develops the power to leech the life force out of anyone he meets and becomes the villainous Hourglass. Intent on achieving immortality, the Hourglass attempts to gather as much life force as possible as the noble Dragonfly sets out to take down his archenemy and realize his destiny as a true hero. Craig Mazin writes and directs this high-flying spoof featuring Tracy Morgan, Pamela Anderson, Leslie Nielsen, Marion Ross, Jeffrey Tambor, and Regina Hall. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

While star Anna Faris returns for the third film in the Scary Movie series, the power behind the camera has shifted from the Wayans brothers to one of the Zucker brothers. The Zucker in question is David Zucker, and he's brought along his partner in movie-parody crime, Leslie Nielsen. This time around, aim is taken at such horror blockbusters as Signs and The Ring, while films of other genres, including Independence Day, 8 Mile, and The Matrix, are also lampooned. The plot finds Cindy (Faris) trying to help the president (Nielsen) thwart an alien attack while also facing crop circles and a mysterious video tape. In the spirit of the two Matrix sequels, Scary Movie 3 was shot back-to-back with Scary Movie 4. Queen Latifah, Charlie Sheen, and Eddie Griffin also star. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

This made-for-cable romantic drama was based on the book Fishing with John by Manhattan journalist Edith Iglauer. Jaclyn Smith stars as Iglauer, who is on assignment in British Columbia to write a flippantly satiric piece about the Canadian salmon industry. A "meet cute" scene unites Edith with taciturn, reclusive fisherman John Daly (Tim Matheson). She's sophisticated, he's earthy; she throws up at the sight of a gutted fish, he was born with a fishing pole in his hand; she never stops talking, he never starts. In other words, Edith and John are made for each other, and before the story ends, the two of them have joined forces to save all the other salmon fishermen in the Dominion from ruination and despair. Described by one journalist as the world's first eco-romance, Navigating the Heart made its Lifetime network debut on February 14, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Molly Shannon brings her Saturday Night Live character Mary Katherine Gallagher to the silver screen. A mildly hyperactive Catholic school student convinced that she smells bad, Mary Catherine has a dream: she wants a boy to kiss her. Not just any old sloppy teenage make-out party kind of smooch, but the sort of kiss that will make her tingle with joy from head to toe. The trouble is, boys aren't all that interested in Mary Catherine, especially not Sky (Will Ferrell), the boy she'd most like to be kissed by. So Mary Catherine has a goal: if she wants to be kissed the way boys kiss girls in the movies, then she must become a movie star. Not a bad idea, but how does one bring this about? Superstar co-stars Elaine Hendrix and former Kids in the Hall cast member Mark McKinney, while another Kids in the Hall alumnus, Bruce McCulloch, directed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This comedy extends and embellishes characters introduced on Saturday Night Live by regulars Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan in their sketch series of two head-bobbing losers who go on the town, looking for action, when they hear the What Is Love? disco tune. Looking cool, brothers Steve (Ferrell) and Doug Butabi (Kattan) always fail to pick up women in their hapless nightclub jaunts. In Beverly Hills, they work at a fake-flower store run by their father (Dan Hedaya). They are always denied entrance to the Roxbury, a leading discotheque, but an auto accident with Richard Grieco (portraying himself) gives them a foot in the door. Inside, they meet the club's owner (an uncredited Chazz Palminteri), and two gold-diggers (Elisa Donovan, Gigi Rice) believe they are wealthy businessmen. Steve finds his father shoving him into marriage with next-door neighbor Emily (Molly Shannon), but Doug keeps this from happening. Fortune smiles, and the Butabi brothers become the co-owners of a new nightclub. The real-life Roxbury on the Sunset Strip (once the location of the Imperial Gardens and the Players Club) was converted into a Japanese restaurant by the time this film was released. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Handsome, smooth-talking Al Donnelly (Tim Matheson) has everything going for him. A politician, he is engaged in a heated gubernatorial race with the feisty Governor Tracy (Christine Ebersole), a tough old bird who doesn't hesitate to play hardball with opponents. Unfortunately for her, things are looking good for Donnelly. Fortunately she finds his Achilles' heel with his young brother Mike Donnelly (Saturday Night Live alumnus Chris Farley), a fat slob gym teacher and hopeless imbecile who only wants to win his more successful sibling's respect. Unfortunately all he does is embarrass poor Al to death. In desperation, Al assigns the sardonic and prissy Steve Dodds (David Spade) to keep Mike under constant surveillance. The real trouble begins when Tracy's aids try to frame hapless Mike for arson. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

During the first two seasons of the Fox series Sliders, college student Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell) and his companions Prof. Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), Wade (Sabrina Lloyd) and Rembrandt (Cleavant Derricks) have used the time-sliding device created by Quinn to pop up in various alternate versions of contemporary San Francisco, all the while endeavoring to return to their own world. Beginning with season three, the sliding device has been modified so that the foursome will be able to emerge in countries and worlds other than San Francisco -- meaning, in many cases, alternate editions of the universe. The two-part episode "The Exodus" introduces Kari Wuhrer as Captain Maggie Beckett, a slider from another world whose husband has been killed by the sinister Col. Angus Rickman (played variously by Roger Daltrey and Neil Dickson), who has been hopping through time and space to drain the intelligences of innocent victims in order to save his own diseased brain. Joining Maggie in her pursuit of the elusive Col. Rickman, Professor Arturo dies at the villain's hands. The season finale finds Maggie, Quinn, Wade, and Rembrandt finally reaching "their" world and cornering Rickman, who perishes by diving off a cliff. As the timing device's vortex begins to close, Quinn and Maggie manage to escape -- but are thrust far into the future, and to yet another alternate world. It sure looks like the end for Sliders, and indeed it is so far as the series' Fox network run is concerned. But it will not be long before the series returns with new episodes on the cable's Sci Fi Channel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

First seen over the Fox network on March 22, 1995, the weekly, hour-long Sliders was a sci-fi-fantasy opus about a group of people who visited bizarre parallel worlds by means of a device that could open wormholes in the universe. Jerry O'Connell starred as Quinn Mallory, the San Francisco-based college student who invented the device, a timing mechanism that resembled an ordinary TV remote. Together with his physics professor Maximillian P. Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), his computer-store co-worker Wade Wells (Sabrina Lloyd) and washed-up soul singer Rembrandt "Crying Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), Quinn continually popped up in infinite alternate versions of San Francisco, some only subtly different than the world the travelers were familiar with, others radically changed. In one episode, Frisco was a Communist city; in another, the town was in the throes of the Ice Ace; in still another, the city is a tributary of "the country of Texas"; and in yet still another, dinosaurs roam throughout the city's streets and hills. In these other worlds Elvis still lived, the British had won the Revolutionary War, psychics and hippies controlled the government, and Rembrandt Brown was still the biggest singing star on Earth. In each episode, it fell to the four protagonists -- the sliders -- to right various wrongs in these crazy-quilt worlds, and to find a way to return to their own San Francisco. Beginning with the series' third season, the sliders moved beyond San Francisco and visited alternate worlds all over the Earth and the rest of the universe. In the course of their journeys they picked up another slider from another world, Maggie Beckett (Kari Wuhrer). The series ended its Fox run on August 8, 1997, with Professor Arturo being killed and Wade disappearing from view. Beginning June 8, 1998, Sliders was picked up by cable's Sci Fi Channel, with Jerry O'Connell, Cleavant Derricks, and Kari Wuhrer still in the cast. It was explained that Quinn's home Earth had been overrun by a race of warrior sliders called the Kromagg, who had conquered the planet and shipped Wade off to a breeding farm. It also turned out that Quinn's own parents had been sliders from another world, and that he'd been implanted with a micro-dot which would not only enable him to find a super-weapon with which he could destroy the Kromagg, but also locate his long-lost brother Colin (Charlie O'Connell) -- who, when found, became the newest member of the sliders' team. At the outset of the series' final season, both of the Mallory brothers perished in a bad slide, but Quinn's "life essences" were manifested into another slider (played by Robert Floyd), who was immediately re-christened Quinn Two. Ultimately, Quinn Two linked up with Rembrandt, Maggie, and another new slider, a scientist named Diana Davis (Tembe Locke). The last episode of Sliders -- which rather perversely brought the whole saga full-circle -- was originally aired on February 4, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The further misadventures of bumbling Los Angeles police Lieutenant Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) are chronicled in this third installment in the popular Naked Gun comedy series. This by-the-numbers entry begins with Drebin as a happily retired house-husband called back into action when an evil terrorist organization threatens Los Angeles. As in the other Naked Gun films, this plot is merely an excuse for an unhinged, rapid-fire succession of gags, ranging from satirical lampoons of cop movies to broad slapstick, all played with a perfectly straight face. Nielsen provides his familiar combination of complete witlessness and oblivious dignity as Drebin, and the film attempts to match the earlier Naked Gun films -- and the Police Squad! television series that inspired them -- in the number of jokes. However, the film proved less successful than its predecessors, as some viewers found that the freewheeling comic style of the earlier films had solidified into its own formula, now mildly entertaining but disappointingly predictable. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Actor Dan Aykroyd made his directorial debut with this bizarre comic fantasy. Financier Chris Thorne (Chevy Chase) hopes to impress beautiful Diane Lightson (Demi Moore), so he invites her along for a trip to Atlantic City, with a pair of wealthy Brazilians, Fausto (Taylor Negron) and Renalda (Bertila Damas) tagging along for the ride. After running a stop sign in a small town just off the New Jersey turnpike, Chris and his friends are pulled over and arrested by a motorcycle cop named Denis (John Candy). The travellers are brought before J.P. (Aykroyd), the ancient and vindictive Justice of the Peace in the very strange village of Valkevania, where minor traffic offenses are usually punished by torture or death. While Fausto and Renalda are able to escape, Chris and Diane find themselves trapped in a bizarre underground maze in which fellow tourists like themselves must fight for their lives. Keep an eye peeled for the screen debut of Tupac Shakur, who appears as a member of the rap group Digital Underground. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

UHF is the film debut of comedy-rock satirist Weird Al Yankovic, who also co-wrote the screenplay. George Newman (Yankovic) and his friend, Bob (David Bowe from The Cable Guy), are fired from their jobs at Burger World. So George decides to take over channel 62, a failing local TV station that his Uncle Harvey (Stanley Brock) won in a poker game. George turns it around into an overnight success after letting the janitor, Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards from Seinfeld), host a kid's show. George then fills the broadcast day with bizarre programming, bringing the ratings up and saving the station. Soon, rival station CEO R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy) of channel 8 threatens to sabotage the successful station and George must come up with a way to save it. Only loosely constructed around this story line, UHF is mostly a series of TV, movie, and music parodies strung together and played for cheap laughs. UHF also stars Victoria Jackson, Emo Philips, and Fran Drescher. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

The 1987 portmanteau comedy feature Amazon Women on the Moon lampoons several film genres in general and the 1954 sci-fi cheapie Cat Women of the Moon in particular. Other sketches in Amazon Women include an opening bit with Arsenio Hall; a vignette titled "Son of the Invisible Man" wherein a naked Ed Begley Jr. runs around in full view of the nonplussed supporting cast; the It's Alive parody "Hospital", which offers the spectacle of Michelle Pfeiffer giving birth to Mr. Potato Head; and a Siskel & Ebert takeoff, featuring Arche Hahn as a TV viewer whose entire life is given a "thumbs down." Directed by several hands, including Joe Dante, Carl Gottleib, Peter Horton, John Landis, and Robert K. Weiss, Amazon Women on the Moon also features a satire of the Kroger G. Babb school of "sex hygiene" exploitation cheapies, with syphilis victim Carrie Fisher being counseled by unctuous doctor Paul Bartel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide