Renée Taylor Movies

Controversial filmmaker Todd Solondz returns with this quasi-follow up to 1998's Happiness with this Werc Werk Works production, centering on a group of intertwining love stories. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

A handful of men and women "of a certain age" pick up the pieces of their lives and look for new love after the loss of their mates in this comedy drama from writer-director Susan Seidelman. Jack (Len Cariou) married his high school sweetheart when they were still in their teens, and when she dies in her early sixties, he is emotionally devastated. Jack's friends and family insist he needs to start living again, and he begins attending a support group for bereaved senior citizens. Jack strikes up a friendship with fellow widower Harry (Joseph Bologna), who offers advice on making time with the ladies, something he's developed a strong interest in since his wife's passing. At their meetings, Jack makes the acquaintance of Sandy (Sally Kellerman), an attractive and intelligent woman who - via a number of obvious sexual advances - makes no secret of her attraction to Jack, though he isn't sure he's ready for a new relationship. Jack and Harry also cross paths with Sandy's friends Marilyn (Brenda Vaccaro), who recently lost her husband to an absent-minded driver with a cellular phone, and Lois (Dyan Cannon), who still flaunts her considerable sex appeal and is dating a younger man, Donald (Michael Nouri). Also screened as The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club, The Boynton Beach Club also stars Renee Taylor, Bologna's wife and frequent acting partner. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This remake of Lewis Gilbert's 1966 film of the same name features Jude Law filling the shoes Michael Caine once wore in the title role of Alfie. As with the original, Law occasionally speaks directly to the camera while his character talks of the opposite sex. Under the direction of Charles Shyer, Alfie follows a charming, if morally lacking, womanizer from one bed to the next. While his actions arise more from nonchalance than malice, Alfie nonetheless faces a moral dilemma when considering that he's impregnated one of his latest girlfriends. Alfie also includes performances from Marisa Tomei, Susan Sarandon, and Nia Long. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

The comedienne who shot to stardom as "the world's worst housewife" offers an intimate look at her life and career on the eve of her farewell stand-up performance. Phyllis Diller has been keeping her fans in stitches for nearly half-a-century. A gleefully self-depreciating comic whose outlandish sense of style always set her apart from the pack, Diller not only recollects her rise to stardom, but also allows viewers into her home to show just what life is like behind the scenes. A press conference leading up to her final performance showcases the quick-witted Diller at her unscripted best, with additional rehearsal and dressing room footage showing just what an incredible impact she has had on the world of show-business. Additional appearances by Rip Taylor, Don Rickles, Roseanne Barr, Red Buttons, and Lily Tomlin offer a chance for some of Diller's best known fans to reflect on their fondest memories of the star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Noted baseball fan Billy Crystal directed this made-for-cable drama set in the summer of 1961, as two of the strongest hitters in the major leagues, Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) and Roger Maris (Barry Pepper), find themselves neck and neck in a battle to break Babe Ruth's long-standing record for most home runs in a season. Both men were playing for the New York Yankees at the time, and as the two men came within grasping distance of Ruth's record, their loyalty as friends and teammates was put to the ultimate test. 61 also features Richard Masur, Bruce McGill, Anthony Michael Hall, and Renee Taylor; the scenes set in Yankee Stadium were filmed at Michigan's Tiger Stadium, shortly after the Detroit Tigers shuttered the venerable playing field and relocated to a newer facility. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Season five of The Nanny ended with newlyweds Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) and Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) both falling over the rail of their honeymoon cruise ship. The opening episode of the series' sixth and final season reveals that Fran and Maxwell have managed to avoid a watery grave by swimming to a deserted island. But before the series can evolve into a neo-Gilligan's Island, the couple is rescued and flown back to New York City, where Fran promptly adopts Maxwell's three children: 22-year-old Maggie (Nicholle Tom), 16-year-old Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and 12-year-old Grace (Madeline Zima). In a later two-part episode, our heroine is told that there will soon be one more youngster in the Sheffield household -- but alas, Fran's obstetrician, Dr. Reynolds (Nora Dunn), informs Fran that her pregnancy test was a "false positive." Having not succeeded, Fran and Maxwell try, try again, and in the episode "The Yummy Mummy" it is confirmed beyond all doubt that Fran is "with child." Ultimately, she gives birth to twins in the series finale, which also establishes the fact that the Sheffield family will soon be relocating to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Maxwell's butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), who has spent the past six years in a war of insults with his boss' bitchy business partner, C.C. (Laura Lane), surprises everyone -- himself included -- by asking C.C. to become his wife. Her first impulse is to laugh in his face, which she does; but given time to think, she realizes that she and Niles are made for each other. Although this would the last season of The Nanny, there was no slackening of the series' commitment to featuring celebrity guest stars as "themselves." This year's crop of big names includes Whoopi Goldberg, Lynn Redgrave, former Beverly Hillbillies leading lady Donna Douglas, game show host Bob Goen -- and, in the episode "The Baby Shower," Fran Drescher herself! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As season three of the CBS sitcom The Nanny drew to a close, widowed Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) was stammering out the words "I love you" to Fran Fine (Fran Drescher), a Jewish gal from Queens who for the past several years had been working as the nanny for Maxwell's three children. But as season four commences, Maxwell panics and takes the words back! Sent into an emotional spiral, Fran consults a therapist named Dr. Miller (played by legendary monologist Spalding Gray), who tells her that she should put the kibosh on her insatiable man-chasing -- words that do not sit too well with Fran's mother, Sylvia (Renee Taylor), who is anxious to marry off her daughter post-haste. Despite the cooling off of her relationship with Maxwell, Fran continues to work in the Sheffield town house, enduring the taunts and put-downs of Maxwell's female business partner, C.C. (Laura Lane), who is laboring under the misapprehension that she can get her own lunchhooks into Maxwell. As it turns out, however, the main man in C.C.'s life may very well be her worst enemy -- namely, Maxwell's sarcastic butler, Niles (Daniel Davis). This year's guest star crop includes Seinfeld's Jason Alexander, cast against type as a blind man in the season opener, "A Tart With Heart"; Nora Dunn, who would later join the series' cast as obstetrician Dr. Reynolds, but in the meantime is seen as Mrs. Richardson in "The Bird's Nest"; Donald O'Connor as a millionaire to whom Fran gives dancing lessons (!) in "Frieda Needa Man"; Robert Vaughn as Maxwell's dad and Joan Collins as Maxwell's new mother-in-law in "Me and Mrs. Joan"; Pamela Anderson, introduced as Fran's gold-digging archrival Heather Biblow in "Danny 's Dead and Who's Got the Will?"; and future Daily Show host Jon Stewart as a Jewish doctor whom Fran gets serious about until she learns a startling fact about him in "Kissing Cousins." And, of course, a number of celebrities show up as "themselves": Rosie O'Donnell, Jay Leno, Monty Hall, Donald Trump, and Celine Dion, to name but a few. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moving from Wednesdays to Mondays, The Nanny begins its second season on CBS, with Fran Drescher as the title character. Offering 26 episodes this season (up from the previous year's 22), the series provides ample time and space for abrasive, down-to-earth Fran Fine (Drescher) to gleefully upset the decorum of the posh town house owned by her widowed employer, Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy). Despite Fran's million-and-one social gaffes, Maxwell could never bring himself to fire her as the family's nanny, especially since his children, Maggie (Nicholle Tom), Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and Grace (Madeline Zima), dote upon our heroine. Even the Sheffields' haughty butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), has warmed up to Fran, if for no other reason than she provides a potential threat to Niles' sworn enemy: Maxwell's bitchy, predatory business partner C.C. Babock (Laura Lane) -- who has been trying to manipulate Maxwell into marriage for years. This season, the possibility begins to arise that the relationship between Fran and Maxwell will eventually blossom into something more than "strictly business." The first clue occurs in the season opener, "Fran-Lite, in which Fran encourages Maxwell to re-enter the dating scene, only to have him go out with a woman who is exactly like her! Other episodes of note include "Everybody Needs a Bubby," in which Fran's freewheeling grandmother Yetta (Ann Morgan Guilbert) briefly moves into the Sheffield household (and now it's Fran's turn to go into the "snob" act!); "A Star Is Born," in which Fran finds herself on-stage playing Juliet, with Fran Drescher's then real-life husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, as Romeo; and the season finale, "Fran Gets Mugged," which not only offers a delightful spin on an old urban legend, but also sets up a situation whereby Fran and Maxwell come very, very close to exchanging their first romantic kiss. As in the previous season, The Nanny exploits the fact that Maxwell Sheffield is supposed to be a major producer by featuring several celebrity guest stars, cast as "themselves": Bob Barker, Sally Jessy Raphael, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Shari Lewis, and Billy Ray Cyrus, to name but a few. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Forever: A Ghost of a Love Story was inspired by the unsolved murder of movie director William Desmond Taylor in 1922. High-living music video director Keith Coogan moves into a crumbling Hollywood mansion. Here he is visited by a friendly and very beautiful wraith (Sean Young), who turns out to be the ghost of long-ago screen star Mary Miles Minter, the late Mr. Taylor's lover. Coogan's ectoplasmic romance is complicated by his sexually aggressive--and very much alive--female agent (Sally Kirkland). The film's in-the-know screenplay manages to conjure up the ghosts of silent movie favorites Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and Wallace Reid, all of whom, like Minter and Taylor, were destroyed under spectacularly scandalous circumstances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The leading lady of the Christmas tale knows just what she wants for Christmas and she lets Macy's Santa know, too. She wants nothing more than the reuniting of her recently divorced parents. Bordering on being a Miracle on 34th Street re-make, this film follows much the same theme, but the kids here get more involved as they thwart any likelihood of romantic success between their mom and her new boyfriend and try ever-so-hard to make Mommy and Daddy love each other again. A reunion does result, but it's a lackluster one and so's this film, which was generally seen as a little too contrived and way too bland. ~ All Movie Guide

Actress Dyan Cannon, whose 1976 directorial debut Number One was nominated for a "best short subject" Academy Award, moves on to feature-length projects with The End of Innocence. In addition to directing, Ms. Cannon wrote the screenplay and played a leading role in this story of a young girl spiritually torn apart by forces beyond her control. Rebecca Schaeffer plays Stephanie Lewis, unwanted and ignored by her eternally squabbling parents. Mom and Dad do further damage to Stephanie's battered psyche by giving her mixed messages concerning sex and religion. The girl's self-esteem dwindles to microscopic proportions thanks to a series of no-good boyfriends. Suffering a nervous breakdown, she is placed in an asylum, where for the first time she treated as a human being rather than a nuisance by compassionate psychiatrist John Heard. Completed in the late 1980s, End of Innocence was released in 1990, one year after the death of star Rebecca Schaeffer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fans of movie industry satire will want to see That's Adequate, an all-star production which spoofs the popular series of documentary films honoring MGM's musical comedies, That's Entertainment. Narrated by Tony Randall, this mock-history chronicles the film output of the second-rate "Adequate Film Studios" during its six precarious decades of existence. At times the humor gets very broad, including a fair amount of vulgarity. We see clips from such Adequate Studios monstrosities as "Singing in the Synagogue," and "Sluts of the South." Some of the stars enlivening these parodies are Bruce Willis, Robert Downey, Jr., James Coco, Anne Meara, Professor Irwin Corey, Jerry Stiller and Robert Vaughn. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Jill Robinson's Bed-Time-Story, inspired by actual events, was the source for the made-for-TV A Cry for Love. Divorcee Susan Blakely, with no alimony and two kids to support, begins turning to amphetamines. While at her lowest ebb, she meets Powers Boothe, an alcoholic and three-time loser in marriage--who, incredibly, turns out to be the ideal man for her! Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor were the guiding hands behind the Cry For Love teleplay. The film debuted on October 20, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide