Fran Brill Movies

Featuring four chapters - "Up & Down", "Ernie Says", "Making Cookies", and "Perfect Pair - the Sesame Street gang is as fun and educational as ever in this DVD. A bonus CD-Rom provides another hour's worth of interactive learning. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Sesame Street: A Magical Halloween Adventure involves the furry red muppet Elmo and his friends learning about various aspects of Halloween after he ends up on an unusual hayride after a mishap on the part of Mumford the Magician. Sabrina the Teenage Witch co-star Caroline Rhea appears as the magical Gilda. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Sesame Street goes to the Boston Pops. Viewers see Baby Bear go to the Boston Symphony Hall, meeting conductor Keith Lockhart. The conductor shows Baby Bear the assortment of instruments played to portray the characters in Peter and the Wolf. This is the portal to the forest and Peter's tale. A costumed Elmo is Peter during solos of the violin. The French horn heralds the entrance of the not so scary wolf. The bassoon symbolizes the grandfather, Big Bird. The video introduces preschoolers to the experience of hearing an orchestra with the help of the familiar characters from Sesame Street. ~ Linda J. Shriver, All Movie Guide

The cultural phenomenon that is Elmo comes alive in this collection of Sesame Street appearances. Whether running them straight through or being doled out like candy, these three spots speak to a youngster's heart. The first of Elmo's World is called "Dancing" and features Mr. Noodle, a warm yet clueless character, and Dorothy the pet goldfish. Elmo demonstrates the hula and some moves that can only be described as interpretive. Other children also dance along. The second, "Books," introduces the library with the help of a father/son duo. The final segment, "Music," showcases the flute, violin, and drum. Guess which one Mr. Noodle gets? Elmo is his usual charismatic monsterness in explaining why he is such a good babysitter. Elmo's World is recommended for preschoolers. ~ Sarah Ing, All Movie Guide

An embittered HIV-positive male goes on a sexual rampage, infecting as many women as he can. After one of the perpetrator's partners dies, Assistant D.A. McCoy (Sam Waterston) charges the man with murder. The subsequent prosecution is endangered by a tricky ethical issue involving "right to privacy" -- and this time, McCoy may not be able to implement damage control. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three A-list screenwriters -- (Nicholas Pileggi, Bo Goldman, and Paul Schrader) -- contributed to the script of this idealistic political drama. John Pappas (Al Pacino) is the popular, ethical Mayor of New York; Kevin Calhoun (John Cusack) is his even more idealistic and principled deputy. When a detective and mobster kill each other and an innocent six-year-old black child in a shootout, questions arise about what the cop was doing meeting with the gangster in the first place. The Mayor and his staff handle the situation ably, but Calhoun digs deeper and finds troubling evidence that even his seemingly incorruptible boss has not escaped the shadier aspects of political life. The Mafia boss (Tony Franciosa) whose nephew was the dead gangster, along with a Brooklyn political boss (Danny Aiello) with his own agenda, come into the story, becoming part of a series of larger links, secret relationships, and bonds of "honor" between men who, on the surface, would have no reason to be in business with each other. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

In this comedy about a doctor-patient relationship pushed way beyond the office, Bill Murray plays Bob Wiley, a neurotic New Yorker struggling with a whirlwind of paralyzing phobias. When an exasperated colleague pawns the handful off on Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), the psychologist has no idea his last appointment will follow him north to New Hampshire on a month's vacation. Bob takes to Dr. Marvin's latest book like no therapy before it, so the well-meaning pest tracks Marvin down at his lakeside summer home to further discuss his problems. But Marvin, preparing for an interview on Good Morning America and a few weeks of R and R, views Bob's stalking as highly inappropriate, and demands he return to New York. But Bob can't take even the strongest hint, and sets up camp with a neighbor to indulge in his own "vacation" -- from his problems. Meanwhile, Marvin's son Sigmund (Charlie Korsmo), daughter Anna (Catherine Erbe), and wife Fay (Julie Hagerty) take to Bob's loopy charm, which Marvin views as an irritating threat. Marvin's temperature rises as Bob insinuates his way into the family, helping Sigmund learn to dive and counseling the previously ignored Anna. As Bob's stock continues to rise, and his to plummet, Marvin becomes increasingly unhinged as the minutes tick down to the interview. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

There is a terrible price to pay when Cliff (Bill Cosby) devours a sausage sandwich as a midnight snack. Sure enough, Cliff suffers a nightmare in which he is back in the Navy with son Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) as his CO, wife Clair (Phylicia Rashad) is sucked out of the house by a tornado, and Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe) disgraces the family by becoming a jazz-funk performer. Add to this some monsters, a staff of muppet doctors, a talking sandwich and the birth of "Koozbanian" and you can understand why Cliff ultimately swears off sausages--at least until next time. Several members of The Cosby Show's writing and production staff show up in cameos. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Martin Brest, of Going in Style and Beverly Hills Cop fame, was in charge of Midnight Run. Robert De Niro stars as Jack Walsh, a hard-bitten bounty hunter offered $100,000 to bring in embezzler Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin). Handcuffed to the wimpy Mardukas, Walsh assumes that the extradition trip from New York to Los Angeles will be an uneventful one. But the prisoner hasn't told Walsh the whole story: the embezzler owes $15 million to a mobster (Dennis Farina), and he's been targeted for assassination. It's a toss-up as to what is the most entertaining aspect of Midnight Run: the slam-bang action and chase sequences or the verbal byplay between DeNiro and Grodin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Hurt plays the British jockey Bob Champion in this true story of how Champion overcame cancer and the rigors of chemotherapy for an impressive personal and professional comeback. Just as Champion is in the middle of a vacation in Kentucky, he finds out he has cancer, and, like others before him, submits to the full, painful treatments of multiple injections and radiation, suffering as much or more from the cure as from the illness (these treatments are graphic). Gaunt and nauseous, Champion also endures realistic meetings with his doctors that hold forth no guarantee of a cure. His eventual remission leads to yet another grueling physical schedule to get him back into shape for the Grand National Steeplechase -- a 30-fence, well-publicized race that offers difficult hurdles for both the horses and their jockeys. If the 115-minutes running time of this film were cut in places, it would create a better, trim and slim, fast-paced telling of an even more focused tale. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Amber Waves is the tale of two radically different personalities, united by crisis. Dennis Weaver plays a midwestern wheat harvester, coarsened by his lifelong struggle with poverty and the elements. Kurt Russell plays an obnoxious Manhattan-based male model, who has coasted through life on his charm and has never gotten his hands dirty. When Russell finds himself facially disfigured and penniless, he takes a job on Weaver's farm. Though the two men dislike each other at first, they reach a common ground when Weaver suffers a serious personal dilemma. Beautifully lensed in Alberta, Canada, Amber Waves was one of the high points of the 1979-80 TV movie season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having lived his life as the gardener on a millionaire's estate, Chance (Peter Sellers) knows of the real world only what he has seen on TV. When his benefactor dies, Chance walks aimlessly into the streets of Washington D.C., where he is struck by a car owned by wealthy Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine). Identifying himself, the confused man mutters "Chance...gardener," which Eve takes to be "Chauncey Gardiner." Eve takes him to her home to convalesce, and because Chance is so well-dressed and well-groomed, and because he speaks in such a cultured tone, everyone in her orbit assumes that "Chauncey Gardiner" must be a man of profound intelligence. No matter what he says, it is interpreted as a pearl of wisdom and insight. He rises to the top of Washington society, where his simplistic responses to the most difficult questions (responses usually related to his gardening experience) are highly prized by the town's movers and shakers. In fact, there is serious consideration given to running Chance as a presidential candidate. Both a modern fable and a political satire, Being There was based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski and costars Melvyn Douglas, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Eve's aging power-broker husband. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide