Sci-Fi Fantasy Comedy Movies

Season three of Charmed marks a number of significant changes in the lives of the "bewitched" Halliwell sisters of San Francisco, not least of which is the introduction to the series of Julian McMahon in the role of Assistant DA Cole Turner, with whom Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) falls in love. Unfortunately, Cole is actually the demon Belthazor, whose earthly mission is to destroy Phoebe and her sisters for practicing "good" witchcraft. Ultimately, Cole also falls in love with Phoebe and balks at completing his mission, getting him into deep trouble with his demonic superiors, the Triad. Vanquishing his "bosses," Cole declares that he is purged of his evil ways...but he's just a bit premature in this declaration, as proven by later events. Meanwhile, guardian angel Leo Wyatt (Brian Krause), still in his "mortal" state, proposes to Piper Halliwell (Holly Marie Combs), and she accepts, armed with the foreknowledge that she is fated to be the mother of Leo's baby. As Piper and Leo exchange their vows, word has leaked out about the Halliwell girls' special powers, putting them in the uncomfortable position of being local celebrities. On a more tragic note, a deranged wannabe witch shoots and seriously wounds Piper. In desperation, Phoebe tells Cole (who has reverted to evil) that she will sacrifice herself and remain with him in the Underworld if only Piper's life is spared. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Season seven of Charmed begins as benevolent witch Piper Halliwell (Holly Marie Combs) mourns the loss of the "Whitelighter" Chris, whom at the end of the previous season had been revealed to be the future son of Piper and her husband, Leo (Brian Krause). Later in the season, Leo, who has become an Avatar (which may or may not be good news), works overtime to make certain that Wyatt, his other son by Piper, does not fall prey to those demonic forces who are envious of the boy's inbred magical powers. Among the many plot strands this season is one involving government agent Kyle Brody (Kerr Smith), who, while ostensibly assisting Paige (Rose McGowan) in her efforts to track down and neutralize as many demons as possible, drops several hints that he is not all that he seems. In another story arc, Piper, Paige, Phoebe (Alyssa Milano), and the Avatars combine their talents to create a utopia-like state on earth -- but there are unanticipated consequences. The season's conclusion is dictated by the activities of Zankou (Oded Fehr), a previously imprisoned demon who, upon being freed, sets about to destroy the "Charmed Ones" by perverting their witchlike powers, and by stealing those powers for his own nefarious purposes. As the season finale draws to a close, the Halliwell girls arrive at the grim conclusion that the only way to stop Zankou is to sacrifice their own lives. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

With a "demon assault" having claimed the life of beautiful witch Prue Halliwell at the end of Charmed's third season, her sisters Piper (Holly Marie Combs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) are left behind to mourn in their ancestral San Francisco mansion as season four begins. However, it isn't long before Prue's place is taken in the household (and the series) by the girls' half sister Paige Halliwell (Rose McGowan), who, like the late Prue, possesses telekinetic powers. It does not take long for Paige to contribute to the family coffers by taking a "mortal" job as a social worker, providing her with ample opportunity to activate her magical powers for the forces of good. Meanwhile, Phoebe's boyfriend, Cole (Julian McMahon), having successfully purged himself of his demonic alter ego, Belthazor, decides to leave town for a while to become accustomed to his newfound benevolent mortality. Cole returns just in time to rescue Piper and Paige from a powerful demon called The Source (Bennet Guillory). Though successful in this endeavor, Cole sacrifices his human form to The Source, who, in concert with manipulative female demon The Seer (Debbi Morgan), bamboozles Phoebe into marrying Cole's doppelganger. Before long, Phoebe is impregnated with the baby from hell. Season four ends as the Angel of Destiny (Dakin Matthews) appears before the Halliwell girls, offering them a demon-free life if they will vanquish The Source and its minions. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Season six of Charmed finds the benevolently bewitched Halliwell girls under the protection of a new "Whitelighter," or guardian angel. With Leo (Brian Krause), the father of Piper Halliwell's (Holly Marie Combs) son, Wyatt, having decided to become a Whitelighter Elder, his replacement is Chris Perry (Drew Fuller), whose unorthodox behavior leads the "Charmed Ones" to suspect that he is not one hundred percent angelic (though Piper is clearly attracted to him). Elsewhere, Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) struggles to adapt to her newly found "empath" powers, which enable her to experience the emotions (and sometimes the pains) of others; she also falls in love with Jason Dean (Eric Dane), who is none too thrilled to discover that Phoebe and her siblings are witches (even "good" ones). Paige Halliwell (Rose McGowan) likewise falls in love with Richard Montana (Balthazar Getty), thereby enmeshing herself and the other Halliwell girls in a deadly feud between two magical families. And Piper's infant son, Wyatt, exercising his incipient force-field powers, capriciously messes up his mom's love life. Amidst all this activity, there are the usual forays into the past and future, and the vanquishing of various demonic forces who just can't leave the Halliwells alone. The season ends with a treacherous foray into an alternate universe in which evil is good and vice versa -- and it's all the handiwork of Leo and Chris' Whitelighter mentor, Gideon (Gildart Jackson), who is clearly up to no good. With chaos erupting all around her, Piper, who has been impregnated by Leo, gives birth to her baby...also named Chris. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Untimely ripped from the land of the living by a stray piece of bathroom porcelain from the MIR space station, teenaged girl George Lass (Ellen Muth) joins several other disgruntled decedents in pursuing her heavenly job of "reaper," helping ordinary mortals pass from this life to the next with comfort and dignity in the first season of Dead Like Me. In many of the early episodes, George eavesdrops to see how her highly dysfunctional family is bearing up under the weight of losing her. Otherwise, she is hard at work fulfilling the assignments given her by her celestial supervisor, Rube (Mandy Patinkin). In the opening two-hour episode, the newly dead George is told that she has been chosen to be a "reaper" -- and also learns to her chagrin that, in death, she has become famous as "The Toilet Seat Girl." Later on, she tries to wriggle out of her reaper duties, only to discover that if she doesn't follow the rules, dire consequences will befall those who are about to die. Also, she finds out that she still has certain "mortal" emotions intact when she becomes close to a fellow reaper named Betty (Rebecca Gayheart), and when she falls in love with a living schizophrenic whose disease allows him to see her even though he's not "due" yet. Additionally, she must suffer the intrusion of obstreperous new reaper Daisy Adair (Laura Harris), who is briefly her "roommate." Finally, she is made aware that a reaper's job is never done when, on a day that no one dies, she is swamped with heavenly paperwork. At end of the first season, George finds herself on the verge of losing her office "day job" at Happy Time Temp Agency. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ghostbusters
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson star as a quartet of Manhattan-based "paranormal investigators". When their government grants run out, the former three go into business as The Ghostbusters, later hiring Hudson on. Armed with electronic paraphernalia, the team is spectacularly successful, ridding The Big Apple of dozens of ghoulies, ghosties and long-legged beasties. Tight-lipped bureaucrat William Atherton regards the Ghostbusters as a bunch of charlatans, but is forced to eat his words when New York is besieged by an army of unfriendly spirits, conjured up by a long-dead Babylonian demon and "channelled" through beautiful cellist Sigourney Weaver and nerdish Rick Moranis. The climax is a glorious sendup of every Godzilla movie ever made-and we daresay it cost more than a year's worth of Japanese monster flicks combined. Who'd ever dream that the chubby, cheery Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man would turn out to be the most malevolent threat ever faced by New York City? When the script for Ghostbusters was forged by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, John Belushi was slated to play the Bill Murray role; Belushi's death in 1982 not only necessitated the hiring of Murray, but also an extensive rewrite. The most expensive comedy made up to 1984, Ghostbusters made money hand over fist, spawning not only a 1989 sequel but also two animated TV series (one of them partially based on an earlier live-action TV weekly, titled The Ghost Busters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ghostbusters 2
Ivan Reitman's sequel to the phenomenally successful Ghostbusters is looser and more self-assured than the original. The film opens with a title reading "Five Years Later" and finds the ghostbusters living in hard times. A restraining order has forbidden the boys to partake in paranormal warfare, and as a result they have had to seek other lines of work. Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) spend their time performing at children's' birthday parties, and Egon (Harold Ramis) is busy conducting experiments investigating the effect of human emotions on the environment, leaving ghostbusting behind. Venkman (Bill Murray) and Dana (Sigourney Weaver) have split up. Venkman now hosts a local cable show called "The World of the Psychic." Dana, now divorced and the mother of a little baby named Oscar, works as an art restorer in a museum -- and this is where the plot kicks in. While Dana is restoring a portrait of a 16th-century tyrant by the name of Vigo the Carpathian, the portrait becomes hexed. The evil Vigo wants to return to life by taking over the body of Dana's little child. Vigo has enlisted Dana's boss, Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol), to compel Dana to cooperate. Soon dirty sludge and slime flow through the streets of Manhattan, and the ghostbusters have to reunite to save the city from a funky paranormal evil. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The fifth and final season of I Dream of Jeannie marks the long-overdue consummation of the romance between sexy genie Jeannie (Barbara Eden) and her "master", astronaut Tony Nelson (Larry Nelson), with Tony finally popping the question in the two-part episode "Guess Who's Going to Be a Bride." The impending marriage of the two principals opens up all sorts of new plot developments: For example, Jeannie is unable to partake of the obligatory blood test because a genie's blood is green; and in the episode "The Wedding", an attempt to snap a picture of the happy couple comes a-cropper because genies can't be photographed! And even though Tony and Jeannie are still husband and wife, Jeannie's duplicitous twin sister (also Barbara Eden) has not given up her efforts to snag Tony for herself, as witness the episode "My Sister the Homemaker", which ironically boasts a guest appearance by Barbara Eden's real-life husband Michael Ansara. And so it goes until the series' 139th and final episode, "My Master, the Chili King". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"Meet George Jetson...Jane, his wife...daughter Judy...his boy Elroy..." The catchy tune of The Jetsons ideally captures the lighthearted essence of the show, a futuristic counterpoint to The Flintstones that reflected the space-age optimism of the times. The Jetsons were the very first family, animated or not, to have a big-screen home entertainment system decades before it became a reality. They also had flying cars, floating cities and androids, all commonplace scenery of today?s most popular sci-fi blockbusters. Now this beloved series teletransports onto DVD, all 24 hilarious Season-One episodes - plus Soaring Extras, both newly-made and vintage rarities drawn from the Hanna-Barbera vaults.

A spin-off from the hit show "Happy Days," MORK & MINDY stars Robin Williams as the lovable alien from the planet Ork. Sent to Earth by his fellow Orkans who see him as a misfit, Mork is assigned to observe the customs of the crazy Earthlings. Landing in a giant eggshell in Boulder, Colorado, Mork is soon befriended by Mindy McConnell (Dawber) a music store clerk, and allowed to stay in the attic of her apartment.

The two-part opening episode of The Flying Nun introduces Sister Bertrille (Sally Field), a spunky young American novice stationed at Convent San Tanco in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Not long after discovering that her light weight and her winglike coronet enable her to take flight whenever the trade winds blow, Sr. Bertrille earns the undying gratitude of local bistro owner Carlos Ramirez (Alejandro Rey) by helping him collect an old gambling debt -- which he promptly donates to the convent. In subsequent episodes, Sr. Bertrille tries to keep her flying abilities under wraps on the orders of her superiors, the Reverend Mother (Marge Redmond) and Sister Jacqueline (Madeleine Sherwood), but the dictates of the various plotlines just plain won't let her do so. The best of the first-season episodes include "Flight of a Dodo Bird," guest-starring John Astin as a young priest-psychologist who is convinced that the Reverend Mother's tales of a flying nun are signs that the old dear is a few bricks shy of a full load; "Days of Nuns and Roses," in which Sr. Bertrille and the other nuns begin selling "sea-grape juice" to raise funds; "The Dig In," featuring future "alternative" filmmaker Henry Jaglom as an embittered derelict who is trapped with Sr. Bertrille in a cave-in; "With a Friend Like Him," wherein our heroine comes to the rescue of hopeless bumbler Brother Paul (Rich Little); "My Sister, the Sister," in which Carlos falls in love with Sr. Bertrille's obstetrician sister, Jennifer (Elinor Donahue); and "Reconversion of Sister Shapiro," which finds Sr. Bertrille gently attempting to dissuade a Jewish girl from renouncing her religion and joining the convent. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi