Frederic Steinkamp Movies

Teenager Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) would rather party with her boyfriend, but when her beau breaks their date she reluctantly accepts a babysitting job. It isn't all TV and icebox-raiding when Chris' best friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) calls her to announce that she's stranded at the bus station. With her youthful charges in tow (one of whom, 15-year-old Brad (Keith Coogan), has a hopeless crush on the babysitter), Chris heads into downtown Chicago to go to Brenda's rescue. Thus begins a roller coaster ride of comic mishaps, unexpected perils and hairbreadth escapes. IN one bit, blues singer Albert Collins refuses to allow Chris and company to leave the nightclub they've wandered into until they agree to sing along with a song borrowed from, of all things the 1939 B-picture Nancy Drew, Reporter! . Screenwriter and Steven Spielberg protégé Chris Columbus made his directorial debut with Adventures in Babysitting. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taylor Hackford directed this urgent melodrama about the realities of street crime, gangs, and prison life among the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. Miklo (Damian Chapa), Paco (Benjamin Bratt) and Cruz (Jesse Borrego) are three friends who are living in the East Los Angeles of 1972 as it is torn apart by violence. When the gang violence hits the three friends, they are affected by their participation in the bitter violence in different ways. Cruz, an artist, becomes crippled, and he sinks deeply into drug addiction. Paco, an accessory to murder, joins the military to avoid jail time, leading to a spot on the LAPD. Miklo, the kid with the gun, is sent to jail, where he slowly rises up in the ranks of La Onda, the San Quentin Latino gang. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Director of the first Police Academy movie, Hugh Wilson is also responsible for the action comedy-caper Burglar. Bernice Rhodenbarr (Whoopi Goldberg) is a retired cat burglar who works at a bookstore. Bad cop Ray Kirschman (G.W. Bailey) blackmails her, so she agrees to do a job for Dr. Cynthia Sheldrake (Lesley Ann Warren) in order to get the money. While she is doing the robbery, she accidentally stumbles onto the scene of a murder. Since she is the prime suspect, Bernice is forced into many chase scenes as she plays detective to find out who the real murderer is in order to clear her name. She is aided by her only two friends: the hapless dog groomer Carl Hefler (Bob Goldthwait) and the drunken floozy Frankie (Elizabeth Ruscio). Along the way, she almost gets killed by numerous tough guys while being closely followed by two stupid cops (Anne DeSalvo and John Goodman). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an aspiring singer finds herself single and pregnant. The story begins when she is rushed to the hospital to give birth. She is joined by three men; all of them want to marry her. The story of her pregnancy and her rise to stardom are told in flashback. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Freebie (James Caan) and the Bean (Alan Arkin) are a pair of San Francisco cops. Red Meyers (Jack Kruschen) is the mobster whom Freebie and the Bean would like to see behind bars -- or, failing that, six feet under. Nothing stands in the way of the cops' pursuit of Meyers, meaning that private property is given quite a going-over in this picture. The film's most memorable scene finds Freebie and the Bean crashing their car into a poor schnook's living room. TV favorites Loretta Swit and Valerie Harper play the only female roles worth mentioning. The racist and sexist humor in Freebie and the Bean may not go over as well today as it did in the politically incorrect early '70s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Harry and Walter Go to New York was born of the theory that, the more stars and money that you throw into a film, the better the film will be. The theory has seldom been proven true, and it certainly wasn't in this case. Harry (James Caan) and Walter (Elliot Gould) are a third-rate vaudeville team, playing tank towns in turn-of-the-century USA. Thrown into the hoosegow on a petty-theft charge, our heroes make the acquaintance of big-time crook Adam Worth (Michael Caine). Once they're sprung, Harry and Walter follow Worth to New York, with the intention of pulling off a huge bank robbery. Lissa Chestnut (Diane Keaton), a bird-brained suffragette, is also mixed up in the proceedings though she never seems certain of who or what her character is from one scene to the next. The film's one tangible asset is its meticulous re-creation of 1890s New York, courtesy of art director Harry Horner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Star James Caan made his directorial debut in the fact-based Hide in Plain Sight. Caan plays a divorced husband and father who comes to visit his ex-wife and children, only to discover that they've evidently disappeared from the face of the earth. Running up against the stonewall tactics of the authorities, Caan eventually learns that his wife's present husband is a witness against the mob, and that his family members have been given a new home and new identities via the Justice Department's new witness relocation program. Denied information concerning his children's whereabouts, Caan desperately attempts to find them himself. Hide in Plain Sight was adapted by Spencer Eastman from the book by Leslie Waller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A disgruntled British secret service officer and an aspiring author turn to crime when they are again passed over for prominent career advancements. John Pedley (Fred Astaire) is the agent who has been passed over for knighthood one too many times for his liking. He proposes a plan to university professor Mike Warden (Richard Crenna), who has been fired for taking part in a peace demonstration. With the help of Sylvia Giroux (Anne Heywood), they recruit a retired SS officer and a former Italian fascist as they attempt to hijack a fortune in gold bricks from the British crown. Pedley deals with double-crossing opportunists who covet the gold for themselves. Sir Ralph Richardson, Roddy McDowell and Cesar Romero also star in this engaging crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Originally released as Nightmare Honeymoon, this lurid thriller stars Dack Rambo and Rebecca Diana Smith. Rambo plays a Vietnam vet (he's certainly got the right name for it), while Rebecca is cast as his new bride, an heiress. While on their honeymoon, the newlyweds witness a murder and Rebecca is raped. Rambo's killer instinct quickly rises to the surface. Based on a novel by Lawrence Block, Deadly Honeymoon was to have been directed by Nicolas Roeg, but he ankled the project after less than a week and was replaced by Elliot Silverstein. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Out of Africa is drawn from the life and writings of Danish author Isak Dinesen, who during the time that the film's events occured was known by her married name, Karen Blixen-Flecke. For convenience's sake, Karen (Meryl Streep) has married Baron Bor Blixen-Flecke (Klaus Maria Brandauer). In 1914, the Baron moves himself and his wife to a plantation in Nairobi, then leaves Karen to her own devices as he returns to his womanizing and drinking. Soon, Karen has fallen in love with charming white hunter Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), who prefers a no-strings relationship. A woman who prides herself on her independence, Blixen finds herself unhappily in thrall to a aloof man -- and doubly unhappy for living out such a cliché situation. Although Redford received a lion's share of criticism for his too-American performance, Streep has rarely been better, and the film's perfectly measured pace is offset by David Watkin's stunning location photography. The movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won 7, including Best Picture, Best Director for Sydney Pollack, Best Adapted Screenplay for Kurt Luedtke, and Best Cinematography for Watkin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an introverted journalist for a prominent magazine is assigned to do a story on "Little America" in Antarctica. Once there he gets in all sorts of trouble with the army, a rival, and the penguin Milton Fox. He also finds himself embroiled in a plot to ship some Kiwi women to the base, and in the attempted defections of a number of Russian scientists. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A darkly comic and surreal contemporization of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this effects-heavy Bill Murray holiday vehicle from 1988 sees the former SNL funnyman assuming the role of television executive Frank Cross, the meanest and most depraved man on earth. Cross will stoop to unheard of levels to increase his network's ratings -- even if it means mounting outrageous programs to retain an audience, such as "Robert Goulet's Cajun Christmas" and Lee Majors in "The Night the Reindeer Died," with an AK-47-toting Santa. Cross plots his foulest move, however, for the Christmas holiday, when he will force his office staff to mount a live production of A Christmas Carol on national television -- and thus work through Christmas Eve. Cross's life is turned upside down with visits from three ghosts: a craggy-faced cabbie known as The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen); the sugar-plum fairy Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane) (who gets her jollies by bonking Frank across the face with a toaster oven); and, eventually, the caped, headless Ghost of Christmas Future, who will send Frank sliding into a crematory oven -- just before he gives the sleazoid one last chance to redeem himself. Along the way, the spirits carry Frank to scenes from his past, present, and future (per Scrooge) and impart a glimpse of how he became so thoroughly rotten. The radiant Karen Allen co-stars as Frank's girlfriend, Claire Phillips, and the film packs in cameos from countless celebrities -- among them, Mary Lou Retton, John Houseman, Jamie Farr, and, in a truly grisly and tasteless bit, John Forsythe. Richard Donner directs, from a script credited to the late Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide