Stanzi Stokes Movies
- 1989
- Add Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure to QueueAdd Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure to top of Queue
With only a few days before their high-school graduation, it looks like airheaded rock star wannabes Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are doomed to flunk all their finals. The boys' long-suffering teacher (Bernie Casey) gives them one more chance. If they can ace an oral exam on the topic of how a famous historical personality might react to modern times, they will be allowed to pass. If not, Ted's dad will plunk the boy into military school, thereby breaking up the boys' garage band permanently. Bill and Ted receive unexpected aid from a very unexpected source: Rufus (George Carlin), an Emissary from the Future. It seems that in Rufus' time, Bill and Ted's rock music is the basis of all society-and if their band is aborted, Rufus' world will no longer exist. Thus, Bill and Ted are whisked off in a time machine (actually a telephone booth) to retrieve a few historical characters--including Joan of Arc, Abe Lincoln, Napoleon and Beethoven--as "eyewitnesses" for their crucial oral exam. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure inspired both a sequel (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) and a Saturday morning cartoon series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, (more)
In the late '80s, good-time girl Stacy (Lea Thompson) and her timid friend, Melissa (Victoria Jackson), decide to hit a health spa for singles in hopes of spicing up their unfulfilled sex lives. Afraid of AIDS, Stacy has gone celibate, while Melissa has only ever managed to get it on with two lame guys. Arriving at the resort, the women spend their time working out, flirting with staff members, making friends and enemies with their fellow singles, and avoiding the attentions of the oafish Vinny (Andrew Dice Clay). When a cruel psychologist plays mind games with Melissa, she finds solace with Vinny, then flees the spa, interrupting an incipient romance between Stacy and a cute aerobics instructor. Wendy Goldman and Judy Toll adapted their own stage play, while Casual Sex? provided director Genevieve Robert her only feature credit to date. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lea Thompson, Victoria Jackson, (more)
- 1988
Two enterprising young fools decide to try a new business venture--porn flicks. This light sex comedy contains nudity and profanity. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Levitt, Larry Poindexter, (more)
- 1988
- PG13
Gutsy ex-Marine Ellie DeWitt (Rebecca DeMornay) and bookish Bryn Mawr-graduate Janis Zuckerman (Mary Gross) have two things in common. Both are ardent supporters of the Reagan administration, and both aspire to a career in law enforcement. This is the unifying link that brings Ellie and Janis to the FBI training center in Quantico. Bucking male chauvinism and their own occasional loss of self-esteem, the ladies become top-notch federal agents. Except for a few cheap shots at the Republican Party, Feds is surprisingly reverent to such government institutions as the FBI. While this would be well and good in a straight drama, it's the kiss of death for a comedy -- if indeed, this is a comedy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rebecca De Mornay, Mary Gross, (more)
- 1988
- PG13
A bungling gumshoe tries hard to affect a hard-boiled demeanor, despite the fact that his latest assignment is to protect the bratty young heiress to a fortune in this lively spoof of detective movies. Henry Brilliant, Private Eye, is no stranger to the ways of the wealthy as he too comes from a blue-blooded family, but he tries to ignore that to become the classic Chandleresque detective as he heads for Europe to follow the girl on her tour and keep her from being kidnapped by her stepmother who is really after her husband's secret formula for controlling the weather. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chris Lemmon, Jean Simmons, (more)
- 1987
- R
In this film, an aspiring young actor moves to Los Angeles from his New York home, hoping to make it big in show business. Idolizing actor Robert De Niro, the young man must learn to cope with the rejection and despair he experiences in his career struggle. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Youngs, James Noble, (more)
Middle-aged family man Frank (Jim Karen) trains teenaged Freddy (Thom Matthews) for his new job at a medical supply warehouse. In an effort to impress and frighten his young charge, practical joker Frank reveals that the warehouse basement contains a cannister full of a mysterious chemical capable of bringing the dead back to life. It seems that the cannister fell off the back of an army truck during an accidental outbreak of zombiedom. Frank and Freddy unwittingly inhale the chemical and release it into the warehouse. Turning to the operator of a nearby crematorium for help in destroying the suddenly undead specimens that surround them, they unwittingly awaken the residents of a nearby cemetary just as Freddy's pals arrive to party amidst the headstones and wait for their friend's shift to end. Meanwhile, Col. Glover (Jonathan Terry) waits for the call that his missing chemical weapon has been unleashed. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clu Gulager, James Karen, (more)
Endlessly imitated, The Terminator made the reputation of cowriter/director James Cameron -- who would go on to make 1997's titanic Titanic -- and solidified the stardom of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The movie begins in a post-apocalyptic 2029, when Los Angeles has been largely reduced to rubble and is under the thumb of all-powerful ruling machines. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a member of the human resistance movement, is teleported back to 1984. His purpose: to rescue Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of the man who will lead the 21st-century rebels against the tyrannical machines, from being assassinated before she can give birth. Likewise thrust back to 1984 is The Terminator (Schwarzenegger), a grim, well-armed, virtually indestructable cyborg who has been programmed to eliminate Sarah Connor. After killing two "Sarah Connors" who turn out to be the wrong women, he finally aims his gunsights at the genuine article. This is the film in which Schwarzenegger declared "I'll be baaaack" -- and back he was, in "kinder and gentler" form, in the even more successful Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, (more)
