Mary Stein Movies

A walk by the seashore takes a girl on the first step of an amazing journey in this family-friendly drama. When her father loses his job and money gets tight, 14-year-old Julie Kimbell (Suzanne Marie Doyon) leaves her California home and moves with her family to Manzanita, a small town on the coast of Oregon. Julie, her parents, Robert (Brian McNamara) and Kathryn (Julia Campbell), and her bother, Jimmy (Brian Thompson), settle in with her grandpa Kimbell (Max Gail), who knows more than a little about local legends and history. When Julie has an unexpected encounter with an elk while taking a walk on the beach, she discovers an ancient gold coin. After telling her grandpa and his friend Standing Elk (Floyd Red Crow Westerman) about her experience, they tell Julie about the fabled Tillamook Treasure, a fortune in gold supposedly hidden in Manzanita in the 16th century by Spanish sailors who used nefarious means to protect their treasure from the natives. As Julie learns more of the lore of Manzanita's Native American tribes, she begins experiencing some of the magic of their people, and sees the friendly elk as a spirit link to the fabled events of four centuries before. The Tillamook Treasure took the prize as the Best Family Feature at the 2006 Newport Beach Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The 1995 Academy award-winning film Babe was Australian-made and featured the latest in talking animal anima-tronics. It told the heart-warming story of a sheepherding pig named Babe and his rise to community fame. The film was a tremendous hit, both financially and critically. Babe: Pig in the City is the higher budgeted American-made sequel that picks up where the original left off. It was directed by George Miller (Mad Max trilogy) who produced the original Babe film, and received a lot of criticism for being much darker than the original. The story owes more to George Orwell's Animal Farm or Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist than the original film. Having triumphed at the National Sheepdog trials, Babe returns home a hero. But after farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) suffers from a farming accident, Mrs. Hoggett, a naive portly woman, is left to work the ranch alone. It's not long before the bank comes knocking. Desperate to save her farm from foreclosure, she accepts an offer for Babe to perform his sheepherding abilities at an overseas state fair. Babe, Mrs. Hoggett, Ferdinand the duck, and the singing mice travel across the ocean to a surreal metropolis, where they suddenly become stranded and separated. Soon Babe is performing with circus apes, being chased by wild strays (sounding a lot like Marlon Brando in The Godfather), and making a new wheelchair-bound canine friend (voiced by Adam Goldberg). He also is anointed leader of the animal community. What Babe lacks in street smarts he makes up for in honest goodness as he teaches audiences yet again that "an unprejudiced heart can mend a broken world." ~ Arthur Borman, All Movie Guide

This film is a unique combination of documentary, drama and comedy, and uses real people as well as professional actors to chronicle the experiences of Dirk Shafer who in 1992, was voted Playgirl magazine's man of the year. For the athletic, blond and extremely photogenic Shafer this fame was a double-edged sword. On one hand, he really needed the money; on the other, he had just come out of the closet. Still he went for the gusto and spent much of the year touring about and getting interviewed on talk shows. Only a few close friends and family members knew that he was a homosexual; to everyone else he was the epitome of heterosexual masculinity. This naturally, created problems with Mike, the man Shafer wanted to get involved with. Included are filmclips from actual talk-show appearances, and interviews with family and friends, not all of whom were tickled to discover that he was gay. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When Next Generation kicked off its sixth season on September 26, 1992, it was with the resolution of the fifth-season cliffhanger "Time's Arrow." A quick recap apprises the viewer that, while investigating a curious archeological discovery, Lt. Cmdr. Data was sucked into a time vortex, emerging in 19th century San Francisco. Likewise heading into the past to rescue their comrade, the crew discovers that the Earth is in danger of a devastating alien invasion. Their efforts to ward off this disaster are complicated by the presence of a snoopy reporter by the name of Samuel Clemens (Jerry Hardin). Part two of "Time's Arrow" was scripted by Jeri Taylor, from a story by Joe Menosky and Michael Piller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide