Bill Bailey Movies

Richard Donner's big-budget blockbuster Superman: The Movie is an immensely entertaining recounting of the origin of the famous comic book character. Opening on Krypton (where Marlon Brando plays Superman's father), the film follows the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) as he's sent to Earth where he develops his alter-ego Clark Kent and is raised by a Midwestern family. In no time, the movie has run through his teenage years, and Clark gets a job at the Daily Planet, where he is a news reporter. It's there that he falls in love with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), who is already in love with Superman. But the love story is quickly sidetracked once the villainous Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) launches a diabolical plan to conquer the world and kill Superman. Superman: The Movie is filled with action, special effects and a surprising amount of humor. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

After the excellent audience response to their teaming in Silver Streak, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor reunited for this zany comedy. Wilder and Pryor play a couple of out-of-work numbskulls who take a promotional job that requires them to dress up like gigantic woodpeckers. Unfortunately, a pair of thieves, likewise decked out in woodpecker suits, pull off a bank job not long after Wilder and Pryor make their first public appearance. The boys are arrested and sentenced to 120 years each (at this point, we know we're not dealing with real life). After a concerted (and hilarious) effort to make the best of things "in stir," Wilder and Pryor break out of jail, hoping to track down the genuine thieves. The mess never really works itself out, suggesting that perhaps the stars had a Stir Crazy II lurking in the recesses of their minds. Written by Bruce Jay Friedman and directed by Sidney Poitier, it never did spawn a sequel, though a TV series spin-off, starring Larry Riley and Joseph Guzaldo, briefly surfaced in 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

About 400 known and unknown American communists were interviewed during this five-year documentary project, and the results culled down to an intriguing 100 minutes of screen time. As secretaries, factory workers, farmers, and intellectuals discuss the past, their insights provide both humor and pathos, but most of all, the interviewees emerge as human beings whose main interest has remained in lowering the gap between the haves and have nots. The documentary notes that as a result of leftist agitation, the United States adopted programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance faster than otherwise -- programs that were once labeled communist by American conservatives. Committed to defending human and civil rights, the 1,000,000-member American Communist Party lost more than half of its members when Stalin's inhuman purges were made public. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these interviews, which also included people like Pete Seeger, is the change in attitudes during the 1960s and '70s and the fact that some members of the Communist Party refused to be interviewed because they were afraid of repercussions if their affiliation were made public. These repercussions had taken many forms in the past, including the loss of jobs as in the McCarthy era. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this sequel to the original miniseries, Lili (Phoebe Cates), having discovered the true identity of her mother, now begins looking for her father. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Gene Wilder directed and wrote (along with Terence Marsh) this mild farce which is a pale reminder of Wilder's glory days in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. Wilder plays ham radio actor Larry Abbot, who takes his fiancee Vickie Pearle (Gilda Radner) out to meet his relations on a gloomy country estate before they are married. The creepy clan is lorded over by the bizarre Aunt Kate (Dom DeLuise), who keeps babbling about a local rampaging werewolf. As Larry and Vickie try to spend a quiet weekend in the mansion, they are assaulted with all manners of spooky goings-on -- the kind of routines that were already growing whiskers when Abbott and Costello first dusted them off over fifty years ago. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A group of radical Vietnam vets become broadcasting pirates and take on a Presidential candidate in this crazy comedy. The vets and their leader, "Captain," are television raiders flying all over the country in a B-29 they turned into flying broadcasting station S&M TV, jamming the airwaves wherever they go. Their self-assigned mission for the past 20 years is to keep the public informed about government activity to stop them from launching another foolish war like Vietnam. To do this they monitor the broadcasts of other television stations and when they don't like what they hear, they bust in and expose the lies. The bulk of the story centers around their final mission: an all-out attempt to keep Mrs. Willa Westinghouse, an ultra-conservative Presidential candidate and strong proponent of the Cold War and military strength, from winning the election. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Considered one of the great box-office turkeys of its decade, Ishtar was an attempt by writer/director Elaine May and stars Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty to do a modern-day road picture in the style of the much-loved Bob Hope and Bing Crosby comedy classics. Beatty is Lyle Rogers, a dimwitted songwriter who befriends and partners with Chuck Clarke (Hoffman), who is only slightly more intelligent but every bit as untalented. Together the duo dreams of becoming a big-time lounge act, but their songs, with titles like "That a Lawnmower Can Do All That," are unintentionally hilarious. Chuck becomes suicidal, but just when it seems they'll never strike it rich, the boys are offered a shady gig at a North African hotel, entertaining U.S. troops stationed in the tiny nation of Ishtar. On their way to accept the job, Lyle, Chuck, and their blind camel are sidetracked by a mysterious woman (Isabelle Adjani) and a scheming CIA agent (Charles Grodin), who are involved in a rebellion against the country's emir. The memorable songs crafted by Chuck and Lyle were written by actor and composer Paul Williams. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

The directorial debut of producer Irwin Winkler, Guilty by Suspicion is a sobering account of one movie executive's woes in dealing with the political fallout from the McCarthy Era Hollywood blacklist. Robert De Niro stars as David Merrill, a film director in the 1950s whose obsession with his burgeoning career has estranged him from his wife Ruth (Annette Bening) and their son. When he returns from a trip to Paris, Merrill is surprised when told by his boss, Darryl F. Zanuck (Ben Piazza) that he's been summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is investigating Communist ties to Hollywood. Although Merrill once attended a meeting years before, he's not a Communist, and he refuses to help the committee wreck the career of his friend Bunny Baxter (George Wendt). Merrill becomes blacklisted, unable to find work even in menial positions or under assumed names as the editor of a B-movie or the director of a low-budget Western. Reconciled with his family, Merrill caves in and agrees to testify, but as he prepares to "name names," his conscience plagues him. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Religious and personal tensions escalate steadily in this drama, and nearly everyone in it has some sort of extra-sensitive "toes" that get stepped on by others. James Wilby would seem to have a relatively non-controversial job, for a foreigner, since he is a wildlife conservationist, and foreigners are always going on about the environment. Pakistan is, however, a pretty strange place for his Jewish wife Hannah, the daughter of an American senator. The couple are almost deranged with a desire to have a child together, and when they hear about a local shrine which is said to give the blessing of fertility, they think that it sounds harmless enough and go out to see it. In the rest of the world, eunuches are a thing of the past, but in Pakistan and India, they actually have a culture of their own; ironically enough, they run the fertility shrine. When Wilby and Hannah visit the place, they are rendered unconscious with a drugged drink, and a local boy is called in to inseminate Hannah, who does in fact become pregnant. The birth of the child, however, seems to be the trigger for a lot of strange goings-on, beginning with Hannah's conversion to Islam, which strains her marriage nearly to the breaking point. Also, Hannah has discovered that Alistair has been carrying on with a family friend, and in addition, the eunuches seem to be excessively interested in the child she has by now given birth to. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Balto is an animated trifle, based loosely on a true story from the 1920s, that may offer some amusement for young children. A live-action intro and outro set the stage for the story of Balto (voiced by Kevin Bacon), a stray who's half dog and half wolf, who is shunned as a half-breed outcast by both humans and his own kind. Balto does have some friends, like the goose Boris (Bob Hoskins) and two polar bears named Muk and Luk (Phil Collins), but he is particularly resented by canine pack leader Steele (Jim Cummings), with whom he is competing for the affections of Jenna (Bridget Fonda). He eventually becomes a hero when he guides a medication-carrying sled to a townful of sick kids in the wilds of Alaska. The film features a number of positive messages (subtlety is not its strong point), but it may not feature enough humor or excitement to keep anyone but the very smallest viewers engrossed. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

The infamous 19th century tale of two grave robbers (Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis) working for the Edinburgh Medical College is adapted for comedic purposes with this John Landis-helmed production. Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft (St. Trinian's) penned the black comedy, which follows true-life grave-digging murderers William Burke and William Hare as they do their damning deeds in Edinburgh, Scotland. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi