Cheryl Hines Movies

HBO's hit series Curb Your Enthusiasm, featuring TV's most cantankerous character, is back and funnier than ever. Writer-producer-comedian Larry David stars as himself in a comic vision of his life. This year, David's world is especially off-kilter: An African-American family, displaced by a hurricane, moves in with the staunchly progressive Davids; and in episode 6 ("The Tivo Guy"), Larry and his wife, Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), decide to separate. In addition to David, cast regulars include Jeff Garlin (as his manager, Jeff Greene) and Susie Essman (as Jeff's wife, Susie). The series also features appearances by guest celebrities playing themselves, such as returning favorites Ted Danson, Richard Lewis, and Mary Steenburgen. Season 6, originally telecast in 2007 over HBO, adds Vivica A. Fox as Loretta Black and Tia Carrere as Cha Cha.

The directing debut of actor Cameron Watson, Our Very Own chronicles the daily hopes and dreams of high schoolers and their parents in a small Tennessee town, circa 1978. Shelbyville is the real-life birthplace not only of Watson, who wrote the script from his own recollections, but also of actress Sondra Locke -- or as the townspeople know her, "our very own Sondra Locke." The events take place in the days leading up to the town's annual horse show, where it is rumored Locke will return as a special guest. Melora (Autumn Reeser) has dreams of following Locke's path to stardom from meager beginnings, and hopes to meet the actress to pick her brain/get discovered. Her best friend, Clancy (Jason Ritter), has enough real-world problems to worry about, between falling in love with Melora and watching his parents (Keith Carradine and Allison Janney) fight over their impending bankruptcy and his father's drinking problem. Their friends Ray (Derek Carter) and Bobbie (Hilarie Burton) just want to get a car to find something to do in Nashville, while musical theater aficionado Glen (Michael McKee) begins wondering if he is coming of age differently than his friends. As the town starts to buzz with the excitement of the festival, the characters must face the decisions that will affect their futures. Cheryl Hines and Beth Grant also appear in supporting performances. Janney was nominated for a 2005 Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

It is not generally known that the CGI-animated NBC sitcom Father of the Pride was the second cartoon program inspired by the spectacular career of Vegas-based illusionists Siegfried and Roy. The first, a four-part miniseries titled Siegfried & Roy: Masters of the Impossible, was seen in off-network syndication in 1996. Ironically, the title of the earlier series provides the acronymic name "Sarmoti" for one of the principal characters on Father of the Pride! The NBC series took us backstage and into the private lives of two of the white lions employed in Siegfried and Roy's act: Larry (voiced by John Goodman) and his wife Kate (voiced by Cheryl Hines). Despite their fame and fortune, the two lions had to endure the usual trials and tribulations of sitcom-style domesticity. Kate's father Sarmoti (voiced by Carl Reiner) was a loudmouth who insisted upon arguing with Larry over anything and everything, while Larry's best pal, a gopher named Snack (voiced by Orlando Jones), was forever hatching idiotic schemes that got everyone in big trouble. Add to this several dashes of toilet and sex humor, and you had an animated "funny animal" series that was far better suited for grown-ups than for kids. Produced by DreamWorks SKG Animation as NBC's answer to such popular cutting-edge cartoon efforts as Fox's The Simpsons and Comedy Central's South Park, Father of the Pride was in production in late 2003 when magician Roy (aka Roy Horn) was seriously injured when he was mauled on the stage of the Mirage Inn by one of his trained lions. For a while, the network balked at introducing the CGI series, worried that it might suffer from the publicity surrounding Roy's injuries. Once the magician was off the critical list, however, Father of the Pride began its 11-week NBC run on August 31, 2004 (two of the thirteen episodes would not be seen until the series was released on DVD). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The ten episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm's third season are linked together by a common throughline, wherein Seinfeld creator Larry David partners with actors Ted Danson and Michael York to open a restaurant. As the plots (and the ad-libs) merrily roll along, Larry gets into a brouhaha over uniforms for the waiters, conducts a Broadway-style audition for a new chef, and manages to insult a prominent food critic -- twice. And in other misadventures, Larry dials up a mess of trouble at the Emmy Awards ceremony with his new cell phone; he and wife, Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), confront "The Nanny From Hell"; rap artist "Krazze-Eyes Killah" meets his Waterloo; the wife of Paul Reiser is repeatedly and inadvertently on the receiving end of Larry's insults; the death of Larry's mother brings out the worst in practically everyone; and Larry's associate, Jeff (Jeff Garlin), finds that a reconciliation with his wife may hinge on his acceptance of a corpse-sniffing German shepherd. Add to all this Larry's never-ending inability to hand out appropriate tips, and it is easy to see that Seinfeld was far more than a figment of Larry David's imagination. And, oh yes, we should mention such guest stars as Joan Rivers, Alanis Morissette, and Martin Scorsese. ~ All Movie Guide

Seinfeld producer/creator Larry David has often claimed that the character of George Costanza, the abrasive, neurotic, spectacularly luckless Seinfeld supporting player so brilliantly played by Jason Alexander, was based on David himself. Small wonder, then, that most of the plotlines of the self-deprecating, reality-based sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm have a distinctly Costanzan flavor -- with Larry David, in the role of former standup comic-turned-TV executive Larry David, a dictionary definition of the phrase "his own worst enemy." A spinoff of the 1999 HBO "mockumentary" special of the same name, the weekly 30-minute Curb Your Enthusiasm is filmed in cinéma vérité fashion, with much of dialogue ad-libbed (though the premise of each episode has been carefully worked out in advance).

Larry David portrays himself as the archetypal Hollywood wheeler-dealer, forever promoting "can't miss" TV and film projects, and using (and sometimes abusing) his myriad of showbiz celebrity connections -- among them Richard Lewis, Rob Reiner, Shaquille O'Neal, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Wanda Sykes, and Mel Brooks, not to mention a generous supply of former Seinfeld stars -- to further advance his already super-successful career. And yet, no matter how high he climbs, David is a slave to his own foibles, phobias, and neuroses, perpetually opening mouth and inserting foot, making as many enemies as friends in high places and never relaxing long enough to enjoy or appreciate what he has accomplished. In typical Seinfeld fashion, our hero manages to make a sizable and often insurmountable mountain out of the tiniest and least significant of molehills. While the plotlines of the first two ten-episode HBO seasons were relatively self-contained, season three was held together with the through-line of Larry opening a Planet Hollywood-style restaurant, while the focus of season four was the rather improbable premise that Larry had been offered the starring role in Mel Brooks' smash Broadway musical The Producers. Also appearing on Curb Your Enthusiasm are Cheryl Hines as Larry's spouse, Cheryl; David's longtime production associate Jeff Garlin as Jeff Greene; and Susie Essman as Jeff's wife, Susie. The series is very much an HBO production with an unending stream of hilarious profanities and sexual situations (though the series' funniest running gag is probably the cleanest: Larry David's constitutional inability to figure out the basic protocol of tipping the help). ~ All Movie Guide

Katherine Heigl stars as a lovelorn television producer who's made to run a gauntlet of romantic exploits by a pig-headed morning-show host (played by Gerard Butler) as a way to prove whose romantic methods are more accurate. Legally Blonde's Robert Luketic directs from a script by Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith, and Nicole Eastman. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Incident at Loch Ness director Zak Penn takes the helm for this mockumentary that finds film and television star Woody Harrelson entering the Grand Championship of Poker in hopes of saving his late grandfather's popular hotel casino from a scheming real estate developer. As the wrecking ball swings ever closer, Harrelson continually ups the ante in order to take home the top prize at the world's most prestigious poker tournament. Co-stars Ray Romano, Werner Herzog, Cheryl Hines, David Cross, and Dennis Farina all put on their best poker face for a comedy where all bets are off and anything can happen. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Lindsay Lohan stars as an office assistant who fakes a pregnancy to get on the good side of her stringent boss in this romantic comedy from Nu Image and Millennium Films. Chris Parnell, Cheryl Hines, Luke Kirby, and Connie Britton co-star in the Lara Shapiro-helmed production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Trapped in a miserable marriage and blessed with the ability to transform her misery into delicious desserts, a small-town waitress finds her life forever changed by an unplanned pregnancy. Every day, Jenna (Keri Russell) ties on her apron and serves her customers with a smile, and every night she goes to bed knowing that she is one step closer to the day that she can kiss her scarily domineering husband (Jeremy Sisto) goodbye forever. A smart and sassy baker whose extraordinary pies are inspired by her daily trials and tribulations, Jenna fears that her dreams are all but dead when handsome Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion) reveals that she is soon to become a mother. As Jenna begins penning a series of letters to her unborn baby, her life starts to change for the better in ways she never could have imagined. The final film from actress/filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, Waitress debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah just months after the director was discovered dead in her New York City apartment -- the victim of a homicide. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A white-collar workaholic deceptively persuades his family to forgo their much-anticipated Hawaiian vacation for a cross-country road trip in a fully loaded RV, during which they discover the true meaning of family bonding, in Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld's family-friendly road comedy starring Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, and Cheryl Hines. Bob Munro (Williams) is overworked and overstressed, and though his proposal to hit the road with his wife and two children at first sounds like a heartfelt bid to get better acquainted with his increasingly dysfunctional family, it soon becomes obvious that he had more career-oriented goals in mind when planning the trip. The Munros have always managed to get by in the past, though, and as they slowly become immersed in RV culture with a little help from a full-time troupe of Winnebago warriors, they might just make it to the Rocky Mountains without driving each other totally insane. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The world's wackiest Volkswagen is back in action in this action comedy. Maggie Peyton (Lindsay Lohan) is the 18-year-old daughter of Ray Peyton Sr. (Michael Keaton), a once-successful stock car driver whose career is not what it once was. Maggie loves racing and is in line for a job covering NASCAR for ESPN, but in her heart she'd rather be behind the wheel, even though her father strictly forbids this. For Maggie's birthday, Ray takes her out looking for a used car, and she finds herself strangely drawn to a wrecked 1963 Volkswagen in a salvage yard. Against Ray's better judgment, Maggie gets the car, and a note in the glove box tells her the rust bucket is named "Herbie," and he can help her solve her problems. To her surprise, the message turns out to be true -- with a little TLC, Herbie is running like new, and after showing his stuff in a street race, Maggie persuades her naysayer dad to take her and her VW on as part of his racing team. Herbie: Fully Loaded also stars Matt Dillon as rival racer Trip Murphy, Breckin Meyer as Maggie's brother (and fellow struggling driver) Ray Jr., and Justin Long as Maggie's friend Kevin. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide