Aaron Lustig Movies

A mugshot for a criminal who looks just like Willie (Max Wright) is briefly flashed on a TV "crimestoppers" program. Since a huge reward has been posted for the lookalike, ALF appoints himself Willie's protector--and, accordingly, his blamed when the cops arrest Willie, even though next-door-neighbor Trevor (John LaMotta is to blame. A young David Alan Grier appears as an FBI agent. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Paull Hipp plays "Dangerous" Dan O'Dare an entertaining radio host who gets locked up in the station's control room when an alien being takes over the broadcast. The being starts mesmerizing attractive female listeners with jivy tunes and then uses some sort of transmission contraption to shrink the listening lasses and transport them to the station, where they're placed in foot-high bottles. Apparently, he intends to take them back with him to wherever he came from. While all this goes on, the locked up DJ O'Dare is broadcasting the goings-on, but everybody listening thinks its another of the over-the-airwaves pranks that he's famous for. When a TV reporter named Lisa (Martha Quinn) shows up, the alien wants to bottle her up too, but O'Dare sees how the alien does it, and figures out a way to thwart his kidnapping scheme. ~ Rovi

Originally telecast in two parts, Blind Faith was adapted from a fact-based book by investigative author Joe McGinniss. The scene is Toms River, New Jersey; the year is 1984. Insurance salesman Rob Marshall (Robert Urich) informs the authorities that his wife Maria (Joanna Kerns) has been murdered by a band of marauding thieves. Marshall claims that he and his wife were ambushed at a remote picnic area, and for a while everyone believes the man. But further investigation leads to the conclusion that Maria was the victim of a murder conspiracy, fomented by Marshall himself in order collect his wife's insurance. The climactic trial forces Marshall's three teenaged sons to bear witness against their own father. With grim irony, Blind Faith was first broadcast just before Valentine's Day, 1990. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This emotion-filled story stars Whoopi Goldberg, Mary-Louise Parker, and Drew Barrymore as three women from different walks of life who find comfort in each other through tragedy. Parker plays Robin, an HIV-positive real estate executive who meets Jane (Goldberg), a lesbian lounge singer on her way to the West Coast who needs a driver. Robin volunteers for the job, and along the way, they stop in Pittsburgh to visit her friend Holly (Barrymore), who is pregnant and abused by her boyfriend. In an attempt to save Holly, all three decide to head West together to begin a new life. But they get only as far as Arizona before Robin falls ill and the three are forced to learn to rely on one another for growth and emotional sustenance. Jane, though concerned about Robin's condition, also finds herself with a romantic interest in her ailing companion. Holly confronts her need to be with abusive men, while Robin comes to grips with her fear of being alone and the realization of her own impending death. Fans of Herbert Ross' earlier Steel Magnolias (1989) might appreciate this movie, which tackles some of the same themes. Sometimes referred to as a "feminist road movie," the film deals with women who find one another in a time of crisis and realize that the bonds among women are more powerful than any of life's obstacles. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

This is the third film based on Tom Clancy's high-tech espionage potboilers starring CIA deputy director Jack Ryan. Harrison Ford, returning to the Ryan role after his first go-round in 1992's Patriot Games, is assigned to a delicate anti-drug investigation after a close friend of the President (a Reaganesque Donald Moffat) is murdered by a Colombian drug cartel. When Ryan discovers that the President's wealthy friend was in league with the cartel, the President's devious national security adviser (Harris Yulin) and an ambitious CIA deputy director (Henry Czerny) send a secret paramilitary force into Colombia to wipe out the drug lords. The force is captured and then abandoned by the President's lackeys. It falls to Ryan to enter Colombia and rescue them, aided only by a renegade operative named Clark (Willem Dafoe), with both his life and career on the line. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

Director Todd Phillips re-teams with his break-out Hangover star Zach Galifianakis for this road movie concerning a soon-to-be father (played by Robert Downey Jr.) and his cross-country trip to make it back in time for his baby's birth -- with the only roadblock being the dubious passenger (Galifianakis) who's along for the ride. Michelle Monaghan and Jamie Foxx co-star in the Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

This made-for-television thriller tells the story of an unstable woman who goes to bizarre lengths to keep her drifting lover. Kate Jackson stars as Rita Donohue, a nurse who believes that she can re-ignite her disinterested lover's passion by having a child. Unable to have a child of her own, Rita plots to snatch an infant from her hospital's maternity ward to later pass off as her own. She feigns a pregnancy, switches records on a stillborn and healthy child, and then steals a baby from new mother Jane Morgan (Lori Loughlin) in order to support her charade. The plan goes sour though, when Jane refuses to accept the hospital's claim that her child died, and she investigates the unsettling clues on her own. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

Ghostbusters
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson star as a quartet of Manhattan-based "paranormal investigators". When their government grants run out, the former three go into business as The Ghostbusters, later hiring Hudson on. Armed with electronic paraphernalia, the team is spectacularly successful, ridding The Big Apple of dozens of ghoulies, ghosties and long-legged beasties. Tight-lipped bureaucrat William Atherton regards the Ghostbusters as a bunch of charlatans, but is forced to eat his words when New York is besieged by an army of unfriendly spirits, conjured up by a long-dead Babylonian demon and "channelled" through beautiful cellist Sigourney Weaver and nerdish Rick Moranis. The climax is a glorious sendup of every Godzilla movie ever made-and we daresay it cost more than a year's worth of Japanese monster flicks combined. Who'd ever dream that the chubby, cheery Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man would turn out to be the most malevolent threat ever faced by New York City? When the script for Ghostbusters was forged by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, John Belushi was slated to play the Bill Murray role; Belushi's death in 1982 not only necessitated the hiring of Murray, but also an extensive rewrite. The most expensive comedy made up to 1984, Ghostbusters made money hand over fist, spawning not only a 1989 sequel but also two animated TV series (one of them partially based on an earlier live-action TV weekly, titled The Ghost Busters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ghostbusters 2
Ivan Reitman's sequel to the phenomenally successful Ghostbusters is looser and more self-assured than the original. The film opens with a title reading "Five Years Later" and finds the ghostbusters living in hard times. A restraining order has forbidden the boys to partake in paranormal warfare, and as a result they have had to seek other lines of work. Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) spend their time performing at children's' birthday parties, and Egon (Harold Ramis) is busy conducting experiments investigating the effect of human emotions on the environment, leaving ghostbusting behind. Venkman (Bill Murray) and Dana (Sigourney Weaver) have split up. Venkman now hosts a local cable show called "The World of the Psychic." Dana, now divorced and the mother of a little baby named Oscar, works as an art restorer in a museum -- and this is where the plot kicks in. While Dana is restoring a portrait of a 16th-century tyrant by the name of Vigo the Carpathian, the portrait becomes hexed. The evil Vigo wants to return to life by taking over the body of Dana's little child. Vigo has enlisted Dana's boss, Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol), to compel Dana to cooperate. Soon dirty sludge and slime flow through the streets of Manhattan, and the ghostbusters have to reunite to save the city from a funky paranormal evil. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

James L. Brooks' showbiz comedy I'll Do Anything is "The Musical That Almost Was" (after test screenings Brooks removed all the musical numbers in the film, turning the film into a songless romantic comedy). Matt Hobbs (Nick Nolte) is a hardly working actor who finds himself raising his 6-year-old daughter Jeannie (Whittni Wright) after her mother Beth (Tracey Ullman) is sent away to prison. Since Matt now has to support a daughter, he has to develop more regular work habits. As a result, he takes a job as a chauffeur for a William Castle-inspired schlockmeister named Burke Adler (Albert Brooks). As Adler develops a relationship with divorced test-marketing researcher Nan Mulhanney (Julie Kavner), Matt becomes romantically attached to beautiful development executive Cathy Breslow (Joely Richardson). ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Also known as "Married. . .With Children: The Musical", this episode gets under way when a financially strapped Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) wins a first-class plane ticket to Hawaii in a shoe-selling contest. Quick to cash in on this windfall, the Bundys convert the ticket into four standbys and spend most of their "vacation" disguised as rock stars (it's "Axel" Bundy, dammit!) and lollygagging around in the airport's VIP lodge with several veteran musicians. Appearing as themselves are John Sebastian of The Lovin' Spoonful, Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders, Robbie Krieger of The Doors, and Richie Havens and Spencer Davis. Song: "Old Aid". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Chevy Chase stars, though not always visibly, as Nick Halloway, a low-level businessman with an acerbic approach to life and work, whose humdrum existence utterly bores him. Nick gets an unexpected jolt of excitement when, nursing a hangover, he's the only one not to evacuate an office building that becomes a disaster area after a mishap involving nuclear testing equipment. An unexpected by-product of the accident is that it turns the molecules of the building, as well as Nick and the clothes he's wearing, transparent. When a team of shady government agents, led by David Jenkins (Sam Neill), notices that a human has been turned invisible, they try to take him into custody, planning to use him as the most dangerous secret intelligence agent the world has ever known. Distrusting their motives, the frantic and confused Nick escapes, and quickly begins learning new information about his unusual condition, such pragmatic details as trying to sleep when he can see through his eyelids and any unprocessed food he eats will give him away. Soon, however, he discovers that the scientist in charge of the experiments (Jim Norton) has no idea how to return him to normal, and begins plotting how best to live a semblance of a normal life while steering clear of his pursuers. Nick involves a beautiful woman he met the night before the accident (Daryl Hannah) in his dilemma, and soon she too becomes a target. Memoirs of an Invisible Man was adapted from a book by H.F. Saint. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi

A young girl secretly adopts a runaway monkey only to have to deal with the simian's mischief-making tendencies in this family comedy. Young Eva (Thora Birch)'s dreams of having a pet are frustrated by the objections of her mother (Mimi Rogers) and allergic stepfather (Christopher McDonald). When she finds a stray capuchin monkey, she cannot resist it, and she keeps the animal -- which she names Dodger -- hidden in her room. Eva doesn't know that Dodger has just escaped from an evil organ grinder named Azro (Harvey Keitel, playing a regrettable Gypsy stereotype), who had trained the monkey to become an accomplished pickpocket. Old habits prove hard to break, and Dodger begins stealing everything in sight, landing Eva in plenty of trouble. Her problems are only compounded by the actions of the unscrupulous Azro, who wants to find Dodger and use him as part of an important robbery. The standard misunderstandings and slapstick comedy ensue, with the spunky Eva struggling to protect her new pet and herself. While probably too predictable to appeal to many adults, Monkey Trouble's skillful animal antics and resourceful young heroine may prove entertaining to youngsters. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi

Among the suspects in a nurse's murder are an actor, a mentally unbalanced man -- and, even more disturbingly, the police officer (Michael Wiseman) investigating the case. In another development, a "good samaritan" bike messenger is killed after stumbling onto a cache of drugs; this time out, it is Jill (Andrea Thompson) who cracks the case. And despite his doctor's advice, Andy (Dennis Franz) refuses to confront the seriousness of his medical condition. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi