Biff Manard Movies

An adolescent boy learns the importance of being careful what he wishes for after he meets a genie willing to grant him anything he desires. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Are you ready for a new kind of superhero -- a thirty-something virgin in long underwear? Darryl Walker (Damon Wayans) is a bright but socially inept man with a gift for inventing things but little skill for functioning in the real world. His brother Kevin (David Alan Grier) works on a low-class tabloid news show featuring beautiful anchorwoman Kimberley Jonz (Robin Givens), whom he secretly loves. The Walkers live in Metro City, Illinois, a city that's been hit with a massive crime wave after the mayor is kidnapped by gangsters. After his grandmother is killed, Darryl builds a collection of crime-fighting robots from household junk, invents bullet-proof long underwear (made from his grandmother's old housecoat), and becomes Metro City's newest crime fighter, Blankman. Blankman's escapades put fear into the heart of mob boss Michael Minelli (Jon Polito), and when Kevin turns out to have an inside track on Blankman's activities, it brings him closer to Kimberley. But how long can a superhero with no superpowers last against the forces of organized crime? Damon Wayans wrote the original story for Blankman as well as co-writing the screenplay and playing the title role, which was based in part on his "Handi-Man" character from the TV comedy series In Living Color. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Once again someone from the future has come back to create an army of Trancers, human zombies who do what they're told without question or pause. Now officer Jack Deth, a cop from the future stranded in the past, must once again go forth to stop them. This sci-fi action sequel chronicles his courageous actions as he struggles to save the future. His difficulties are compounded when his boss sends his first wife back from the future to help Deth who has unfortunately, married a 20th-century girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Upon learning that the late derelict Phil Sanders was actually an incognito Wall Street millionaire, Dan (John Larroquette) is thrilled with the news that he has been named sole heir in Phil's will. Unfortunately for Dan, Mr. Sanders' $8.5. million fortune is to be invested in its entirety in something called the Phil Foundation, for which Dan must serve as executor without ever seeing a penny of the money. Meanwhile, Bull (Richard Moll) eagerly anticipates the arrival of his mother Henrietta "Hank" Shannon (Paddi Edwards), who has dropped anchor in New York after a lifetime on the high seas. This episode was originally scheduled for January 23, 1990. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a group of former Cub Scouts (Louie Anderson, Richard Belzer, and Richard Lewis) get together for a reunion over twenty years later and land themselves in a mess of trouble when a deranged convict (John Goodman) takes them for FBI agents. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

With the whimsical tagline "Jack Deth is back and he's never been here before," director Charles Band melds Blade Runner, The Terminator, and Jingle All the Way for this low-budget science fiction adventure. The story takes place in Angel City in the year 2247, when enforcer Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) has just retired from the weekly grind after vanquishing villain Martin Whistler (Michael Stefani) and his roving cohorts, called "trancers." But Whistler and his trancers have gone back to Christmas 1985, with the insidious plan of exterminating the ruling council by killing off all the council members' ancestors. So Deth agrees to go back in time to get Whistler and the trancers all over again. To do so, he must transfer his memory into the body of one of his ancestors, who in this case has just had an erotic interlude with the perky and attractive Leena (Helen Hunt), who works as a Santa's elf at a shopping mall and gets to wear a skimpy, tight-fitting elf suit. Deth discovers that Whistler has taken over the body of the police inspector and has started transforming the Los Angeles population into trancers --including Santa Claus. With Leena's help, Deth sets out to even the score. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Off the Wall is a moderately funny comedy about two young men who end up in a Tennessee jail and then find romance and/or adventure from there. Randy (Patrick Cassidy) and Rico (Billy Hufsey) are hitchhiking through the South when they are picked up by the pretty daughter (Rosanna Arquette) of the governor of Tennessee. Through no fault of their own, the young woman abandons them after a car accident, and the two are put in jail for six months, where Randy falls for the warden's daughter Jennifer (Brianne Leary), and Rico comes to the attention of the jail's top wrestler. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

As if in some way Billy Wilder sensed that Buddy Buddy would ultimately turn out to be his final feature film, Wilder lets loose scatter-shot stingers at a wide range of pop-culture targets -- from sex clinics, to 60 Minutes, to movie references, to disco, to Betamax video recorders. Based on Francis Veber and Edouard Molinaro's L'emmerdeur (known in the United States as A Pain in the A. . .), Buddy Buddy concerns the unlikely pairing of a gruff hitman and a suicidal klutz. Walter Matthau plays a professional killer going by the name of Trabucco, who is on his way to rub out gangster Rudy "Disco" Gambola (Fil Formicola), set to testify against the mob. As Trabucco heads off to a hotel across the street from the courthouse where he plans to set his hit, he runs into the depressed Victor Clooney (Jack Lemmon), who laments the fact that his wife has left him for the head of a weird Californian sex clinic. Trabucco keeps walking and sets up his rifle in a hotel room. He is disturbed by Victor trying to hang himself in the adjoining hotel room and tries to prevent him from killing himself by restraining him, but Victor breaks loose and climbs onto the ledge of the hotel window. To get Victor to come back in, he agrees to drive him to the clinic to see his wife. The two go to the clinic where Victor's wife Celia (Paula Prentiss) informs Victor that she is in love in the head of the clinic, quack Dr. Zuckerbrot (Klaus Kinski). When Victor finds out that Celia is filing for divorce, he heads back to the hotel to kill himself, with Celia and Dr. Zuckerbrot in pursuit. Arriving at the hotel, they plan to inject Victor with a sedative but stick Trabucco with the needle instead. Trabucco reveals to Victor his assignment to kill Rudy, and Victor tries to help him with the killing. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Shanks is not so much a movie as an hallucinatory experience. World-renowned mime Marcel Marceau plays a dual role as a mute puppeteer and an eccentric inventor. The inventor dies, passing along his secrets for reviving corpses to the puppeteer. With the help of an enigmatic little girl, Marceau activates several dead bodies and goes on a robbery spree. Costarring with Marceau are fellow mime artists Tsilla Chelton and Phillipe Clay. Shanks had cult potential, but was released with a surprisingly lackluster ad campaign--all the more surprising in that the film was directed by that master huckster William Castle (whose last film this was). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Hackett guest-stars as Judith, the fiancee of a young pastor named Jess (James Booth). Blessed-or, perhaps, cursed-with the gift of clairvoyance, Judith is called in to locate a missing Jamie. But her intensely religious sweetheart does not want Judith to use her "special powers." Written by Arthur Weingarten and Suzanne Clauser, this episode, coupled with the earlier Bonanza installment "The Strange One," formed the plot basis for the 1989 TV special Bonanza: The Movie. Due to the religious beliefs of certain cable-network CEOs, "Second Sight" itself has not been seen much since its original airing on January 9, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The "amateur" in this Mission:Impossible adventure is greedy Iron Curtain nightclub owner Eric Schilling (Anthony Zerbe). Having come into possession of one of the pieces of a new secret weapon, Eric endangers the IMF's effort to smuggle the weapon--and resistance leader Father Bernard (Peter Brocco)--out of the country. To put Schilling out of the way, the IMF agents again resort to elaborate disguises, with Dana Lambert posing as a singer in the villain's seedy cabaret (as good an excuse as any to show off Lesley Ann Warren's musical talents). First broadcast November 14, 1970, "The Amateur" was written by Ed Adamson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide