Stacey Nelkin
A group of women reunite for a weekend of fun and bittersweet reflection in this drama, which has been described as a lesbian version of The Big Chill. Katie (Stacey Nelkin) was a member of a leftist street theater and political action group in the early '70s, and 14 years later, she and her lover Victoria (Monica Bell) invite several of their old friends, some of whom they haven't seen in 14 years, to celebrate the bris of their son Daniel (Katie was artificially inseminated, using sperm donated by Victoria's brother). Maria (Olivia Negron) is dealing with losing her children in a nasty custody battle following an ill-advised marriage, while Josie (Ellen McLaughlin), who was Maria's lover for years, never fully healed after their break up. Candy (Malindi Fickle), a successful businesswoman at 23, arrives on the arm of Katie's friend Luce (Andre Weber), a hard-drinking professional stuntwoman who blames herself for the death of her ex-girlfriend. Gina (Gabriella Messina), a tough-talking former prostitute and current folk singer, is quite attracted to Luce, but she can only express it with snide jokes and playful insults. Sarah (Carol Schneider) is the lone confirmed heterosexual of the group; she loves her husband and is happy with her career, but she is frustrated by her inability to have a child. Everything Relative was the debut feature for writer/director Sharon Pollack; Harvey Fierstein makes a cameo appearance as a rabbi. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ellen McLaughlin, Olivia Negron, (more)
Bullets Over Broadway is a Woody Allen romp that, as the title suggests, combines gangsters with show business at the height of the Roaring Twenties. David Shayne (John Cusack) is a straight-arrow playwright who plans to stand firm against compromising his work, but quickly abandons that stance when his producer (Jack Warden) finds a backer to mount his show on Broadway. There's just one catch, however: the backer is a mobster (Joe Viterelli) who sees Shayne's play as a vehicle for his dizzy, talent-free girlfriend, Olive (Jennifer Tilly). Shayne also has to deal with the demands of veteran theatre diva Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest) and is shocked to discover that Olive's hitman bodyguard, Cheech (Chazz Palminteri), is probably a better playwright than he is, as he secretly revises Shayne's work when he sits in on rehearsals. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cusack, Jack Warden, (more)
- 1992
- R
In this psycho thriller, Richard Sullivan is a mild-mannered, trusting ad-man who is tickled when his long lost cousin Harry suddenly shows up at his door. Harry is accompanied by Connie, his fiancee and the innocent Richard welcomes them into his happy home. Unfortunately, whereas Richard, his wife Kate and their son Alex live an idyllic existence, Harry and Connie's relationship is stormy and unstable. Connie constantly whines about wanting the perfect home, and both of them are intensely envious of the Sullivans. Their jealousy takes a darker turn when they try to become the Sullivans. First they begin undermining Richard and Kate's authority over Alex. Then Harry and Connie begin going through the couple's personal effects and files. Eventually, the spooky duo begins impersonating the Sullivans as much as they can. When Kate begins to get suspicious,the story takes a deadly turn for neither she nor Richard realize that they are dealing with cold-blooded, murderous psychopaths. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mel Harris, David Keith, (more)
- 1991
Don Rickles guest stars as Harold Schwan, a successful dry cleaner with more than his share of dirty laundry. Unbeknownst to Schwan, the gang of thieves who've been robbing his stores consists of his "three ex-es": his former wife, his former mistress and his former secretary. As for the ladies, they are blissfully unaware that they have stolen money that Schwan was laundering (no pun intended) for a mobster named Munks (Ron Karabatsos)--and that's how Hunter (Fred Dryer) gets involved in the intrigue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
The Speedy Delivery Company, a firm run by former Army pilot A.J. (Joseph Hacker) and his blind sister Lisa (Stacey Nelkin) is being forced out of business by a band of baddies led by Ike Hagen (Mitchell Ryan). When the A-Team arrives on the scene, they quickly deduce that Hagen is in league with crooked chemical company executive Durcell (Richard Herd) to set up a site where they can illegally dump toxic waste. Horror movie fans will enjoy the "teaming" of two veterans from the Halloween series, Mitchell Ryan (Dr. Wynn in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) and Stacey Nelkin (Ellie in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Ann Blyth guest stars as Franchesca Lodge, an old friend of mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury). Recently married to a much-younger man named Scott (Stacey Nelkin), Franchesca has been terrorized of late by what seems to be the ghost of her first husband. Since Franchesca has had a history of mental problems and profound lapses of memory, the authorities doubt her "haunting" story--and when her second husband is murdered, those same authorities jump to the conclusion that Franchesca has gone completely insane and committed murder. Jessica of course refuses to believe this, and thus does the sleuthing commence! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
Navin Johnson, the consummate idiot, returns in this remake of Steve Martin's popular 1979 film The Jerk. As in the first, Johnson, the lily white adoptee of a black sharecropper sets out across the country in search of true love. This version was designed as a pilot for a TV series that never materialized. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This colorful spoof of pirate movies had all the makings of a classic farce and yet sank straight to Davy Jones' locker at the box-office, for despite it's all-star international cast of famous comedians, and despite the fact that it was largely co-written by "Monty Python"-veteran Graham Chapman and former "Fringie" Peter Cook, the darned thing just wasn't funny. The sketches center around the core story of the dread pirate Yellowbeard's quest for a fabulous treasure, the map for which is tattooed on the head of his prissy son, who wants nothing to do with ships and pirate shenanigans. This was the final film of bug-eyed, beloved comedian Marty Feldman, who died of heart-failure before production finished. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Graham Chapman, Peter Boyle, (more)
In this made-for-TV comedy an unemployed stand-up comedian is tossed out by his girl friend and so gets a job driving a limo. He is still determined to win her back, and nothing, not even his inadvertent involvement with two hit men, will stop him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1983
- R
Director Allan Arkush knew whereof he spoke in Get Crazy. A longtime employee of Fillmore East, a popular rock-concert locale of the 1960s and 1970s, Arkush brought a great deal of insider's savvy to this comedy about the concert circuit and its denizens. Malcolm McDowell stars as a Mick Jagger-type rocker who is one of several acts lined up for a big New Years' Eve show. If villains Ed Begley Jr., Bobby Sherman and Fabian have their way, however, the show will never get off the ground. The supporting cast is dotted with such cult-flick icons as Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph and Mary Woronov. The musical portion of the program is handled by the likes of Malcolm McDowell, Lou Reed (as a Bob Dylan type) and Bill Henderson (as a Muddy Waters takeoff). In case it hasn't been made clear already, the main "joke" of Get Crazy is the presence in the cast of actors as musicians and musicians as actors; it is to the film's credit that this one joke never wears out its welcome. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Malcolm McDowell, Daniel Stern, (more)
- 1982
- R
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The only installment of the Halloween series to abandon the Michael Myers story line, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is an intricate sci-fi horror hybrid. A week before Halloween, an older man named Harry Grimbridge (Al Berry) is wounded by a mysteriously dispassionate group of assailants in an industrial parking lot. After receiving treatment at a local hospital from Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins) -- a hard-drinking divorced father of two -- Grimbridge is killed by an assassin who later sets himself on fire. Blowing off his own kids, Challis teams up with Grimbridge's daughter, Ellie (Stacey Nelkin), to find out why the middle-aged toy salesman was murdered. The duo's search soon leads them to a Halloween-mask factory run by inventor and practical joker Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy). In between bouts of passionate lovemaking, Ellie and Challis begin to realize that the sinister old businessman has something other than treats in mind for America's kids -- something to do with the Silver Shamrock masks that Challis' children and thousands of other youngsters have bought for the holiday. Original screenwriter Nigel Kneale, whose scripts for Britain's Quatermass TV series made him a beloved science fiction fixture, sued the producers of Halloween III to have his name removed from the credits after seeing the gory finished product; director Tommy Lee Wallace ultimately received screenplay credit. John Carpenter, director of the first Halloween film, co-produced the third installment with Debra Hill, who would later soldier on without Carpenter for additional, belated sequels. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, (more)
- 1981
- PG
In this comedy, the death of his rich father leaves Foster (Tony Danza) as the sole heir to a five-million-dollar estate -- if he can keep his dad's three pet orangutans safe and sound for the next five years. With the help of his disgruntled girlfriend (Stacey Nelkin), Foster must struggle keep the outrageous apes out of trouble. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Danza, Jessica Walter, (more)
- 1980
Originally made for television, the film concerns three divorces and the effect on the varied economic level present in each family. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Feldon, Greg Mullavey, (more)
A teen comedy that does not quite rise to the level of that age group, this uninspired story features Ron Liebman as the Major, a sadistic instructor at a military school. Ralph Macchio (before his 1984 hit, Karate Kid) and other teens of every stripe suffer through the indignities heaped on them by the Major and do their best with the sexual, ethnic, and racial stereotypes that the script gives them to handle. Robert Downey directs, Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses wrote the screenplay. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wendell Brown, Tom Citera, (more)
There are no cliff-hanging moments in Serial, but there's plenty of laughs in this trenchant comedy comment on 1970s lifestyles. Martin Mull plays the father of a Marin County family that succumbs to every silly fad coming down the pike. Mull tries to distance himself from his family's idiocies, but it's always the man who pays the piper. The film, based on a collection of newspaper essays by Cyra McFadden, is neatly tied up with a Capraesque ending allowing Mull to finally prevail. Some of the best moments involves Mull's tiltings with his trend-happy neighbor Bill Macy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Mull, Tuesday Weld, (more)
- 1979
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This made-for-television drama tells of an actual event in 1911 where 145 workers in the Triangle garment factory were killed in a huge industrial fire. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1979
- R
T.T. (Dennis Christopher), a Midwesterner, has traveled to the beaches of California for a dose of the surfin' life. He believes that the people he finds there are glamorous and knowledgeable. They reject his Midwestern nerdiness, make fun of him, and generally give him a hard time for not fitting in and wanting to. However, eventually he figures out that they are no wiser than he is, and that their lives are surprisingly empty. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glynnis O'Connor, Seymour Cassel, (more)
- 1978
Professor Patrick O'Neal packs his pipe and cardigan and walks out on wife Linda Lavin and daughter Kristy McNichol. Left with nothing but each other, Lavin and McNichol find themselves agreeing to disagree often as not. The principal bone of contention is the fact that Mom is dating again. McNichol disapproves of this, just as virulently as Lavin disapproves of her daughter imitating her own behavior. And that's how novelist Sheila Schwartz came up with the title Like Mom, Like Me, which was produced as a TV movie by onetime film star Nancy Malone. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
The Baldwin sisters are visited by their young cousin Mary Frances Conover (Stacey Nelkin), who has been living in a convent. When Jim-Bob (David W. Harper) falls in love with Mary Frances, she is faced with a tough decision: whether to return the boy's affections, or to remain faithful to her lifelong dream of becoming become a nun. Meanwhile, Ben hires a likeable new lumberyard worker named Beau (Bruce French), who is harboring a disturbing secret. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
