Jeremy Roberts Movies

Chevy Chase, star of National Lampoon's Vacation and its sequel, is back as the paterfamilias of the Griswold family (including Beverly D'Angelo as his missus) to skewer the Yuletide season. Chevy mugs, trips, falls, mashes his fingers and stubs his toes as he prepares to invite numerous dysfunctional relatives to his household to celebrate Christmas. Amidst the more outrageous sight gags (including the electrocution of a cat as the Christmas tree is lit) the film betrays a sentimental streak, with old wounds healing and long-estranged relatives reuniting in the Griswold living room. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was still capable of attracting an audience five years after its release: It was one of the top-rated seasonal TV specials of 1994, outrating even the first network telecast of It's a Wonderful Life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is summoned to the island retreat of her friend Henry Reynard (Gene Barry), a millionaire lumberman. Someone has threatened Henry's life, and he is convinced that the "someone" is a relative anxious to get his or her hands on the old man's millions. Upon her arrival, Jessica is told that Henry has already been killed--but as she soon finds out, appearances (and first impressions) can be very deceiving! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wes Craven wrote and directed this surrealistic horror-comedy, which was inspired by a true story of parents keeping their children locked in a basement for years. Fool (Brandon Adams), an African-American teen, breaks into the home of the wealthy landlords who evicted his family from a ghetto tenement. A fortune in gold coins is rumored to exist inside, but Fool discovers that the mansion is a chamber of horrors presided over by a pair of incestuous, serial killer siblings (Everett McGill and Wendy Robie). The twisted couple has also tried to raise a succession of kidnapped boys. Each botched effort is handled the same way -- the victim's eyes, ears and tongues are removed, and he's sent to live in the sealed-off basement, where a colony of similarly deformed "brothers" resides. Fool is able to avoid the evil lovers as he moves through the house's maze of hidden passageways. He discovers that the occupants have a daughter, Alice (A.J. Langer), who has survived their abuse, so he rescues her and they attempt to free the "people under the stairs." Adams, who made his feature debut with in film, was familiar to viewers as the star of rock singer Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (1988). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A husband-wife team of criminals specializes in luring gullible tourists to their hotel room, then robbing them. When one such tourist turns up murdered, it looks as if the couple is guilty, but police detective Rick Hunter (Fred Dryer) suspects that there is a pair of copycat crooks on the loose. This theory is, however, hotly refuted by Hunter's current partner Al Novak (Robin Thomas)--who happens to be the ex-husband of officer Chris Novak (Lauren Lane). All too aware of the past relationship between Rick and Chris, Al allows his anger to cloud his judgement, with potentially disastrous results for everyone concerned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

W.D. Richter directed this comedy-drama in the spirit of Back to the Future and Peggy Sue Got Married. The film opens in Santa Fe in 1962, where Willie (Brian Wimmer) and Joy Husband (Marcia Gay Harden) are a cute couple living in familial bliss with their five-year-old daughter. When evil land-developer Bob Freeman (Peter Gallagher) tries to turn their bliss into blight, a gun goes off and Willie flees to Los Angeles with his dim-witted brother-in-law Frank (Peter Berg), convinced he has committed murder. They run into crazed scientist Dr. Chilblains (Bo Brundin), who cryogenically freezes the fugitives. Twenty-nine years later they are defrosted, and Willie, who has only aged a day, goes back to Santa Fe with Frank to seek out his wife and daughter, discovering they have aged and gone on with their lives without him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Neil Simon forgoes his typical urban East Coast kvetchers and replaces them with sunny Californian kvetchers in The Marrying Man, a film which became a beacon of gossip in 1991 due to the alleged shenanigans of stars Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger), who fell in love during production. Simon based his script on a true story concerning the love affair between shoe tycoon Harry Karl and actress Marie (The Body) McDonald during the 1950s. Married to each other four times, McDonald still managed to carry on an affair with mobster Bugsy Siegel. In this Simon-ized version, Baldwin plays Charley Pearl, a sharp and handsome Hollywood millionaire, engaged to Adele Horner (Elisabeth Shue), the daughter of dyspeptic movie studio executive Lew Horner (Robert Loggia). The day before their wedding, Charley heads off to Las Vegas for a bachelor party, and in a sleazy casino on the outskirts of town, he sets his eyes on sexy singer Vicki Anderson (Basinger) and falls for her hard. He wants her immediately and even though she warns him she's the property of Bugsy Siegel (Armand Assante), he crawls into her bedroom window to be with her. Caught with his pants down by Siegel, Bugsy, instead of killing him, forces him to marry Vicki ("I was about to dump her anyway," he says). But after their marriage, Charley and Vicki discover they're more attracted to the danger of their relationship than in each other. Charley's friends -- Phil (Paul Reiser), Sammy (Fisher Stevens), Tony (Peter Dobson), and George (Steve Hytner) -- form a Greek chorus commenting on the crazed love affair and are reportedly inspired by Phil Silvers, Sammy Cahn, Tony Martin, and Leo Durocher. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Hyperactive mayhem results when a mild-manned banker discovers an ancient mask that transforms him into a zany prankster with superhuman powers in this special-effects-intensive comedy. The wildly improvisational Jim Carrey plays Stanley Ipkiss, a decent-hearted but socially awkward guy who one night finds a strange mask. Carrey's trademark energy reveals itself after Stanley puts on the mask and the banker transforms into The Mask, a green-skinned, zoot-suited fireball. The rubber-faced Mask possesses the courage to do the wild, fun things that Stanley fears, including romancing Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz). In addition to Carrey's physical talents, the film makes effective use of digital visual effects that bestow the Mask with superhuman speed, insane flexibility, and popping eyes out of a Tex Avery cartoon. The larger narrative, involving the efforts of Tina's gangster boyfriend to destroy Stanley and use the mask's powers for evil, prove less interesting than the anarchic comic set pieces, including a particularly memorable dance number to "Cuban Pete." The film delivered enough laughs to become a surprise hit and, along with the same year's Dumb and Dumber, establish Carrey's status as a comedy superstar. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

A reporter discovers both his writing and his sexual appetites can have deadly consequences in the thriller No Strings Attached. Vincent Spano plays Mark Demetrius, a journalist who is pressuring his editor, Elliot (Michael McKean), to run an investigative piece he's written on a psychiatrist with some very nasty habits. It seems one Dr. Singer (David Ackroyd) has a history of getting female patients addicted to drugs and then abusing them sexually. Elliot is reluctant to run the story, fearing legal reprisals, but agrees under the condition that Mark help him out by writing a puff piece on women's sexual fantasies. The magazine has set up a phone line for women to call in and discuss their desires, and one day Mark takes a call from Nicole (Cheryl Pollak). Mark becomes fascinated with Nicole, and is obsessed with meeting her, despite a happy, long-term relationship with his fiancée Sarah (Traci Lind). Mark eventually meets Nicole and she seduces him (not that he minds), but Mark soon discovers Nicole is not all she seems to be as his life and career are both placed in grave danger. Displaying a bit more style and smarts than the average erotic thriller, No Strings Attached was directed by Josef Rusnak, who later went on to make The Thirteenth Floor. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In the third-season opener of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) is sailing to Sparta with a prisoner: the mercenary Derk (Jeremy Roberts), slated to stand trial for murder. En route, Hercules and Derk are shipwrecked on an unchartered island where the captor and captive spend the next several minutes setting traps for one another. The two antagonists are ultimately forced to band together when they are menaced by a cutthroat pirate gang -- not to mention a gigantic wormlike monster with a taste for human flesh. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, the low-budget, black-and-white thriller Running Time was edited to disguise its cuts, giving the illusion that the film takes place in real time. Cult hero Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead) stars as Carl. As the film starts, Carl is getting out of prison, and he tells the warden (veteran character actor Art La Fleur) that he plans to go into the laundry business, which he learned while working in the prison. Carl's old high school football buddy and literal partner-in-crime Patrick (Jeremy Roberts) picks him up outside the gates with a hooker in the back of his van. Things take an awkward turn when the hooker turns out to be Janie (Anita Barone), whom Carl dated and unceremoniously dumped in high school. After hitting it off and patching it up with her, Carl and Patrick head straight to their planned heist -- robbing the warden's laundry business. Along the way, they pick up their safecracker, Buzz (Stan Davis), Carl's prison buddy, and their driver. Carl is dismayed to find that Patrick has hired Donny (Gordon Jennison), a junkie with poor social skills, to drive for them. Their robbery plot goes awry when Buzz finds out that the warden replaced his safe while Patrick was supposed to be casing the office. During the delay, Patrick bickers with Carl, and there's unnecessary bloodshed. To make matters worse, the payload turns out to be far less than expected, Donny is nowhere to be found, and the police are on their tail. Wounded and desperate, Carl makes plans to meet up with Patrick at Janie's apartment. Writer/director Josh Becker shot Running Time on 16 mm, in sequence, in ten days. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

The four Sliders arrive on an Alternate Earth ruled by the Stompers, a high-tech Nazilike organization dedicated to "Racial Repatriation" (the leader is Governor Shick--as in "Schickelgruber", a.k.a. Hitler). As a black man, Rembrandt (Cleavant Derricks) is unable to elude detection, and is soon shipped off to what is euphemistically called a Detention Camp. In their efforts to save Remmy, the other Sliders can find no one willing to break ranks with the powers-that-be: everyone adores the Stompers for revitalizing the economy by creating faceless android workers called "Eddies"--who, as Remmy learns to his horror, aren't quite the soulless machines they appear to be. (Incidentally, this is series regular Cleavant Derricks' favorite Sliders episode.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide