Cynthia Stevenson Movies
Dark-haired and petite American comic actress Cynthia Stevenson first made a name for herself appearing on various television shows during the 1980s. On television she was typically cast as flighty somewhat forgetful optimists. In 1990, Stevenson was the host of the unsuccessful syndicated My Talk Show, a parody of talk shows in which she interviewed unknown celebrities in her living room. The show only lasted three months and nearly led Stevenson to leave acting. Then Robert Altman cast her as Bonnie Sherow in The Player. After that she won the second lead in Bob, a television sitcom starring Bob Newhart. Despite favorable critical reviews, the show only briefly aired. More sporadic film and television work followed until 1995, when Stevenson's career finally took flight and she appeared in three major feature films, including Live Nude Girls. As icing on the cake, she also landed the role of Gloria on the television sitcom Hope & Gloria. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1989
Soft-hearted Norm (George Wendt) is unable to issue orders to his painting crew. At the suggestion of Frasier (Kelsey Grammer), Norm invents a nasty, disciplinarian "partner" to keep his crew in line. Meanwhile, Sam (Ted Danson) agonizes over his decision to sell his precious Corvette so he can afford to repurchase Cheers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Norm (George Wendt) is unable to convince his adoring secretary Doris (Cynthia Stevenson) that he isn't interested in her -- not even when he fires the woman. Hoping to take advantage of Doris' passion, Cliff (John Ratzenberger) manages to get himself in deep doo-doo. Elsewhere, Woody's (Woody Harrelson) lucky streak continues -- and what's the "surprise" hidden in the executive desk that Robin gave Rebecca (Kirstie Alley)? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Comic actress Jackee serves double duty in this made-for-TV comedy. A top female FBI agent is injured in the midst of an important assignment, and a look-alike replacement is needed in short order, so her superiors are forced to enlist her identical twin sister for the job. Unfortunately, she lacks her sister's skills as a crime fighter, and the bulk of her work experience is as a waitress; will she be able to save the day? Also screened as Double Your Pleasure, The Reluctant Agent co-stars Dan Hedaya, Richard Lawson, and Cynthia Stevenson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackée, Dan Hedaya, (more)
Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a disgruntled writer because he has committed the ultimate Hollywood sin -- he promised the writer he would call him back and he never did. This is particularly ironic because the studio executive, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), is considered "writer-friendly," spending his days listening to pitches from such noted screenwriters as Buck Henry, who is pushing "The Graduate, Part II" and Alan Rudolph, who is hawking a Bruce Willis action film described as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." But The Player finds Griffin's comfortable life style in danger of collapse. He is trying to find a way to unload his girlfriend (Cynthia Stevenson) whose independence and intelligence make her a poor candidate for a trophy wife. More importantly, it seems that Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), a slippery executive from Twentieth Century Fox, is angling for his job. And then there are those nasty postcards and faxes from a screenwriter threatening to kill him. Altman cast over 65 stars in cameo roles as texture for his scabrous tale. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, (more)
- 1993
- R
In Watch It, Peter Gallagher plays a drifter who comes back to Chicago and moves in with his cousin (Jon Tenney) in an attempt to make amends. Soon, the cousins have patched things up, and the duo become involved in a series of complicated practical jokes with Tenney's housemates. Things turn sour when Gallagher falls in love with his cousin's girlfriend (Suzy Amis), and one of the cousins is forced to grow up and make a commitment to an adult relationship. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Gallagher, Suzy Amis, (more)
It's been said that while most people love their families, they don't always like them very much, and that emotional dividing line is the heart of this comedy directed by Jodie Foster. Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) usually approaches family reunions with a certain trepidation, but as she prepares to fly from her home in Chicago to her parent's place in Baltimore for Thanksgiving, she is more apprehensive than usual. Claudia has just lost her job, she's not feeling at all well, and her teenage daughter, Kitt (Claire Danes), who is staying behind, informs Claudia on the way to the airport that she plans to use the weekend to lose her virginity with her boyfriend. The family festivities are already under way when Claudia arrives at the home of her mother, Adele (Anne Bancroft), and father, Henry (Charles Durning). Claudia's brother, Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.), whose homosexuality is tolerated without being discussed on a practical basis, has brought along his new friend Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott). Tommy doesn't get along well with his fussbudget sister, Joanne (Cynthia Stevenson), who wears her self-sacrifice like a badge of honor, and he simply hates her husband, Walter (Steve Guttenberg), who has often been the target of Tommy's barbed sense of humor. While the siblings and in-laws struggle to remain civil, their quite eccentric aunt Gladys (Geraldine Chaplin) arrives; she insists on discussing her digestive problems, and after a few drinks, she confesses her long-ago lust for Henry. Home for the Holidays was Jodie Foster's second film as a director, and the first in which she didn't also star. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Holly Hunter, Robert Downey, Jr., (more)
A group of women gather together for a bachelorette party in this comedy. They have come to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Jamie, a somewhat famous actress who has been married several times. She is being particularly dramatic and the gathering at Georgina's restaurant becomes somewhat serious as the women share their pain, their sexual fantasies and their problems. Among the guests are the gossipy Jill who enjoys baiting her ever-vulnerable sister Rachel; Marcy, who is involved with an abusive and insanely jealous man, and the chronically depressed Chris who lives with her lover Georgina. The bride is worried because her groom is having a stripper at his party, and lesbian Georgina worries because she has been secretly lusting after her male sous chef. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Delany, Kim Cattrall, (more)
Actor Billy Crystal co-wrote, directed, and starred in this romantic comedy. Forty-something couple Andy (Joe Mantegna) and Liz (Cynthia Stevenson) are about to be married, and as they gather with their friends for dinner not long before the wedding, they are told the story of their mutual friends Mickey (Billy Crystal) and Ellen (Debra Winger) as a cautionary tale of where a relationship can go wrong. Mickey is a top referee with the NBA who has traveled to Paris to bury his father, who wanted to be laid to rest with his Army buddies from World War II. The body is somehow lost in transit, and Mickey has an argument with Ellen, who works for an American airline in France. However, she likes his sense of humor, he is taken with her, and after a few days together in Paris, they decide to marry. However, once they return to Mickey's home in the United States, things get complicated; she's not so sure that she cares for his bachelor apartment ("a shrine to watching ESPN"), or juggling her career against his, while both have problems with their respective families. Several major basketball stars and sports figures appear in Forget Paris as themselves, including Charles Barkley, Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Marv Albert. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Billy Crystal, Debra Winger, (more)
- 1998
This TV comedy series on the challenges of single motherhood recounts semi-autobiographical events in the life of the series' executive producer-creator Susan Beavers, who scripted the premiere episode. Software company exec (Cynthia Stevenson) can't get a commitment from her longtime boyfriend Grant (Daniel Hugh Kelly). Minus a mate, she chose to be artificially inseminated. The sitcom set-up here features Tracy employing a remote and a video monitor while she narrates past events leading up to her decision, telling the viewer, "I convinced the network to give me 22 minutes to prove to them that you could care about me and my story." Thus, videotapes recap the advance suggestion of menopause by her gynecologist, the turquoise three-year anniversary ring from Grant, and scenes of her best friend, twice-divorced company shrink Charlotte (Joanna Gleason), also a single mother. Tracy can't fit it all into the necessary 22 minutes, so she tells viewers, "We only have about nine minutes left, so I'm going to just fast-forward right to my nervous breakdown." Filmed in LA, the series premiered August 18, 1998 on Lifetime. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cynthia Stevenson, Joanna Gleason, (more)
In this family canine comedy, a sequel to Air Bud (1997), Josh Framm (Kevin Zegers) finds it a problem when his widowed mother, Jackie (Cynthia Stevenson), starts seeing the community's new veterinarian, Patrick Sullivan (Gregory Harrison). Sullivan gives a football to Josh's golden retriever Buddy, and the athletic animal is soon girding for the gridiron. Coach Fanelli (Robert Costanzo) adds Josh as back-up quarterback to the jr. high team, and an accident takes Josh off the bench and onto the field. Meanwhile, two devious dognappers (Nora Dunn, Perry Anzilotti) see news footage of Buddy playing basketball and make plans to spirit him away to a Russian circus. Four dogs performed the tricks seen here. The character of Air Bud was created by Kevin DiCicco, but Buddy died not long after the first movie. The original basketball-shooting Buddy, a popular half-time attraction prior to the first film, achieved a lifetime total of some 22,000 baskets. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Zegers, Cynthia Stevenson, (more)
After his 1995 breakthrough, Welcome to the Dollhouse, director Todd Solondz was courted by a number of studios to make a big-budget film with top stars. Instead, he chose to make this aggressively dark comedy-drama of perversions and twisted lives. Andy Kornbluth (Jon Lovitz) explodes with anger after rejection in a restaurant from Joy Jordan (Jane Adams), one of a trio of middle-class New Jersey sisters. Joy's sister Trish (Cynthia Stevenson), a housewife with three kids, is married to psychiatrist Bill (Dylan Baker), who counsels the lonely, overweight Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Allen is obsessed with Joy's other sister, the successful poet Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), all the while ignoring the attentions of his seemingly sweet yet overweight neighbor Kristina (Camryn Manheim). Bill has fantasies of turning an assault rifle on families in a park, masturbates to teen magazine photos, and develops an unhealthy interest in a classmate of his 11-year-old son, Billy (Rufus Read). After a telephone sales job, Joy moves on to substitute teach at an adult education class, where she falls prey to the advances of an insensitive cabdriver, Vlad (Jared Harris). Allen's series of obscene phone calls to Helen come to an end when she challenges him to come next door and carry out his sexual threats. Meanwhile, the sisters' parents, Lenny and Mona Jordan (Ben Gazzara and Louise Lasser), find their marriage collapsing after 40 years. Lenny has sparked the interest of divorcée Diane Freed (Elizabeth Ashley), but he actually would prefer to be alone. The path to happiness, it seems, is littered with dreams, despair, and abnormalities. Winner of the International Critics' prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, Happiness met with much controversy both in pre-production and upon its release, as chronicled in producer Christine Vachon's book Shooting to Kill. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Adams, Dylan Baker, (more)
- 1998
In the series pilot, Ally (Calista Flockhart) goes to work for a former classmate (Greg Germann). ~ TV Guide, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Calista Flockhart, Courtney Thorne-Smith, (more)
With her older brother, Josh (Kevin Zegers), off at college, and her yuppie parents (Richard Karn and Cynthia Stevenson) obsessed with the new baby, young Andrea Framm (Caitlin Wachs) joins the junior high baseball team to escape the tedium of her home life. She's not very good, but luckily her sports-inclined golden retriever, Buddy, is a natural. Buddy also makes the team and becomes the star player. When the team gets into the championship game, a pair of zany scientists traveling in a laboratory inside a mobile home kidnap the pooch and his offspring in the interest of their experiments to clone sports-prone animals. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Caitlin Wachs, Cynthia Stevenson, (more)
A teen learns that all the gadgets in the world can't help him overcome his awkwardness around the opposite sex in this big-budget family entertainment. In Agent Cody Banks, Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz plays a young man plucked from suburban obscurity to be trained as a CIA super-agent. His mission? Get friendly with his classmate Natalie (played by another teen TV star, Lizzie McGuire's Hilary Duff) so that he can uncover her father's diabolical scheme to create indestructible robots. To compound his problems, Cody also has to deal with the same stresses as any adolescent: nagging parents, insufferable classwork, and a fragile sense of self-esteem. Agent Cody Banks was produced by MGM, not coincidentally the studio responsible for another popular spy franchise, the venerable James Bond series. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frankie Muniz, Hilary Duff, (more)
Untimely ripped from the land of the living by a stray piece of bathroom porcelain from the MIR space station, teenaged girl George Lass (Ellen Muth) joins several other disgruntled decedents in pursuing her heavenly job of "reaper," helping ordinary mortals pass from this life to the next with comfort and dignity in the first season of Dead Like Me. In many of the early episodes, George eavesdrops to see how her highly dysfunctional family is bearing up under the weight of losing her. Otherwise, she is hard at work fulfilling the assignments given her by her celestial supervisor, Rube (Mandy Patinkin). In the opening two-hour episode, the newly dead George is told that she has been chosen to be a "reaper" -- and also learns to her chagrin that, in death, she has become famous as "The Toilet Seat Girl." Later on, she tries to wriggle out of her reaper duties, only to discover that if she doesn't follow the rules, dire consequences will befall those who are about to die. Also, she finds out that she still has certain "mortal" emotions intact when she becomes close to a fellow reaper named Betty (Rebecca Gayheart), and when she falls in love with a living schizophrenic whose disease allows him to see her even though he's not "due" yet. Additionally, she must suffer the intrusion of obstreperous new reaper Daisy Adair (Laura Harris), who is briefly her "roommate." Finally, she is made aware that a reaper's job is never done when, on a day that no one dies, she is swamped with heavenly paperwork. At end of the first season, George finds herself on the verge of losing her office "day job" at Happy Time Temp Agency. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ellen Muth, Mandy Patinkin, (more)
Mike Southon's Air Bud Spikes Back brings the gifted athlete and golden retriever Buddy back for more action. Buddy excels at the sport of beach volleyball. But in between his domination of the court, Buddy must help solve a series of crimes that evidence suggests he himself has committed. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katija Pevec, Jake D. Smith, (more)
Surly 18-year-old "reaper" George Lass (Ellen Muth) reluctantly continues to pursue her afterlife job -- helping souls who are about to die make a peaceful and dignified transition to the next world -- in the second season of the darkly humorous Dead Like Me. As the season opens, George concludes that her day job at Happy Time Temp Agency may not be so bad when she meets novice office worker Brennan (Steven Grayhm) -- this despite the fact that her previous attempts at romance in the afterlife have not ended too happily. Later on, George is dragged off to Happy Time's annual woodland retreat, just as her fellow reaper Mason (Callum Blue) loses the Post-It note with the name of the next soul he is slated to reap. In another episode, George excitedly prepares for her first "VIP reap" when a rock star is due to shuffle off the ol' mortal coil. And later still, our heroine develops a crush on the son of her newest reap-ee, which puts her in a funk when she realizes that she will soon have to break the heart she is so desperate to win. The season-two conclusion is "Haunted," a Halloween episode in which the reapers try to take advantage of an old legend so that they will appear to the living as they were when they were alive (since they normally appear to be different people in the afterlife). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ellen Muth, Mandy Patinkin, (more)
- 2004
- PG
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Fifteen-year-old CIA operative Cody Banks (played by Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz) is back in action in this comedy adventure, which sends the youthful secret agent to Old Blighty. Banks returns to Kamp Woody, the CIA training center disguised as a summer camp, where he's given a new partner, the bumbling but sharp-witted Derek (Anthony Anderson), and a new assignment, to track down a sinister double-agent who has made off with an experimental mind-control machine. The villain has made his way to Great Britain, so Banks is enrolled in an upscale private school in England, where he's forced to join the school band despite his lack of musical talent and finds himself working alongside Emily (Hannah Spearritt), a fellow teenage espionage agent. Keith David, Daniel Roebuck, and Cynthia Stevenson all return from the first film, while British filmmaker Kevin Allen takes over as director. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frankie Muniz, Anthony Anderson, (more)
A man seeks to unlock the mysteries of his family's tragic past in this drama. Zach Riley (Aaron Eckhart) is a psychiatrist who has resigned a prestigious position at a major university to take a job at the Millwood Clinic, a private residential facility run by one Dr. Reed (William Hurt). Riley tells Reed he was inspired to come to Millwood by the case of a family friend who was a patient there years before, but what Riley doesn't mention is the person in question was his father, T.L. Pierson (Nick Nolte), a successful but reclusive children's author whose book "Neverwas" became a remarkable critical and popular success. For all his talent and success, Pierson was haunted by mental illness and drug addiction, and after leaving Millwood he committed suicide, with young Zach finding the body. Ever since, his mother (Jessica Lange) has been bitter and blamed Zach for Pierson's death, and he's come to Millbrook looking for answers and closure regarding his dad. While working with the patients at Millwood, Riley strikes up a friendship with Gabriel (Ian McKellen), a charming older man with a poor connection to reality who was friendly with Pierson when they were both in treatment there; Riley also renews his childhood friendship with Maggie Blake (Brittany Murphy), a Millwood intern who was powerfully affected by "Neverwas" when she was young. Neverwas is the first feature film from writer and director Joshua Michael Stern. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aaron Eckhart, Ian McKellen, (more)
It's a litter of good, clean canine fun as Air Bud plays proud papa to five adorable puppies with a most unusual secret in this installment of the long-running film series starring Michael Clark Duncan, Richard Karn, and Don Knotts. When young pups B-Dawg, Bud-Dha, RoseBud, MudBud, and Budderball learn that their parents are in danger, they leap into action with tails wagging to rescue mom and dad and reunite the family. Of course everyone knows about their talented father, but when these precious pups with the gift of gab come together to save the family, viewers of all ages will delight at the opportunity to finally discover just what goes on in the mind of man's best friend. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Cranshaw, Richard Karn, (more)
- 2006
This true-crime biopic explores the life of mother-and-son grifters Sante and Kenny Kimes, from Kenny's childhood apprenticeship in early-'80s Honolulu to Sante's murder trial in late-'90s New York City. Fortyish Sante Kimes (Judy Davis) uses her looks and her brazen disregard for the law to acquire whatever she wants in life, from jewels to cars to large insurance settlements. Her most frequent accomplice in these endeavors? Son Kenny (former General Hospital actor Jonathan Jackson), who spends most of his childhood serving as a bit player, then later a co-star, in his mother's schemes. When a slavery -- yes, slavery -- conviction sends Sante to prison, Kenny enjoys a more or less normal adolescence with his wealthy father (Chelcie Ross), who has long refused to marry Sante. But upon her return from the big house, the now over-the-hill Sante re-enlists her son's assistance in her amoral activities. Eventually fingered for the murder of a wealthy Manhattan matron, Sante finds herself in court, where her son's testimony may well end her lifelong crime spree once and for all. Adapted by Randy Stone and Teena Booth from Jeanne King's book Dead End: The Crime Story of the Decade: Murder, Incest and High-Tech Thievery, A Little Thing Called Murder premiered January 23, 2006, on the Lifetime cable network. It was actually the second TV movie to explore the Kimes' story, following Mary Tyler Moore's turn in the 2001 CBS offering Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Davis, Jonathan Jackson, (more)
- 2006
Attending his 25th class reunion at UC-Berkeley, Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is haunted by memories of his late wife Trudy (played in flashback by Lindy Newton). It is especially painful when Monk is reacquainted with Trudy's old school chum Dianne Brooks (Cynthia Stevenson), who it so happens has been targeted for murder. The very odd and extremely manipulative behavior of another fellow grad, coupled with a suicide note written a quarter-century ago, further persuades Monk that he might have been better off skipping the reunion and staying home. This is the episode in which we discover that the student Adrian Monk was known as "Captain Cool"--but not for the reasons one might think. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A teenager with a penchant for tall tales becomes tangled in his own complex web of deceit upon transferring to a new school in this cautionary comedy of little white lies starring Craig Kilborn, Carmen Electra, Teri Polo, and Ryan Pinkston. Sam Leonard (Pinkston) is the new kid at Bridgeport High. A few inches shorter and a little less athletic than his new classmates, Sam is sent knocking on the door of high-school guidance counselor after a particularly embarrassing locker room mishap. Upon determining that the only way to win over his skeptical new classmates is to convince them just how cool he truly is, the scheming student quickly begins to concoct a series of outlandish lies about his background. In Sam's new world, his father is a rock star and his mother a successful avant-garde artist. When Sam wakes up the following morning to discover that his vivid exaggerations have seemingly manifested themselves in reality, his priorities begin to shift as he discovers that there's much more to life than just being popular. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ryan Pinkston, Kate Mara, (more)
