Sheri Stoner Movies

My Favorite Martian stars Jeff Daniels as Tim O'Hara, once a newspaper man and now a struggling television producer in Santa Barbara. Tim has a crush on vapid news reporter Brace Channing (Elizabeth Hurley) while overlooking his feelings for Lizzie (Daryl Hannah), a technician working at the station. Driving home one night, Tim wanders upon the crash landing of a spaceship from Mars. The Martian inside (Christopher Lloyd) has come to Earth searching for a fellow Martian who had been lost here 35 years ago. After the crash, he hides on the beach and shrinks his spaceship to the size of a toy to avoid detection; Tim finds the ship anyway, and takes it home. With little choice, the Martian, aided by his sentient and very neurotic spacesuit, follows Tim home and reveals himself. Tim sees the alien as his ticket to the big time, but the Martian, now masquerading as Tim's Uncle Martin (thanks to some Martian gum that transforms his appearance to that of a human) thwarts Tim at every turn. Just as he gets the video he needs for his story, O'Hara develops a friendship with his planetary neighbor and new "Uncle." The two suddenly find they are racing against the the clock -- a government team, led by a wacky scientist (Wallace Shawn), hunts Martin down, and the spaceship (a rental) is on a timed sequence to self-destruct if it cannot be repaired in time. Along the way, Tim loses his infatuation with Brace and finds his true feelings for the loyal Lizzie. Martin might also find his lost friend on Earth, just as he has found new ones. ~ Ron Wells, All Movie Guide

With Pinky and the Brain occupying two timeslots per week in its third season, it's no wonder that we're honored with a stunning 51 episodes this year, with those slightly cracked genetically-engineered lab mice Pinky and The Brain still trying and trying and failing and failing to take over the world. In the season opener "Leave It to Beaver", Brain relies on outside help in his effort to change the course of mighty rivers. Later on, Pinky and the Brain finally gain the recognition they don't deserve by making comedy films; to fund another world-domination scheme, Brain claims that he and Pinky are members of a new endangered species, the Mousealopes; A.A. Milne will never be the same after 'Brainy the Poo" tries to steal valuable hunny from a beehive (he's a little pink, rain cloud, all right). And in episode acknowledging the fact that they're just cartoon characters, the boys decide to quit the series after several egregious examples of network interference. In the course of their many forays into time travel, our heroes journey to 1946 and land smack-dab in a black and white film noir; stopping over in the 1960s, Pinkie becomes a guru for a familiar-looking group of moptops; Brain does a good job breaking up the happy Elsinore household of Hamlet and his family in the episode "Melancholy Brain"; our heroes' attempt to make a slave of Emperor Franz Josef is foiled by Sigmund Freud in (get a good grip on yourself!) "Leggo My Ego"; and back in the present, Brain resorts to boring Mankind into submission by serving up a retrospective of past episodes in "Schpiel-Borg 2000." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season one of the animated gagfest Pinky and the Brain offers 19 half-hour episodes, beginning with Das Mouse, in which the Brain, a genetically engineered lab mouse who fancied himself a criminal genius, conspires with his goofy fellow mouse Pinky to hypnotize the world into submission -- a job that requires a considerable amount of special white crab meat that can only be found in the wreckage of the Titanic. Subsequent schemes by Pinky and the Brain to take over the world (if only they can get out of their cages) are equally as logical and sensible. In later episodes, Brain creates a voice mail system that he hopes will screw up telephone lines throughout the world; Pinky poses as fable Tokyo-smashing behemoth Gollyzilla, as none of the characters' voices match their lip movements; the boys attempt to infiltrate a moon landing in order to advertise their own brilliance on the lunar surface; and a plan to immobilize mankind necessitates the purchase of a multi-billion-dollar clothes dryer. Also: Brain cooks up some exploding crêpe suzettes with which he hopes to conquer France (and, surprise, the country doesn't immediately surrender). A takeoff of Around the World in 80 Days finds our heroes vying with the Pompous Explorers Club to beat Jules Verne's record. And to persuade the world that Abraham Lincoln has returned to life to help him become an all-powerful ruler, Brain takes a crash course in ventriloquism. Then there's the episode "Mouse of La Mancha" the story of Don Cerebro, who dreams the Impossible Dream of World Domination...not to mention the all-stops-out Graham Greene spoof "The Third Mouse." (Gee, doesn't Brain sound just like Harry Lime when you close your eyes?) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the late '80s, good-time girl Stacy (Lea Thompson) and her timid friend, Melissa (Victoria Jackson), decide to hit a health spa for singles in hopes of spicing up their unfulfilled sex lives. Afraid of AIDS, Stacy has gone celibate, while Melissa has only ever managed to get it on with two lame guys. Arriving at the resort, the women spend their time working out, flirting with staff members, making friends and enemies with their fellow singles, and avoiding the attentions of the oafish Vinny (Andrew Dice Clay). When a cruel psychologist plays mind games with Melissa, she finds solace with Vinny, then flees the spa, interrupting an incipient romance between Stacy and a cute aerobics instructor. Wendy Goldman and Judy Toll adapted their own stage play, while Casual Sex? provided director Genevieve Robert her only feature credit to date. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Mark Harmon stars as baby-faced serial killer Ted Bundy in this sobering 2-part TV movie. Ostensibly the archetypal All-American boy, Bundy was, from 1974 onward, responsible for the rapes and murders of several young women in the Pacific Northwest. The clues begin to mount when one of Bundy's victims manages to escape; she can only say that her assailant was a fellow named Ted who drives a yellow Volkswagen. Finally arrested after he moves from Seattle to Utah, Bundy is so certain of his superiority over the general run of human beings that he conducts his own defense at his trial; then, when extradited to Colorado, he escapes, triggering a desperate nationwide manhunt. At the time Deliberate Stranger was first telecast on May 5 and 6, 1986, Theodore Bundy was on Death Row, still contesting his sentence and seeking a legal way out. When time came for his execution, Bundy attempted several bizarre last-minute "stays," which would make intriguing subject matter should someone want to make a follow-up film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The messages referred to in the title are those conveyed on a Ouija board. The heroine (Kathleen Beller) conjures up these messages, which indicate that her future happiness is gravely in doubt. In point of fact, the words she spells out on the board are I-AM-GOING-TO-KILL-YOU. A mystery figure from the woman's past intends to fulfill this prophecy--with a dagger. Material like this only works if the producers have faith in it; Deadly Messages appears to have been made by people who found the premise amusing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After a long separation, a young girl finds her mother (Loni Anderson) and is surprised to find that she's working as a high-class call girl. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Yet another teen romance and hijinks movie for the pre-pubescent, this film is set in the mid-1950s and involves two rival California high schools whose bands are in serious competition. Other than that plot device, there is a telephone hotline to teen love run by J.D. (Michael Winslow) and the usual collection of teenage gags and pranks. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide