George D. Wallace Movies

If a robot spends enough time around humans, can he learn to become one of them? The Martin family purchases a domestic android as a servant and names him Andrew (Robin Williams). Andrew comes to know the man of the house as Sir (Sam Neill), his wife as Ma'am Wendy Crewson, and their daughter as Portia (Embeth Davidtz); before long, the Martins suspect that they do not have an ordinary robot on their hands. Andrew seems capable of expressing emotion and generating original thoughts, and the longer he stays with the Martins, the more strongly these human traits manifest themselves. Over the next 200 years, Andrew becomes less a machine and more a member of the family, until a mechanic (Oliver Platt) tells Andrew that he might be able to turn him into a human being. Based on a short story by renowned science fiction author Isaac Asimov (surprisingly, it's only the second Asimov story to be brought to the screen), Bicentennial Man was directed by Chris Columbus, who previously worked with Robin Williams on Mrs. Doubtfire. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this zany comedy, Michael Keaton is Doug Kinney, a man with too many tasks and not enough time to complete them. When he feels too much pressure, his temper explodes with disastrous results. So when researcher Dr. Owen Leeds (Harris Yulin) offers him a somewhat unusual remedy for his problem, he gives it a try. Soon, a fully grown clone of Doug is delivered, complete with his memories up to the time of its "birth." Being in two places at once offers some advantages, but problems arise when Doug #2 can't handle the stress of overwork any better than the original. Perhaps Doug #2 could benefit from having his own helper. Versions of Doug multiply, each of them emphasizing some facet of his character, and complications multiply. For instance, having more of him around doesn't make life simpler for Doug's wife Laura (Andie MacDowell). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The first mainstream animated feature film directly aimed at African American audiences, Hyperion Productions' Bebe's Kids is based on a comedy routine by the late Robin Harris. Voiced by Faison Love, Harris endures a "date from hell" when he goes out with the lovely Jamika. His romantic rendezvous is ruined when he is stuck with Jamika's son-as well as Bebe's kids, three little horrors spawned from three different fathers. The worst of the batch is unhousebroken baby Peewee. The film manages within its 74 minute timeframe to skewer such topics as Hip-Hop music, urban riots and whitebread theme parks. Further proof that this is not a Disney flick was provided by the folks from the Motion Picture Production Code office, who bestowed a PG-13 rating upon the film. Bebe's Kids was released theatrically in tandem with the cartoon short Itsy Bitsy Spider, which was later spun off into a TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

On board the Enterprise to negotiate a truce between two warring factions, the distinguished Lumerian ambassador Ramid Ves Alkar (Chip Lucia) worries that his darker side will surface and compromise his efforts. His fears seem to be allayed when Deanna Troi begans acting strangely, exhibiting more raw emotionalism than anyone has ever seen from her. Before long, we discover that Alkar has secretly transferred his own negative emotions to Troi, and the effect may not be reversible. Originally telecast October 10, 1992, "Man of the People" was written by Frank Abatemarco. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Haunted is a Fox Network TV-movie purportedly based on eyewitness testimony. The story goes that in the mid-1980s, the Smurl family of Pittston, Pennsylvania began noticing something askew in their four-bedroom Victorian home. Apparently there are agents of Satan at work, bedeviling the family and smashing the crockery. None of the Smurls believes in ghosts--"until," as the ad copy for this film proclaims, "they have no choice." Since this film was shown on Fox, the "standards and practices" people were a wee more lax than they would have been on another network; hence the "Parental Discretion Advised" tag on the film's original telecast. The Haunted is some distance removed from believability, but stars Sally Kirkland and Jeffrey DeMunn seem to be having a high old time playing scared. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mike Nichols lends some comic structure to Carrie Fisher's best-selling confessional novel concerning a woman's struggles with drug addiction and mother-daughter rivalry (subjects Fisher admits to understanding all too well). Meryl Streep, in her most full-blown comic performance up to that point, plays Suzanne Vale, a popular movie actress well on her way to a Hollywood crack-up. Suzanne suffers from blackouts and memory lapses, and awakens in the beds of men she doesn't remember; she is a barely-functioning wreck on the set of her latest movie. When a coke dealer who delivers stops by her dressing room between takes, she swiftly finds herself being rushed to the hospital, suffering the effects of a narcotics bender. While in detox, Suzanne attempts to piece her life and career back together, but her confidence is shattered when her mother arrives at the rehab clinic -- Doris Mann, a famed film icon from the 1950s and 1960s (Shirley MacLaine). Doris is soon soaking up the adulation and applause of Suzanne's fellow recovering drug addicts. Upon Suzanne's release, she must compete with her mother for attention and fame as she tries to walk a thin line as a recovering drug abuser. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Tony award-winning British musical comedy star Robert Lindsay makes his first important American film appearance in Bert Rigby, You're a Fool. Lindsay, of course, plays the title character, a coal miner who dreams of becoming a big showbiz star. Only problem is, there's very little demand for Bert Rigby's impersonations of Buster Keaton and Gene Kelly. Undaunted, Bert heads to Hollywood, where, while working as a butler in the household of movie mogul Jim Shirley (Corbin Bernsen), he must fend off the advances of Shirley's hot-to-trot wife, Meredith (Anne Bancroft). Befitting the old-fashioned nature of Bert Rigby's behavior and tastes in entertainment, director Carl Reiner adopts a "retro" approach to his material; at times, the film looks as though it was made in 1939 rather than 1989, despite its R-rated sex, profanity, and body-function jokes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sally Field goes the Roseanne route in Punchline. Field plays a housewife and mother who suddenly develops the urge to be a comedienne. Her comic instincts are on target, but her timing and delivery stinks. Tom Hanks, a stand-up comic with a few years' experience under his belt, offers to teach Field the ropes. As they get to know each other, Hanks and Field begin to pick up on each other's shortcomings; though Hanks has far more talent than Field, for example, he has a positively ruinous habit of expressing his deep-down dislike of everyone else in the world, and this frequently alienates his audience. Writer-director David Seltzer times Punchline like a good joke; he continually sets up for the expected, then pulls a last-minute fast one, keeping the film lively and unpredictable throughout. The supporting cast, coincidentally including future Roseanne star John Goodman, is uniformly superb. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in Argentina in 1951, black author Richard Wright's powerful race-conscious novel Native Son was remade in this barely released 1986 version. The story involves Bigger Thomas (Victor Thomas), an angry Depression-era Chicago black who hopes to elevate himself through his chauffeur's job with a prosperous white Gold Coast family. The family's daughter (Elizabeth McGovern) takes advantage of Bigger's servile status by ordering him to drive her to a rendezvous with her communist-activist lover (Matt Dillon). Their "parlor liberal" attitude both pleases and confuses Bigger, as do the girl's apparent sexual advance towards him. One evening, Bigger drives the girl home after she's gotten herself drunk. She flirts harmlessly with him in her bedroom; when her blind mother (Carroll Baker) stumbles onto the scene, the terrified Bigger, certain that he'll be accused of rape, tries to muffle the girl so she can't talk. He accidentally kills her, whereupon the panicky Bigger hides the body and tries to pin the girl's "kidnapping" on her lover. Tragedy piles upon tragedy before Bigger's climactic murder trial and execution; throughout, we are given the impression that this sorry state of affairs would never have taken place without the black-white tensions and divisiveness that existed in 1930s, and which still exist to this day. During the trial scene, TV talk host Oprah Winfrey makes a heavily-made-up cameo appearance as Bigger's mother. The whole scene has the earmarks of an "Oscar clip," but Oprah's excessive histrionics pale in comparison to her brilliant, well-modulated performance in the earlier The Color Purple. The 1986 version of Native Son was co-produced by PBS' American Playhouse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed at Los Angeles' famed Improv comedy club, Bob Williams' film consists of a series of comedians telling jokes taken from the Julius Alvin book that lends the picture its title. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Inveterate womanizer Dan (John Larroquette) sets his sights on sexy Suzanne Whitfield (Caroline Williams). This time, however, he may have to wait in line: It seems that Bull (Richard Moll) would also like to get to know Suzanne better. Then Harry (Harry Anderson) makes it a threesome (or is it foursome?) when he discovers that Suzanne has a ticket to an upcoming Mel Torme concert! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from Paul Brodeur's novel, Richard Rush's story of a Machiavellian movie director and his accidental employee takes a darkly comic look at movie reality vs. "real" reality. Running from the law, Vietnam vet Cameron (Steve Railsback) stumbles on a movie shoot just in time to interfere with a staged accident, causing (perhaps) the stunt man's death. Rather than turn Cameron in, director Eli Cross (Oscar nominee Peter O'Toole) makes him an offer he can't refuse: replace the dead stunt man in return for safe harbor. Despite objections about Cameron's inexperience, Eli keeps him on, figuring that a vet will add an extra charge of realism to the World War I opus that he's filming. As leading lady Nina (Barbara Hershey) returns Cameron's affections, and Eli becomes ever more inscrutably mercurial, Cameron begins to wonder how far Eli will go to get the screen effects he wants, and if he would think twice about killing the stunt man. Placing a Vietnam vet in the midst of movie-making chaos, Rush adds a pointedly contemporary spin to Cameron's confusion; the war experience that makes Cameron a good stunt man wreaks havoc on his life. Rush in turn disorients the audience by seamlessly interweaving scenes from Eli's movie with scenes of its being made. Made two years before Rush found a studio to release it, The Stunt Man opened to raves for its wily narrative and O'Toole's messianic director. Its sly commentary on the blurred boundaries between movies and life became all the more striking at the dawn of the Reagan '80s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide