Leslie Belzberg Movies

The executive producers of High School Musical keep the good times rolling with this upbeat musical comedy set in the one place every American teenager's home away from home - the local shopping mall. Ally (Nina Dobrev) is an optimistic adolescent singer/songwriter whose hard working mother owns the mall music shop frequented by every teen in town. When Ally shares her music with Joey (Rob Mayes), a janitor in the mall who harbors rock star ambitions, she is thrilled to find someone who can truly relate to her songs as well as her heart. Trouble looms on the horizon, however, in the form of the mall owner's spoiled rotten daughter Madison (Autumn Reeser). Madison is the kind of girl who's used to getting whatever she wants, and what she wants now could prove disastrous for both Ally's ambitions, and her mother's popular music store. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The direct-to-video comedy Super Sweet 16: The Movie concerns two best friends who share their birthdays. When they end up mad at each other, they engage in an outrageous battle to throw the most ostentatious 16th birthday party ever. This movie is based on the popular MTV reality program My Super Sweet 16. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A school of ravenous tiger sharks turn a spring break celebration into a frenzied bloodbath, and the only way to survive is to stay away from the beach in a sun-soaked tale of iron-jawed terror starring Shannon Lucio, Kathy Baker, Riley Smith, and Bryan Brown. The hard-partying college coeds aren't the only ones hitting the Florida beach this spring break, and as the keg gets tapped and the beer begins to flow, a school of hungry tiger sharks prepares to move in for the kill. With a virtual buffet of tasty teenage flesh to satisfy their bottomless appetites, the crafty, water-bound killers soon commence to turning the blue waters of the beach blood red. Now forced to fight for their lives against an unrelenting onslaught of unimaginable horror, a group of desperate coeds attempts to put their higher education to the test and outsmart nature's perfect predator. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Dan Aykroyd and John Landis teamed to script this sequel to The Blues Brothers (1980), which they also co-scripted. With Landis once again at the helm as director, Aykroyd re-creates his role of rhythm-and-blues man Elwood Blues, and the film's numerous R&B performances and production numbers include Aretha Franklin singing her classic "Respect". Released from prison after serving 18 years for the havoc depicted in the first film, Elwood learns that while he was serving time, his pal Jake Blues (John Belushi) has died, as did their hi-de-ho music mentor Curtis (Cab Calloway). Times have changed, but the blues beat goes on. Elwood visits Mother Mary Stigmata (Kathleen Freeman), who runs the orphanage where Elwood and Jake were raised, and she puts 10-year-old Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) in Elwood's care. Seeking a loan, Elwood visits Curtis' son, Cabel Chamberlain (Joe Morton), and Buster picks Cabel's pocket. Now, 18 years after the original "mission from God," Elwood attempts to reorganize the Blues Brothers Band, beginning with bartender Mighty Mack McTeer (John Goodman) as a replacement for Jake. With the Russian Mafia in hot pursuit, Elwood, Mack, and Buster head cross-country, locating band members as they travel pell-mell toward a scheduled battle of the bands in Louisiana where the Blues Brothers Band competes with the Lousiana Gator Boys Band (Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Dr. John, Travis Tritt, Steve Winwood, Clarence Clemmons, Isaac Hayes). Filmed in Toronto and Chicago, this movie reunited Aykroyd and Goodman, who were seen previously in the 1996 video, The Return of the Blues Brothers, a performance taped January 24, 1995 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. Elsewhere, the Blues Brothers are kept alive in a half-dozen or so websites, such as the House of Blues, and live stage productions. In England, the stage show A Tribute to the Blues Brothers began in 1991. At the request of Aykroyd and Judy Belushi, the title of that production was changed to The Official Tribute to the Blues Brothers. With various cast members in the roles of Jake and Elwood (Con O'Neill, Warwick Evans, Brad Henshaw, Simon Foster), the show toured Britain throughout the 1990s. The "original Blues Brother" (who coached John Belushi and originated some of the blues raps used by Belushi) is Curtis Salgado (of the Robert Cray Band). One cast member of Blues Brothers 2000, bluesman Junior Wells, the last of the great Chicago harmonica players, died in January 1998, only days before the film was released. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

The third incarnation of TV's gloriously ghoulish "Munster" family appears in this made-for-TV movie, originally telecast December 17, 1996 by the Fox network. That lovable pint-sized werewolf Eddie Munster (Bug Hall) feels depressed as the Yuletide holiday approaches, yearning for a "Transylvania Christmas" while being stuck in Southern California. Eddie's Frankensteinish dad Herman Munster (Sam McMurray) tries to cheer the boy up by arranging for a Christmas celebration in the tradition of the Old Country. To top things off, vampirish Grandpa Munster (Sandy Baron) extends the Holiday cheer by giving Santa Claus (Mark Mitchell) a magic potion--which, unfortunately, is swiped by a pair of larcenous elves (Ed Gale, Arturo Gil). In other developments, Lily Munster (Ann Magnuson) enters a house-decorating contest (love those designer cobwebs!), and several other copyrighted Universal Pictures monsters make fleeting cameo appearances. A critical assessment of The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas is virtually impossible: Either one loves the Munsters, or one doesn't--and that's the name of that dirge! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast on the Fox network, season one of Slidersopens as college student Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell) develops a device resembling a TV remote-control which enables him to open a portal to what seems to be a different universe. Entering the portal, he is disappointed to find that he is right back where he started, in the San Francisco of 1995. And yet, there are subtle differences: Elvis Presley still lives, the colors of traffic lights are reversed (green now means stop), and so on. Clearly he has stepped into some sort of parallel San Francisco, and upon this discovery, Quinn summons his grumpy psychic professor Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) and his computer-store co-worker (and erstwhile girlfriend) Wade Wells (Sabrina Lloyd) to test out the device again. Inadvertently swept into the trio's next foray into an alternate world is Rembrandt "Crying Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), a has-been pop singer en route to a gig that might have enabled him to make a comeback. In rapid succession, the four sliders end up in a contemporary San Francisco still mired in the Ice Age, then emerge in the same city at the same time -- only now San Francisco is a satellite of the old Soviet Union! For the rest of the series' first season, the protagonists hopscotch through a variety of alternate worlds in their efforts to return to their own world. In the process, they foment a second American Revolution (seems the British won the first one back in 1776); they save a parallel San Francisco from destruction by an asteroid; they enter a realm in which the '60s hippie movement is still alive and well; they show up in a Frisco where women hold all the big jobs and men are subservient; and, in the series finale, Wade is targeted for extermination when, in a utopian San Francisco, she draws a winning lottery ticket that doubles as her death warrant (shades of Shirley Jackson!). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third entry in the popular Beverly Hills Cop series finds Detroit cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) returning yet again to Southern California, this time on the trail of two car thieves turned murderers. As he teams up again with L.A. cop Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), Foley's investigation leads him to Wonder World, a theme park that is also the front for a major counterfeiting ring. More action and less wit are the trademarks of this film, which features Murphy dishing out his usual wisecracks, but with less flair and freshness than in the original film. Alan Young plays the old man who runs the amusement park, an interesting setting that still adds little to the tired premise. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Sylvester Stallone gives comedy another try in this farce set in the 1930s. Angelo "Snaps" Provelone (Stallone) is the wealthy and powerful head of the Chicago mob, but his ailing father (Kirk Douglas) doesn't approve of his life in crime, and on his deathbed, Dad makes Snaps promise to go straight. Determined to honor his late father's wishes, Snaps decides to go into banking -- just as his life has fallen into chaos. Anthony Russano (Vincent Spano) informs Snaps that he's hijacked $50,000 of his money and wants to marry his daughter. Snaps discovers that his daughter Lisa (Marisa Tomei) is actually involved with the chauffeur, Oscar (Jim Mulholland), but Anthony's girlfriend Theresa (Elizabeth Barondes) has convinced her beau that Snaps is her father. Snaps hopes to use this misunderstanding as a way of getting his money back, but in the meantime, he has to deal with a wary banking board, rival mob boss Vendetti (Richard Romanus), prissy elocution coach Thornton (Tim Curry), and Snaps' one-time girlfriend Roxanne (Linda Gray). Oscar's stellar supporting cast includes Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, Harry Shearer, Eddie Bracken, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Bruce Davison. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This slapstick farce features Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase), Lucky Day (Steve Martin), and Ned Nederlander (Martin Short), as three silent movie cowboy stars who get the axe from their Hollywood studio. Just at that opportune moment, a woman named Carmen (Patrice Martinez) asks them to come to her forgotten little town south of the border and do some work for her, for a tidy sum. The three "stooges" agree, thinking they are going to perform their singing cowboy routine, but instead Carmen wants them to get rid of the nasty El Guapo (Alfonso Arau) who is running roughshod over the good citizens of the town. Not the kind of heroes they appear to be in the movies, they have a difficult time helping out the distressed townsfolk. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Director John Landis helmed this Cold War farce starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase as Austin Millbarge and Emmett Fitz-Hume -- two loser misfits who dwell in the lower ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency. Convinced despite much evidence to the contrary that they're prime secret agent material, both men keep taking service exams in an effort to win promotion. Caught cheating on their latest round of tests, Austin and Emmett expect to be fired but are instead made full field agents and ushered into intense training. Little do they know that it's all a ruse and that they're about to be dumped in Pakistan to throw Russian spies off the scent of two real agents with an important clandestine assignment. A spoof of the "road" pictures popularized by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the film features a cameo by the latter as his golf-playing self. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide