This Must Be An Editor's Choice! Quiz

Answer: Children of a Lesser God

"Children of a Lesser God" (1986) tells the story of Sarah (Marlee Matlin), a Deaf woman who cleans at a school for the Deaf. James (William Hurt), a new teacher at the school, wants Sarah to learn to speak; Sarah has no interest. While trying to convince her, the two fall in love. Can they live in "a place where they can meet - not in silence and not in sound?" (quote by James with pronoun changed from the movie).

Marlee Matlin won the Best Actress Oscar Award for her performance. Not bad, as it was her first role in a movie. At the time she won, she was the youngest actress to win the Oscar for the Best Actress category and the only Deaf actor to receive an Oscar for any category.

William Hurt was nominated for an Oscar as well, but he did not win. However, he did have an Oscar, which he won the year before for the movie, "Kiss of the Spider Woman." This meant Matlin's co-star, and then-boyfriend, William Hurt, presented her with her Oscar.

Answer: Terminator 2: Judgement Day

"Terminator 2: Judgement Day" (1991), or "T-2" as it is often called, is the first sequel to "Terminator". Sarah (Linda Hamilton) survived and had a boy named John. John (Eddie Furlong) is a preteen living with foster parents. Sarah has been institutionalized because no one believes that a cyborg is coming to destroy them all in the future.

The Terminator from the original movie (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has been reprogrammed and is now a good cyborg who is there to help John and Sarah. However, a better, more powerful cyborg, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), is sent to finish what Arnold's Terminator couldn't do in the first movie.

Answer: The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear

Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) is a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Despite his incompetence and clumsiness, he manages to solve cases all the time. In the last film, "The Naked Gun" (1988), he managed to save Queen Elizabeth II (Jeannette Charles) from being assassinated when he accidentally caused a woman to fall on Reggie Jackson (himself).

This time, Dr. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths) has been kidnapped and replaced by a lookalike, Earl Hacker (also Richard Griffiths), because he is about to give a speech about an environmental issue that he is publishing a book on, which the oil, coal, and nuclear suppliers do not like as it could put them out of business.

Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley) broke up with Frank because she believed she would always come second to his police work. She has a new boyfriend (Robert Goulet) who happens to be the head of the kidnappers, but of course, she doesn't know that at the time. Frank is jealous so there is the plot of him saving the day again, and also the plot of Jane and Frank getting back together.

Answer: Beauty and the Beast

"Beauty and the Beast" (1991) was Disney's 30th full-length animated movie. It is based on the Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve French story, "La Belle et Le Bete" (that is, "Beauty and the Beast"). After Villeneuve died, her story was shortened by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, who then published it. This is the most well-known version that Disney and everyone else used to create their versions.

The prince is handsome, but he is a bit of a jerk. The old woman comes begging, and he wants nothing to do with her. She turns out to be a gorgeous witch and turns him into a hideous beast. He must find true love by a specific time (when the last rose petal falls). If he does, he returns to being a handsome prince; if not, he remains a beast forever.

Belle's dad wanders into the castle when he gets lost. The Beast locks him up. His daughter Belle finds him and trades places with her father so he can be free. The enchanted people, who are the candles, clocks, dishware, etc., in the house, all love her. She wants nothing to do with the Beast, and he is angry because she doesn't want to have dinner with him.

Eventually, as they get to know each other they realize there is "Something there I didn't see before" (as the song says). Soon they become friends. Then they dance together as Mrs. Potts (voiced by Angela Lansbury) sings the title song. They start to fall in love. A mob storms the castle led by Gaston who is even more handsome and an even bigger jerk than the beast was. He is also in love with Belle, or at least wants to marry her because she is the most beautiful girl in town and, as he tells his friend LeFou "and that makes her the best, and don't I deserve the best."

All the enchanted people in the castle help ward of the mob. It comes down to Gaston and the Beast. And I hate ruining a good storyline even if it is predictable, so I will stop there.

Answer: My Girl

"My Girl" was originally a song by "The Temptations". The song was then used as the title of the 1991 movie, "My Girl". Veda Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) is eleven and lives with her father, Harry (Dan Aykroyd), a widower whose wife died a few days after giving birth.
Veda is scared of death and is a hypochondriac. She visits her pediatrician when she gets really scared, and he allows her to come in to put her mind at ease.

Her best friend is Thomas J. (Macaulay Culkin). He won't go inside her house because it has dead people inside. Her father runs a funeral home. But they play together outside all summer. They are each other's first kiss. When Veda's mood ring falls off, she cannot find it because they run from a swarm of bees. Thomas J returns to search for it, but there are too many bees, and Thomas J is allergic.

Answer: Aladdin

"Aladdin" (1992) was Disney's 31st full-length animated movie. It takes place in the fictional city of Agrabah. Aladdin (voiced by Scott Weinger, singing voice by Brad Kane) is an orphaned street urchin who lives with a monkey named Abu. He steals to get food to eat and is despised by all the street vendors.

Jasmine (voiced by Linda Larkin, singing voice by Lea Salonga) is a princess who has to get married by her next birthday. However, she refuses to marry a man she doesn't love, and her father, the Sultan (voiced by Douglas Seale), is exasperated.

Aladdin is tricked by Jafar (voiced by Jonathan Freeman) the royal Grand vizier to go into a cave to get a magic lamp. However, the cave closes and Aladdin and Abu are stuck. Jafar and his parrot Iago (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) think they have the lamp but it turns out Abu snatched it in at the last second.

Aladdin wonders why they want an old lamp, and he rubs it to fid out what it says, and when he rubs it, the Genie (voiced by Robin Williams) appears.

Answer: Look Who's Talking

"Look Who's Talking" (1989) stars Kirstie Alley as Mollie, a woman who has an affair with a married man at work named Albert (George Segal). She finds out she is pregnant. In her last trimester, she catches Albert cheating on her with another woman (not even his wife), and she goes into labor.

She hails a taxi which James (John Travolta) is driving, to go to the hospital. Mickey is born, and due to a piece of mail related to James' grandfather getting into a retirement home, James becomes Mickey's babysitter. Mickey and James form a tight bond.

James starts to fall for Mollie as well. However, Mollie doesn't think James would be a good enough father.

Answer: Twins

"Twins" (1988) is the story of Vincent (Danny Devito) and Julius (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who discover they are twins separated at birth. They were part of an experiment in which the DNA of six fathers was combined to create a perfect child. The mother was told her son, Julius died at birth. She did not know Vincent even existed.

Vincent is placed in an orphanage and led to believe his mother just didn't want him. He turns to a life of crime, seduces a nun, and leaves the orphanage. He eventually ends up in jail.

Julius is raised on a tropical island in the South Pacific. He is well-educated and trained well physically as well. He and Professor Werner (Tony Jay), who raised him on the island, were told that Julius' mother Mary Ann (Bonnie Bartlett), died in childbirth.

When he turns 35, Julius learns about his brother and leaves for America to meet him. He bails Vincent out of jail, but Vincent does not believe they are brothers.

Answer: Back to the Future

Marty Mcfly (Michael J. Fox) is a teenager in high school. He is friends with a mad scientist, Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd). Doc Brown has taken a Delorean and created a time machine which he has demonstrated to Marty. Doc used his dog Einstein to do this. He explains that he had to use plutonium to make the flux capacitor do its job to make time travel possible.

The only problem with needing plutonium is it's hard to get. Doc Brown stole it from Libyan terrorists. They are not happy, and they shoot him dead while Marty watches. They see him, and he jumps into the Delorean and drives off to escape. Forgetting about it being a time machine, he accelerates and hits 88 miles per hour, the speed required to go into time. He accidentally has it set for October 12, 1955, so that is where he ends up.

He finds Doc Brown of the past to get help going back to the future. Doc Brown figures out there is a way when Marty has a flyer from 1985 about lighting striking the town clock. He tells Marty that will give him the same power the plutonium would, and he will be able to go back to the future.

But Marty has another problem. His mother, Lorraine (Lea Thompson), of 1955 has met him when her dad almost killed Marty while Marty was saving his own father, George (Crispen Glover). Lorraine sees Marty's underwear that say Calvin Klein and she thinks his name is Calvin, and she falls in love with him instead of with George. Marty has to get his mother and father to all in love and kiss or he and his brother and sister will in the words of Doc Brown be, "erased from existence."

Answer: Rain Man

"Rain Man" (1988) is a story of two brothers. Ray (Dustin Hoffman) has Autism and was put in a special home as a child. His younger brother Charlie (Tom Cruise) does not remember having an older brother and is angry when their father dies, and almost everything is left to Ray.

Charlie decides to take Ray out of the home and take him home. His reasoning isn't that he wants to know his brother; he just wants access to all the money.

At one point, when they are driving, Ray keeps insisting he needs to go to K-mart in Ohio. Charlie tells him, "K-Mart sucks."