Amy Redford Movies

A doomed woman discovers her creative spirit during a final fling with life in this independent drama. Melody Wilder (Saffron Burrows) is already having a bad day when she visits her doctor about a troubling lump in her throat -- her boyfriend has left her, and she's lost her job. However, this news pales in comparison to what her doctor (Janeane Garofalo) has to say: the lump is an inoperable cancer, and Melody has only a short time to live. Throwing caution to the wind, Melody rents a huge, luxurious apartment and furnishes it in high style, putting her purchases on a handful of credit cards she won't be around to pay off. Melody also permits herself affairs with a few of the deliverymen who have become regular visitors to her loft, but she spends most her days alone, enjoying the trappings of wealth as she ponders what little future she has left. One day, Melody makes an impulse purchase, a red electric guitar that looks like one she wanted as a girl. While Melody isn't schooled on the instrument, she begins teaching herself to work out chord patterns and melody lines, and in the last chapter of her life discovers a way to give voice to the pain and confusion she's buried within her. Written by veteran underground filmmaker Amos Poe, The Guitar was the first feature film from director Amy Redford. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A man finds himself torn between the love of his homeland, the love of his family, and the love of a woman in this period drama based on a true story. Robert Adams (Julian Adams) is a Southern gentleman who is helping to run the plantation run by his grandfather (Weston Adams) as the Civil War looms on the horizon. At a party, Robert meets Eveline McCord (Gwendolyn Edwards), a beautiful and intelligent schoolteacher from the North. Robert falls deeply in love with Eveline and asks for her hand in marriage, but not long after that, war breaks out and Robert's loyalties to family and home lead him to become a captain in the Confederate army, while Eveline stands by her family in the North. As Robert bravely fights for a failing cause and is captured and imprisoned by Union troops, he struggles to stay in contact with Eveline, with her love becoming the only thing he can still count on. Strike the Tent was written, produced, and co-directed by Julian Adams, who also played Robert Adams, his real-life great-great-grandfather; the supporting cast includes Mickey Rooney, Tippi Hedren, and musician Edwin McCain. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Last Man Running is a collaborative project of American independent filmmaker Damon Santostefano and actor Rick Gomez. Gomez plays the protagonist and narrator, Richie, a struggling actor who decides to fulfill his lifelong dream of competing in a demolition derby in the month before he gets married to fiancée Jenny (played by real-life wife Jenifer Wymore-Gomez). While Jenny prepares for the wedding, Richie and his brother J.J. (played by real-life brother Joshua Gomez) suffer various damages and humiliations in order to enter a car in a New York derby. Features an appearance by real champion driver Bob "Whiplash" Genovese. Last Man Running was screened at the 2003 IFP Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Can a wealthy Republican politician find happiness with a chambermaid from the Bronx? One man is about to find out, though he hardly realizes it at first, in this romantic comedy from director Wayne Wang. Marisa Ventura (Jennifer Lopez) is a single mother who is raising her gifted but under-confident son Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey) on her own, with some help from her mother Veronica (Priscilla Lopez), after divorcing her husband. Marisa works as a housekeeper at the exclusive Beresford Hotel in Manhattan, where her boss Paula Burns (Frances Conroy) and chief butler Lionel Bloch (Bob Hoskins) urge Marisa and her best friend and fellow maid Stephanie (Marissa Matrone) to be as efficient and inconspicuous as possible. One day, while cleaning the room of noted socialite Caroline Lane (Natasha Richardson), Stephanie spies a beautiful designer gown and dares Marisa to try it on; against her better judgment, she does, and while all dolled up, she bumps into Christopher Marshall (Ralph Fiennes), a wealthy and well-bred bachelor who is running for the Senate. Immediately charmed, Chris asks Marisa to join him for a walk in Central Park, assuming she's the blue-blooded Caroline. Marisa manages to join Chris for the afternoon, with Ty in tow, and Chris finds himself quite taken with Marisa's beauty and down-to-earth personality, as well as Ty's precocious interest in politics. Chris later calls Caroline's room to set up a lunch date, but soon discovers the stuffy Ms. Lane is not the woman he met before. Marisa is also attracted to Chris, but while her friends encourage her to pursue a romance, Veronica believes her daughter is asking for trouble by trying to win a man so far out of her social strata. The supporting cast also includes Stanley Tucci and Amy Sedaris. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide