Julian Richings Movies

Clarence the famous angel from the classic It's a Wonderful Life returns in this heart-warming made-for-TV holiday sequel. This time, his mission is to keep a grieving widow from killing herself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Saw duo James Wan and Leigh Whannell re-team for this chilling tale of a widower (Ryan Kwanten) who returns to his hometown to unearth clues about his recently departed wife's untimely death. In the quiet town of Ravens Fair, children taunt one another with spooky stories about a ventriloquist whose mind was ravaged by insanity. Mary Shaw was a popular entertainer until she was accused of murdering a young boy. Subsequently hunted and captured by the vengeful townspeople, Mary's tongue was cut out before she was mercilessly killed and committed to the earth in the company of her handmade collection of vaudeville dolls. In the years that followed, the town seemed to be haunted by those ghastly puppets. After mysteriously disappearing from Mary's grave, the menacing figurines would sometimes be glimpsed by the damned in the dead of night -- their appearance consistently foreshadowing the death of whoever laid eyes upon them. Entire families were found slaughtered, their tongues brutally torn from their mouths in a sickening scene that eerily recalled the execution of the elderly ventriloquist. Newlyweds Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) and Lisa Ashen (Laura Regan) both grew up in Ravens Fair. Now, following Lisa's inexplicable death, Paul has returned to the pair's hometown in order to say his final goodbyes and find out the truth about his wife's enigmatic demise. After being reunited with his ailing father (Bob Gunton) and the aging man's pretty young bride (Amber Valletta), the grieving widower will finally uncover the shocking truth behind the curse that has plagued Ravens Fair for as far back as he can remember. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Adapted from author Philip Roth's novel The Dying Animal, director Isabel Coixet's elegant tale of obsession explores the relationship between a highly respected professor (Ben Kingsley) and an impossibly gorgeous grad student (Penélope Cruz). As their relationship deepens, the professor finds his ego challenged by the girl's enchanting beauty. Dennis Hopper and Patricia Clarkson co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Ad-exec Murray Roberts (David Hewlett) is in for a nasty shock during his walk from work -- he's mugged by a street gang. Afraid for his life, Roberts scales a tree and vows to stay there until the danger is gone. Unfortunately for him, the unsavory Shark (Cle Bennett) is equally determined to wait for Murray to come down and finish the robbing as he had intended, and an all-night standoff quickly ensues. Get Down premiered at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Nikita (Peta Wilson) poses as a recruit for Glass Curtain, a terrorist organization that picks its members from Internet chat rooms. Welcomed into the Glass Curtain fold, Nikita discovers that the group is holding former Section One operative Simone (Mung-Ling Tsui) captive. Complicating matters further is the fact that Simone happens to be the former wife of Nikita's Section One contact, Michael (Roy Dupuis). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1974, Cicely Tyson and director John Korty (The Ewok Adventure) worked together on the acclaimed The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (winner of nine Emmys), and they reteamed for this updating of Charles Dickens' 1843 classic, A Christmas Carol. When miserly banker Ebenita Scrooge (Tyson) is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Michael J. Reynolds), visions prompt her to reflect on her life. An earlier female Scrooge was played by Susan Lucci in 1995, and a Mrs. Scrooge with Sally Kellerman is also in development. The TV movie Ms. Scrooge premiered December 10, 1997 on the USA Network. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This cinematic/literary hybrid fuses motifs from Beat writer William S. Burroughs's novel of the same name with elements of the author's biography and plenty of the cerebral alienation and biomorphic special effects fans of creepy cult director David Cronenberg have come to expect. Bill Lee (Peter Weller) wants to write, but he exterminates bugs to pay the bills. His wife, Joan (Judy Davis), becomes addicted to Bill's bug powder dust, and soon he joins her in a world of unorthodox hallucinogens; he visits the kindly yet sinister Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider) and walks away with his first dose of the black meat -- a narcotic made from the flesh of the giant aquatic Brazilian centipede. Soon, monstrous beetles are whispering conspiracy theories in Bill's ears and his nebbish writer friends Hank (Nicholas Campbell) and Martin (Michael Zelniker) are sleeping with Joan under his nose. When a party trick involving a liquor glass and a gun goes awry, killing Joan, Bill flees to Interzone, a Mediterranean city full of talking insectoid typewriters, double agents, offbeat aesthetes, and plots within plots. As he navigates this paranoid landscape, Bill begins ingesting another drug called mugwump jism and writes fragments that Hank and Martin soon assemble into a novel under the title Naked Lunch. As beat literature aficionados know, Interzone is based on Tangiers -- the city where Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch. The incident in the film in which Hank and Martin appropriate Bill's writing and have it published closely approximates the real-life circumstances of the novel's publication, although it was Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac who helped out the real-life Burroughs. The William Tell incident that kills Bill's wife is also drawn from the author's real life. "William Lee" is both Burroughs' literary stand-in and the name under which he published his first autobiographical novel Junky. Ian Holm, who plays Joan Frost's husband, Tom, would appear in Cronenberg's similarly experimental eXistenZ several years later. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Just when audiences thought they'd heard the last of the demented killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), here comes Saw IV, continuing his trap-filled legacy -- this time, targeting the last remaining officer who has touched the case, SWAT Commander Rigg (Lyriq Bent). As FBI agents Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Perez (Athena Karkanis) begin to dig through the remains of Jigsaw's crime-scene hideout, a new puzzle presents itself, with Rigg as the pawn in another deadly game filled with moral quandaries and torture-filled traps. At stake is the life of his superior officer Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) as well as his friend and fellow cop Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), whose abduction by a now-dead Jigsaw triggers an obsession in Rigg that will haunt him til the grisly end. Director Darren Lynn Bousman returns to the series after helming both Saw II and III, with a script penned by Feast writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Gail Harvey's Some Things That Stay stars Katie Boland as a teenager whose adolescence is complicated by her bohemian family and their resistance to the cultural mores of Eisenhower-era America. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The waltz was all the rage in 1860s Europe, and composer Johann Strauss Jr. was the known as the "King of Three-Quarter Time." In this video from HBO's composer series, Strauss, played by Michael Riley, is stressed by the pressure of outdoing himself with each new composition and the memory of his late father's disapproval of his music. Retreating to a country estate, Strauss meets Nicholas, a stable boy who is brutally abused by his stepfather. Together, the two find the strength to overcome their emotional and physical scars and collaborate on music that will thrill generations to come. Designed to introduce children to classical music and composers, the video features music from Strauss' "Tales from the Vienna Woods," "The Blue Danube," "Vienna Blood," "Roses from the South," "Perpetual Motion," and "Explosions Polka." Highly recommended for ages 8 to 12. ~ Heather M. Fierst, All Movie Guide

Charles Martin Smith and Katherine Isabelle star in director Pierre Gil's Gemini Award-winning comedy concerning a money hungry teacher who convinces his best math students to help swindle Canada's biggest casinos. As the teacher and his students step to the tables in hopes of making their fortune, it doesn't take long for savvy debt collectors and suspicious authorities to catch on to their skillful ruse. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A 15-year-old girl navigates a dangerous urban landscape in search of the brother whom she has hypnotized into believing he is a dog in director Bruce McDonald's pop-infused, 21st century variation on The Catcher in the Rye. When the viewer first meets Tracey (Juno's Ellen Page), she is sitting naked in the back of a bus with only a flimsy shower curtain to guard her from the elements. Tracey is the broken product of an unstable home; her father (Ari Cohen) regards his children as "accidents," and her catatonic mother (Erin McMurtry) only pauses from watching television long enough to light up another cigarette. Upon discovering that a botched hypnosis experiment between Tracey and her younger brother, Sonny, has left the young boy emotionally transformed into a canine, the decision is made to send Tracey to a psychiatrist. Tormented by her classmates and lost in fantasies about her boyfriend and rock & roll savior Billy Zero (Slim Twig), the emotionally complex young woman has become enamored with a new student at school who doesn't even realize she exists. Later, when Sonny disappears, Tracey takes it upon herself to locate her missing sibling and make sure that he finds his way back home. While at first it appears that benevolent rent boy Lance (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) may be her guiding light through the darkened city streets, Tracey quickly learns that to trust is to place your life in the hands of someone who may sell you out at a moment's notice. Now naked and desperate in the middle of a labyrinthine metropolitan nightmare, Tracey makes it her mission to find Sonny no matter how harrowing her quest may become. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A man finds himself developing a new perspective on life once he finds out it's almost over in this comedy-drama. Benjamin Kasparian (John Turturro) is a paleontologist of Armenian descent who has just split up with his wife Amanda (Katherine Borowitz). While trying to readjust to single life, Benjamin visits the doctor and is informed he's suffering from an unusual brain disease called Talbot's Syndrome, and he's not likely to live longer than five weeks. Benjamin is initially philosophical about his fate and decides to enjoy himself as much as he can in the time he has left -- much to the disgust of Amanda, his best friend (Oleg Kisseliov), his boss (Julian Richings), and his new girlfriend (Vanya Rose), all of whom believe he should be taking the matter more seriously. But before long, Benjamin starts seeing images of his childhood in Armenia everywhere he goes, and he sets out on one last mission in his life -- to dig up his late parents, who are buried in Canada, and have their remains placed in Armenian soil, where Benjamin now believes he and his family belong. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide