Juan Ruiz-Anchia Movies

Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Hopper, Nick Stahl, AnnaSophia Robb, and Deborra-Lee Furness star in a family drama detailing the efforts made by an 12-year-old girl to come to terms with her mother's abandonment. Tara's (Robb) mother, Joleen (Theron), just can't seem to get her life together. Her boyfriend has recently been arrested for growing marijuana, and rather than attempting to create a stable living environment for her daughter, Joleen instead places Tara in foster care before vanishing without a trace. Joleen's brother, James (Stahl), isn't exactly the picture of equilibrium, yet he does feel sympathetic toward his niece and obligated to help her though such difficult times. After breaking Tara out of foster care, James and his newly freed niece set out on the open road together. Destination: nowhere. But every road has an end, and before long James and Tara find themselves at James and Joleen's father's farm. James has always avoided thinking about his violent childhood, though he realizes that in order to break the vicious cycle of dysfunction that the family has fallen into he must finally confront the demons of his past. Now, as Tara begins to understand why her missing mother has lived such a tumultuous life, James prepares for the confrontation that could bring his family closer together than ever before, if it doesn't destroy them first. William Maher, who served as visual effects supervisor for the 2005 Sundance film The Chumscrubber, makes his feature directorial debut with a film based on an original screenplay by that film's scribe, Zac Stanford. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The bloody civil war which tore apart El Salvador in the 1980s is seen through the eyes of a young boy in this drama from director Luis Mandoki. Chava (Carlos Padilla) is 11 years old and growing up in a small town in El Salvador where the fighting between rebels and government troops is a daily fact of life. Chava's father has abandoned the family, leaving him behind as the man of the house while his mother (Leonor Varela) and sister try to maintain a normal life by day while dodging bullets by night. Chava's 12th birthday is coming up, which puts the boy in a dangerous position -- at 12, he'll be old enough to join the army and be used as cannon fodder against the rebels, so he and his classmates try to find out when military recruiters will be coming to their schools so they can plan to be absent that day. However, as Chava faces both danger and adventure in his little town, the war edges in closer all the time until it can't be avoided any longer. Voces Inocentes (aka Innocent Voices) was the first Spanish-language film in 18 years for director Mandoki, who came to the United States after the international success of 1987's Gaby: A True Story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Campbell Scott directed this offbeat comedy drama about a free-thinking family who find themselves confronted by the more regimented outside world. Bo Groden (Valentina d'Angelis) is an 11-year-old girl growing up as part of a decidedly eccentric family in a small town in New Mexico. Bo's father, Charley (Sam Elliott), has fallen into a deep depression for reasons no one can understand, while her mother, Arlene (Joan Allen), holds the household together, raising most of their food in her vegetable garden, which she prefers to tend in the nude. Bo, meanwhile, satisfies her sweet tooth by writing candy companies claiming to have had problems with their products, which usually results in a box of fresh goodies. While the Grodens get by through living within simple means, one day an Internal Revenue Agent appears at their door, wanting to know why the family hasn't paid income tax for several years -- and not believing there has been no appreciable income for so many years. Off the Map was screened in competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on a story of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, the crime thriller The House on Turk Street was directed by veteran filmmaker Bob Rafelson. Cello-playing cop Jack Friar (Samuel L. Jackson) searches for a teenage runaway on Turk Street and ends up in the home of an elderly couple (Joss Ackland and Grace Zabriskie). The house also turns out to be the headquarters for a gang of criminals who are planning a bank robbery, and Jack is quickly held hostage. When Jack is left alone with gang member Erin (Milla Jovovich), he teaches her to play the cello and the two share a mutal attraction. Meanwhile, Erin continues to manipulate gang leader Tyrone (Stellan Skarsgard), violent thug Hoop (Doug Hutchison), and inside man David (Johnathan Higgins). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Teen movie icon John Hughes returns to the genre he helped revolutionize as producer of the first screenplay written by his son James Hughes. Maddox (Blake Shields) is an intelligent but moody teenager growing up in a suburb of Chicago. High school student Maddox believes schools aren't designed to educate so much as they're used to control young people and bend them to the will of the state. Maddox wants to throw off the yoke of the school's authority, especially after he hears tales of a student named Stanton who attended the same school years before; Stanton openly defied the school system and was sent to a mental hospital for his troubles. Maddox and his friends try to find out the truth about the legendary Stanton as they plot a large-scale rebellion of their own. New Port South features a cast of young faces, including Brad Eric Johnson, Will Estes, Melissa George, and Gabriel Mann; the film also marks the directorial debut of Kyle Cooper, who previously directed music videos and designed title sequences for a number of major motion pictures. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Nick Chen (Chow Yun-Fat) was the first Chinese-born immigrant in the NYPD, and is now one of the force's most decorated officers. As such, he's been named leader of the city's Asian Gang Unit, who are the primary peacekeepers in Chinatown. Trouble has just arrived for the Triads, the long-entrenched Chinese gangsters who are the real power behind Chinatown. After years of posing as honest businessmen, the Triad's powers are threatened by the newly arrived Fukienese Dragons. With a gang war on the horizon, the city sends a new recruit, Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg), to join Chen's unit. Danny finds Chen and the AGU in a very comfortable (perhaps too comfortable) relationship with the Triads. When the mobsters attempt to corrupt Danny, Chen must reassess his relationship with the Triads, and Danny must also learn that certain concessions must be made to ensure the peace in this world set apart from the rest of New York. ~ Ron Wells, All Movie Guide

Drawing its basic story from author Ian Gibson's investigation into the real-life murder of Andalusian poet Federico Garcia Lorca at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War, this English-language thriller begins in 1935 as exiled Spanish journalist Ricardo and his family resettle in Puerto Rico. For most of his life Ricardo has been obsessed with the poet. In 1954, Ricardo returns to Spain to look closely into the circumstances of Garcia Lorca's death. His father advises Ricardo not to go, but the writer, who wants to do a book about the poet, disregards him. Ricardo is also driven by his desire to ease his guilt about a close friend who was shot by the Nationalists. While doing battle with tight-lipped government officials, Ricardo is followed by Centeno, a member of Franco's security team. He is also followed by an amiable taxi driver who has an uncanny knack for showing up when Ricardo needs him most. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Twenty-seven years after turning one of Rudyard Kipling's best known works into a successful animated musical, Disney returned to the same source material for this live-action adventure, which hews slightly closer to the original source material. Mowgli (Sean Naeleli) is the five-year-old son of a wilderness guide who accompanies his father on a hunting expedition in the jungles of their native India. Mowgli becomes close friends with a British girl named Kitty (Joanna Wolff), whose parents commissioned the hunt, but when a tiger attacks their camp and kills Mowgli's father, the boy is lost in the confusion, and he's left to fend for himself. Mowgli is befriended by the animals of the jungle -- Baloo the bear, Bagheera the panther, and Grey Brother the wolf -- and they develop an unspoken sense of communication as the growing boy learns to live in the wilds. Years later, after growing to adulthood, Mowgli (now played by Jason Scott Lee) once again encounters Kitty (now played by Lena Headey), who is visiting India with her father, Col. Brydon (Sam Neill), a British officer stationed nearby, and her stuffy fiancée Capt. William Boone (Cary Elwes). Kitty and Mowgli recognize each other, and while his powers of speech are rusty, with the help of Dr. Plumford (John Cleese), Kitty and her father are able to return Mowgli to civilization. However, after spending most of his life in the jungle, Mowgli does not feel at home among other people, and while he deeply loves Kitty, he concedes to his rival for her affections. However, Boone and several of his men kidnap Mowgli when they learn that he has discovered a vast treasure in the jungle, and they try to force him to reveal its secrets while fending off the dangers of the jungle which Mowgli understands, but Boone and his men do not. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The title character, a manic depressive prone to very irrational behavior (Richard Gere), is hospitalized for treatment. While there, the psychiatrist responsible for his rehabilitation (Lena Olin) becomes involved with him and cannot stand to allow his check-out. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

David Mamet's award-winning play about a group of desperate real estate agents comes to the big screen from director James Foley. In a role created specifically for the movie, Alec Baldwin appears as a sales motivator, informing the group of hard-luck salesmen that they must compete in a sales contest where the losers will be fired. The agents work their same tired leads, until one hatches a scheme to burglarize the office, steal the leads, and sell them to a rival. Featuring a cast that includes Al Pacino as the office's sales leader, Jack Lemmon as an elderly loser, Alan Arkin and Ed Harris as frustrated salesmen, Kevin Spacey as the harassed office manager, and Jonathan Pryce as a client, Glengarry Glen Ross is, at its core, a character study about a group of men whose time has passed. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Directed by Joel Schumacher, Dying Young was adapted from a novel by Marti Leimbach. When Victor Geddes (Campbell Scott) discovers that he is suffering from leukemia, his wealthy family hires pretty, young Hillary O'Neil (Julia Roberts) to help nurse him through his chemotherapy treatment. As the two struggle through the debilitating effects of Victor's treatment, they fall in love and attempt to make the most of their time together. Campbell Scott's real mother, the late Colleen Dewhurst, plays his "reel" mother in the film. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Four cops make the painful discovery that not everyone on the force is upholding the law in this crime drama. Frank Daly (Brian Dennehy), Wayne Gross (Joe Pantoliano), Ricky Rodriguez (Jeff Fahey), and Howard Jones (Bill Patxon) are four undercover cops with the Los Angeles Police Department who work as a team to solve the cases that their colleagues consider too tough to handle. Under Daly's supervision, the four are trying to get the goods on a drug dealing operation working out of a meat packing plant. However, a raid on the plant uncovers little practical evidence, and Daly, a moody and hard-drinking loose cannon, is sharply criticized by his superiors for planning the bust without the input from the department heads or the FBI. Convinced that there's more to the case than they've been able to find so far, the four men begin looking into the matter on their own time. The deeper they dig, the more shocking the evidence becomes, as they learn that the police, the FBI, and even the Federal Government are involved in the smuggling operation, and the parties involved are perfectly willing to use violence and murder to keep troublemakers out of their way. After Jones is murdered while collecting evidence on a businessman in on the operation, the other three quit the police force, determined to see justice done even if they have to overstep the boundaries of the law to do it. Last of the Finest was also released under the titles Blue Heat and Street Legal. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This horror thriller is based upon the final chapter of the Bible and centers upon Abby Quinn, a pregnant woman living in Venice, California who leases her garage apartment to mysterious David, who seems to be trying to claim the soul and the life of her unborn child. Little does she knows that he is Christ incarnate and has come to open each of the seven seals and release upon the wicked world the prophesied disasters. He has already broken six seals and now with Abby's baby prepares to break the seventh. Meanwhile, David is stalked by the mysterious Father Lucci who has more than a passing interest in Apocalyptic prophesies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide