Charles Finch Movies
Steampunk aesthetics inform this story of a dystopic future in which humankind wages an explosive last stand against the demonic NecroMutants, who would see the entire human race brutally annihilated. Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, Devon Aoki, and John Malkovich star in this effects-heavy sci-fi action thriller from director Simon Hunter (Dead of Night). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, (more)
An elderly man's friendship with a young girl is viewed with suspicion both those around him in this drama from British filmmaker Jan Dunn. Jack (Bob Hoskins) has never been an especially good natured man, but after the death of his wife he sinks into a deep depression, rarely leaving the house, losing interest in cleaning and neglecting the racing pigeons that used to be his pride and joy. While Jack's new neighbor Stephanie (Josiane Balasko) tries to bring him out of his shell with her tasty French cooking, he develops a new lease on life when single mother Stacey (Shannon Tomkinson) asks him to look after her nine-year-old daughter Florrie (Jessica Stewart). While Jack insists he doesn't especially like children, he unexpectedly bonds with Florrie and the two become friends. Jack's paternal side comes to the surface, and he takes neighborhood teen Ian (Jody Latham) under his wing when he sees the lad taking a path towards delinquency. But when Florrie disappears under mysterious circumstances, some folks begin to wonder if Jack's friendship with her is entirely innocent. Ruby Blue received its American premiere at the 2008 Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hoskins, Josiane Balasko, (more)
Sienna Miller and James Franco star in first-time producer/director Gregory Mackenzie's twisted romance about a honeymooning couple who discovers that sometimes love is stronger than death. Recent parolee Silas (Franco) has just been blackmailed into marrying the beautiful Camille (Miller), and he's none to happy about the arrangement; despite the fact that he can't stand her, she still worships the ground he walks on. But now the law is family, and should the union fail, Silas' new uncle-in-law, Sheriff Foster (Scott Glen), will ensure that the disgruntled groom is sent back to the slammer in a flash. Immediately after the wedding, however, things get complicated when Silas and Camille are run off the road by a reckless truck driver. When Silas regains conscious and stumbles over to Camille's contorted body, it's obvious that she's suffered a fatal injury in the accident. After fleeing the scene and attempting to summon help, Silas returns to the sight of the crash and finds Camille nursing a serious neck injury down by the river while frantically trying to get the grass stains out of her wedding dress. Desperate, the couple hitches a ride with the nomadic Cowboy Bob (David Carradine), eventually realizing that Camille didn't survive the accident despite the fact that she's somehow able to walk and talk with the living. As Camille's body begins to decay, the situation grows complicated when the couple learns that the police are on their trail for an imagined robbery and murder. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Franco, Sienna Miller, (more)
The fate of two cultures becomes locked on a tragic collision course in director Nick Broomfield's dramatization of the events that led to the massacre of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children by American Marines. A squadron of American soldiers goes speeding across the Iraqi desert in a convoy of armored Humvees, eventually stopping at a local store where the soldiers jump out to stretch and browse the DVD selection. Meanwhile, as the Marines strike up a conversation with the young male clerk behind the counter, two Iraqi men climb into the back of a pick-up truck to get a crash course in IED mechanics. Both the Marines and the Iraqis are simply going about their daily business as usual, just doing their best to survive in a land where war is just another fact of life. For the Marines it's all about patrolling the desert and waiting for the next bomb to go off. When a roadside IED kills one Marine and wounds two others, the vengeance with which the American soldiers strike back at the locals may cause even the most hard-line warhawks to take pause and consider the true cost of a war which has no end in sight. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elliot Ruiz, Falah Abraheem Flayeh, (more)
- 2006
Longtime documentary director Nick Broomfield (Kurt & Courtney, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer) eschews the format with which filmgoers generally associate him to tell this affecting tale of Chinese émigrés looking to earn a healthy, albeit illegal, living in the U.K. Ai Qin is a desperate mother from Fujian who is willing to pay the Snakehead gang 25,000 dollars to smuggle her into the U.K. Once there, Ai Qin plans to send the majority of the money back to China order to support her son and family. But life in the U.K. isn't easy, even for the hardest-working Chinese immigrant. Not only does Ai Qin live with 15 other immigrants in a suburban, two-bedroom house, but with three million other migrant workers forming the foundation of the United Kingdom's hospitality, food supply, and construction industries, the search for better-paying jobs that will help them pay back their sizeable debts are never-ending. In keeping with Broomfield's decidedly real-world approach to filmmaking and in order to maintain authenticity, the director cast an actual former migrant worker, Ai Qin Lin, who had once been illegally smuggled into the U.K. (and has since gained legal citizenship) in the lead role. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ai Qin Lin, Zhan Yu, (more)
Ralph Fiennes plays a grown man haunted by his childhood in David Cronenberg's stylized psychological drama Spider. Upon his release from a mental institution, Spider (Fiennes) takes up residence in a halfway house. Paranoid, quiet, and forever making notes, Spider spends much of the film remembering scenes from his youth, specifically a horrific event from his childhood that occurred after he came to believe that his father (Gabriel Byrne) was having an affair on his mother (Miranda Richardson). The psychological terror builds to a climax that challenges how much the viewer can believe Spider's recollections of the event. Bradley Hall plays Spider as a boy, and Richardson portrays many different women who come into contact with Spider. Spider was screened in competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, (more)
- 2001
The great British obsession with football (soccer to Americans) receives a thorough skewering in this mock documentary look at perhaps the most hapless coach in the history of professional sport. The manager of England's national football unexpectedly succumbs to a heart attack, and suddenly the search is on for a replacement. Most people who seem qualified for the position have the good sense to turn it down, and so the responsibility falls to Mike Bassett (Ricky Tomlinson), a scruffy and loud-mouthed lout whose claim to football fame is leading a previously undistinguished team to a league championship. Bassett insists that England will win the World Cup under his leadership, but that's before he replaces his star player with a once-gifted footballer (Dean Lennox Kelly) who has since developed a drinking problem, and hired a one-time car salesman (Philip Jackson) as his assistant. After several stunning losses to Poland, Bassett goes from a favorite of both fans and the press to one of the most hated men in England; hoping to whip his team into shape, he subjects them to the high-tech training methods of eccentric Dr. Shoegaarten (Ulrich Thomsen), which injures more players than it helps. Despite Bassett's ineptitude, England manages to qualify for the World Cup tournament thanks to a loophole in the rules, and he flies to Rio with his team in hopes of somehow turning their bad luck around. British television journalist Martin Bashir, musician and comic Keith Allen, and international football sensation Pele all appear as themselves to lend Mike Bassett: England Manager an air of authenticity. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ricky Tomlinson, Amanda Redman, (more)
In this spoofy horror outing from veteran genre director Brian Yuzna, L.A. Law vet Corbin Bernsen plays Dr. Feinstone, an anal-retentive Beverly Hills dentist with an amusement park of an office replete with Planet Hollywood-worthy, themed exam rooms, piped-in opera music, and a crisp, efficient staff. When Feinstone finds out that his lovely wife, Brooke (Linda Hoffman), is fellating the pool boy, he becomes unhinged -- haunted by visions of filthy mouths and faithless spouses. Inviting Brooke back to the office on their anniversary and begging her to indulge him in his hobby of cleaning her teeth, Feinstone performs a little unorthodox oral surgery and soon uses his now-disfigured sweetie to lure her boyfriend into a backyard trap. Revenge doesn't cure Feinstone's homicidal urges, however, and soon his violence and sexual obsessions spill over into his practice -- especially after creepy IRS investigator Marvin Goldblum (Earl Boen) shows up for a little "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine." Soon, patients and staff members alike are interacting with drills and laughing gas in ways they never expected. Filmed for, and originally shown on, HBO, The Dentist did not receive a U.S. theatrical release. Yuzna, Bernsen, and Hoffman reunited two years later for The Dentist II: Brace Yourself. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Corbin Bernsen, Linda Hoffman, (more)
- 1996
When young banker Thomas Murray's marriage to the blue-blooded Amanda falls apart, he begins working with his father-in-law Arthur in Paris and ends up finding solace in the arms of the beautiful Katharine. While he is off loving Katherine, Amanda rethinks her position and decides to reconcile with Thomas. Devastated by the discovery of his affair, she attempts suicide. Her father then makes Thomas a potentially lucrative proposition that leaves him faced with a difficult choice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane March, Jean Rochefort, (more)
- 1995
- R
In this psycho-thriller, a little girl and her mother find themselves the focus of a crazed couple's delusions. The horror begins after Cassie has a fight with her husband David and takes off in the car with their young daughter Samantha. Cassie takes a wrong turn and ends up in the home of the evil Mr. and Mrs. Because Cassie and Samantha closely resemble relatives the couple recently lost, the duo hold the frightened mother and daughter captive in their home. Soon the two victims find themselves psychologically and physically abused, particularly Cassie who is threatened with torture and rape. Will David find them before the Scudders kill them both? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Angie Dickinson, (more)
Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell, and Drew Barrymore are the stars of this Western whose main gimmick is making heroes into heroines. They all start out as prostitutes, as Cody (Stowe) shoots a drunken colonel who attempts to molest Anita (Masterson). She is about to be lynched for defending her friend when the other "bad girls" ride in and rescue her, pursued by detectives. The rest of the film follows their adventures as they get caught up in hostage situations, bank robberies, shootouts, and romantic interludes with handsome young cowboys with never a hair out of place or an unsightly smudge of Western dust. Amazingly, all four former prostitutes are able to ride, shoot, rope, and fight as well. Bad Girls is not likely to be thought of as a realistic view of how women lived in the Old West. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, (more)
When unsuccessful writer Bruce Simmons (Dylan McDermott) is kicked out of his apartment, he takes up residence in an old abandoned mansion. When he discovers the gruesome history of the house, he is inspired to begin a novel based on the grisly murders that took place there. However, when a strange border moves in, his input on the novel might be a little too informed for Bruce's taste. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dylan McDermott, Tom Sizemore, (more)
- 1988
In this Italian romantic fantasy, a has-been rocker finds renewal when on the beach he stumbles across a bottle that contains a beautiful genie who is capable of making all of his dreams come true. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Lambert, Diane Lane, (more)
- 1986
This sexy sword-and-sorcery film from Roger Corman's Concorde Pictures was filmed on location in Argentina by a primarily South American crew. The plot concerns the efforts of Amazon queen Dyala (Ty Randolph) to secure a magic sword in order to defeat the evil sorcerer Kalungo (Joseph Whipp). Dyala sends two of her busty warriors, Tashi and Tashinge (Penelope Reed and Danitza Kingsley) to retrieve the sword, and the usual shenanigans ensue, albeit with more nudity and sexual activity than usual. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pehelope Jane Reed, Joe Whipp, (more)
- 1970
In this exploitation drama, a teenage rock-group fan is so desperate to be with her heroes that she sneaks aboard their van and heads with them for London. Unfortunately for her, the boys are not nice at all and use her as their sex toy and get her addicted to drugs. She then gets in a car crash and more tragedy ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Esme Johns, Billy Boyle, (more)
