Michael Finnell

Michael Finnell

Profile

Michael Finnell

Movies

Cute. Clever. Mischievous. Intelligent. Dangerous: Making Gremlins
Self
This new retrospective features new interviews with director Joe Dante, star Zach Galligan, writer Chris Columbus, executive producers Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall and producer Michael Finnell.
From Gizmo to Gremlins: Creating the Creatures
Self
Chris Walas and Howie Mandel, the voice of Gizmo, describe the laborious development of Gizmo and the Gremlins and the painstaking work required to bring them to life in the pre-digital age.
21 Grams
Fat Prisoner
Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré; Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother of two girls; and Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con, are brought together by a terrible accident that changes their lives.
Haunted Lighthouse
Producer
The film tells the story of two ghost children who are cursed to remain forever on a Cape Cod beach and in a 19th-century era lighthouse. After 100 years, they meet two children visiting the beach and take them to the lighthouse, hoping to turn them into ghosts like them.
Teaching Mrs. Tingle
Co-Executive Producer
A bright high-school senior has her impending status as valedictorian jeopardized when her bitter history teacher, Mrs. Tingle, gives her a poor grade on a project. When an attempt to get ahead in Mrs. Tingle's class goes awry, mayhem ensues and friendships, loyalties and trust are tested by the teacher's intricate mind-games.
Small Soldiers
Producer
When missile technology is used to enhance toy action figures, the toys soon begin to take their battle programming too seriously.
Milk Money
Executive Producer
Three young boys pool their money and pay V, a kindhearted prostitute, to strip for them. Afterward, she drives them home to the suburbs -- but then her car breaks down. It's just as well, though, because a mobster named Waltzer is after her, and V realizes the suburbs are the perfect place to hide. But things get a lot more complicated when V falls in love with Tom, a single father who is unaware of her real profession.
Matinee
Producer
A showman introduces a small coastal town to a unique movie experience and capitalises on the Cuban Missile crisis hysteria with a kitschy horror extravaganza combining film effects, stage props and actors in rubber suits in this salute to the B-movie.
Newsies
Producer
A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When their publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, tries to squeeze a little more profit out of their labours, they organize a strike, only to be confronted with the Pulitzer's hard-ball tactics.
Deceived
Producer
The murder of a museum curator places art dealer Jack Saunders under suspicion for selling forged treasures to museums. When Jack suddenly dies in a car crash, his wife Adrienne tries to discover what he did on her own. She finds that she knew little about the man she was married to. The more she learns about her husband's possible illegal activities and double life, the more she places her daughter, and herself, in grave danger.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Producer
Young sweethearts Billy and Kate move to the Big Apple, land jobs in a high-tech office park and soon reunite with the friendly and lovable Gizmo. But a series of accidents creates a whole new generation of Gremlins. The situation worsens when the devilish green creatures invade a top-secret laboratory and develop genetically altered powers, making them even harder to destroy!
The 'Burbs
Producer
When secretive new neighbors move in next door, suburbanite Ray Peterson and his friends let their paranoia get the best of them as they start to suspect the newcomers of evildoings and commence an investigation. But it's hardly how Ray, who much prefers drinking beer, reading his newspaper and watching a ball game on the tube expected to spend his vacation.
Innerspace
Producer
Test pilot Tuck Pendleton volunteers to test a special vessel for a miniaturization experiment. Accidentally injected into a neurotic hypochondriac, Jack Putter, Tuck must convince Jack to find his ex-girlfriend, Lydia Maxwell, to help him extract Tuck and his ship and re-enlarge them before his oxygen runs out.
Explorers
Executive Producer
The visionary dreams of three curious and adventuresome young boys become an exciting reality in Explorers, the action-fantasy from director Joe Dante, who combines keen humor, warmth and fantasy with unexpected twists. In their makeshift laboratory, the boys use an amazing discovery and their ingenuity to build their own spaceship and launch themselves on a fantastic interplanetary journey.
Gremlins
Producer
When Billy Peltzer is given a strange but adorable pet named Gizmo for Christmas, he inadvertently breaks the three important rules of caring for a Mogwai, and unleashes a horde of mischievous gremlins on a small town.
Twilight Zone: The Movie
Producer
An anthology film presenting remakes of three episodes from the TV series "Kick the Can", "It's a Good Life" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and featuring one original story "Time Out".
Twilight Zone: The Movie
Associate Producer
An anthology film presenting remakes of three episodes from the TV series "Kick the Can", "It's a Good Life" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and featuring one original story "Time Out".
The Howling
Producer
After a bizarre and near fatal encounter with a serial killer, a newswoman is sent to a rehabilitation center whose inhabitants may not be what they seem.
Rock 'n' Roll High School
Producer
A group of rock-music-loving students, with the help of the Ramones, take over their school to combat its newly installed oppressive administration.
Avalanche
Associate Producer
After an avalanche of snow crashes into their ski resort, a holiday at a winter wonderland turns into a game of survival for a group of vacationers.
Cannonball
Helicopter Pilot
Coy "Cannonball" Buckman (David Carradine) and his blazing red Pontiac enter the Trans-America Grand Prix, an underground road race spanning the continent in which there are no rules, no speed limits and no heed for the law. En route, Buckman jockeys with an international ensemble of racers for a $100,000 purse. But there are none more important than Cade Redman (Bill McKinney), his direct competition for a guaranteed spot on the elite Modern Motors racing team.