Frankie

First Hit: Languid look at a family gathered to process a life-altering event.

During a day in Sintra, Portugal, Francois Cremont, AKA “Frankie” (Isabelle Huppert) has asked family and friends to gather to spend time together. Frankie is a famous actress and tries to keep a low profile while at this famous picturesque town. She walks with her husband, Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson), and a guide who says at one point, there are miracle healing waters in an undisclosed place near the hotel. You can tell by the way she looks, she’s not well.

Frankie’s invited her son Paul (Jeremie Renier) and close friend Irene (Marisa Tomei), hoping to make a love connection between them. However, Irene has brought her boyfriend Gary (Greg Kinnear) as they were both working on a “Star Wars” film in nearby Spain. Gary springs his plans to ask Irene to make their relationship more permanent by moving in together. He gives her a ring as a token of his intentions. Irene hesitates.

The closeness of Irene and Frankie is wonderfully portrayed during their long walk together and then the ride back to the hotel in a small open-air taxi. It’s a sweet and revealing moment.

Gary, sad at being shunned by Irene, runs into Frankie and learns from her that if Irene didn’t come right out and say yes to his proposal that they live together, it’s probably something she doesn’t want to do. Then Gary shifts and asks if Frankie would be interested in a script he’s thinking of turning into a film.

Sylvia and Ian Andoh (Vinette Robinson and Ariyon Bakare) are also at the hotel with their daughter Maya (Sennia Nanua). Sylvia and Ian’s marriage is in trouble, and Sylvia wants to move on. Their discussion at the café was impactful when she learns that he’s suspected her wanting to leave and tells her what his lawyer has stated.

The story has Maya getting away from her frustrated mother that results in a few sweet scenes of Maya taking a trolley to the beach, meeting a boy, and kissing him.

These scenes and more are not integrated very well into the overall theme of the film, which to me, was about Frankie trying to say goodbye.

There was little character development for all the characters, and therefore the audience is left to fill in the vast spaces left by the dialogue about past events.

Huppert is good as Frankie. However, I didn’t really care about her character or her story. Tomei was excellent, and she showed a fantastic range of emotions during her conversations with Gary and Frankie. Renier was strong as the son who was probably not very important to his famous mother, Frankie. Gleeson seemed very miscast and sort of bumbled through this role. I didn’t sense any chemistry between him and Frankie and didn’t see how they could have been married. Robinson was dynamic as a woman who wanted to leave her husband because she didn’t feel like there was anything left for her in her relationship. Bakare was good as Sylvia’s husband, who loved his wife but knew she really wanted to leave. Nanua was terrific as the young girl who went to explore the coastal town and discovered more about herself. Kinnear was well cast as an opportunist. Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias wrote this bland screenplay. The dialogue never really seemed to go anywhere and seem to fall into a state of languishment. Sachs directed this film, and I’m not sure what it is he really wanted to say or express.

Overall: There was little in this film about human nature, but Sintra seems like a beautiful place to visit.

Brigsby Bear

First Hit:  A very creative interesting film about a young man coming to terms with his past.

The first thing about this film when watching the initial scenes are that James (Kyle Mooney), and his so called mom and dad, Ted and April Mitchum (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams respectively) are odd people. They live as a family in an underground bunker in the middle of nowhere (looks like a high-desert area in the southwest part of the United States).

James is obsessed with the "Brigsby Bear" videos he watches on an old VCR player. Afterwards, he writes up a synopsis of the video and posts the synopsis on a blog site using a very old, out of date, portable computer. He’s all alone except for his parents and never seems to go outside. Stealing away one night, with a gas mask on, he ventures outside. While watching the sky on top of the bunker’s concrete entrance, he sees the flashing lights of police cars in the distance. Panicking he goes back into the bunker to wake up his parents.

However, he's too late and the police are inside the bunker. He’s taken to a police station where Detective Vogel (Greg Kinnear) tells him he was abducted as a baby and that Ted and April aren't his real parents. He’s introduced to his real parents Greg and Louise Pope (Matt Walsh and Michaela Watkins respectively). He also has a sister Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins) who is very standoffish to James because she suddenly has an older brother who is weird and not cool. As a teenage girl, it is horrible to have a geeky strange older brother who's name is plastered all over the news.

Greg and Louise take James to see and work with a psychologist named Emily (Claire Danes) who insists that James must begin the process of forgetting about Brigsby Bear. Although he asks everyone else about Brigsby, he discovers that no one else has ever seen Brigsby Bear. Then he learns that his former Dad created all the Brigsby videos to teach him life lessons in addition to reading, math, and the importance of right and wrong.

James has grown up with Brigsby as his only touchstone to life outside of Ted and April, so he decides to do a film to help him understand it all. The film he hopes to make will complete the Brigsby Bear story. When he shares this idea with Aubrey’s friends they offer to help him make this film.

The rest of the film is about creating new friendships by creating this film together. Even Detective Vogel gets into the act. The way this unfolds is interesting and only until we get close to the end of the film do we really see how this is James’ way of saying "goodbye" to the life he once had and saying "hi" to the life he is entering.

The film’s creative naivete, as witnessed by the way both sets of parents are characterized, shows how James is a mirror of his parents and a reflection of the film he creates. This makes this movie captivatingly perfect.

Mooney was excellent as the partially blank tablet young man trying to find his way into a world he knows little about. Hamill was strong as the surrogate dad and the evil sun. Walsh was puzzlingly good. I was puzzled because he reflected a certain level of spacy-ness himself. There were times I thought he as putting on an act and other times I felt true and solid engagement to the role. Watkins was clearly less puzzling and good in this role. Simpkins was excellent. I thought she did an excellent job of being put off by James presence as well as embracing him as she learns more about him. Danes was solid as a therapist who lacked clear empathy towards James and his path to grow. Kinnear was excellent as the detective who began to see James and support his efforts to move his life forward his way. Jorge Lendeborg Jr. was fantastic as Aubrey’s friend who is the first to be open to James and his story. Their interactions while building the film and at the party were priceless. Alexa Demie as another one of Aubrey’s friends who takes James under her wings and was excellent. Kevin Costello and Kyle Mooney wrote this interesting script and Dave McCary’s direction gave it all life.

Overall:  I thought this was a very creative and bold film.

Green Zone

First Hit: Intense, interesting and powerful film providing a telling view of just how bad and desperate our previous administration was.

Paul Greengrass creates an intense film by using heavy shaky camera moves during opening sequences which have a team of soldiers looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) at sites identified by US Intelligence.

Matt Damon plays “Chief Miller” a Chief Warrant Officer heading up a team of people looking for these WMDs which was the reason why we invaded Iraq. Each site they encounter there are no weapons, only bird shit and emptiness.

Miller starts to outwardly question the intelligence to his superiors and he is told to stifle his comments and just do as he is told by these commanding officers. The intelligence for these validated WMD sites comes from an Iraqi insider code named “Magellan”.

As Miller starts asking questions, a longtime CIA operative, a reporter and an Iraqi civilian make contact adding pieces to the puzzle as to why all the sites are empty and why US government is very adamant about keeping their deceit about their validated intelligence from the public.

Greengrass did an outstanding job of making dramatic, the story about how the Bush Administration fooled us all just so he could be a bully on the block and topple a man and government in another country. Damon is, as always, compelling, believable, and outstanding in his role as a man who is true to the truth even if it is against the his government’s version of the truth. Yigal Naor is very strong, steady and perfect as Hussein’s top General who provided accurate WMD information that was ignored by Clark Poundstone (played by Greg Kinnear). Kinnear is great as a the lead orchestrator in Iraq of our deceit.

Overall: This is a very compelling dramatic film about how the US Public and the world was misled about our “verified” intelligence about WMD stored in facilities around Iraq.

Flash of Genius

First Hit: What a wonderful story about a man going up against a corporation.

My father had a company which built fiberglass parts for the Shelby 350 and 500 mustang cars. This was in the late 1960’s. Although the parts coming off the molds met specifications, Ford was having a hard time using them because their cars weren’t meeting specs. So Ford decided to not meet their end of the agreement which put my dad’s company in financial trouble. Because they were such a large corporation, my dad’s company lawyer told them not to try to sue Ford because they will lose. It caused a lot of heartache to my family and the families that worked at my dad’s company.

Later in life we learned that we would have won a lawsuit against them.

The story of Robert Kerns (played by Greg Kinnear) is a story like the one I experienced, except he went after and sued Ford. He went after them because they stole his design and made money off of it. This is a great David and Goliath story.

Greg Kinnear is wonderful as a father trying to teach his children that there are things worth fighting for. And despite the odds and the personal cost (not only money, but family and friends), in the end it is a worthy fight. The whole film is concise and clear to its aim. Alan Alda is excellent playing a lawyer who initially wants to help Kerns but in the end is really out to help himself.

Overall:  This is really a good film and well worth seeing as Kinner embodies this character and really brings him to life.

Feast of Love

First Hit: An interesting and pointed film about Love and relationships with a smooth underpinning.

Morgan Freeman is the smooth wise underpinning in this film.

He is where the film starts and ends. He has been fortunate in that he has been with “his love” for many years and together they are working through a tragedy and some regret in their lives.

Greg Kinnear brings to life the hopeless romantic who becomes blind in the development of, and during his relationships. The other players in this film also bring to bear different aspects of Love and relationships.

The acting, across the board, is very good which brings these familiar and sometimes painful stories to life.

Overall: I liked this film because I could see myself in one or more of the roles and they rang true.