FRANKIE may not be up to the usual level of Ira Sachs movies, but it's still worth a view

Why? As they say in the real estate trade, location (I'll spare you the cliché of repeating this word another two times). FRANKIE, the new film from Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange, Keep the Lights On), has been filmed in Sintra, Portugal, in one of the loveliest locations -- the inside and outside architecture, as well as the lushly verdant landscapes -- I've seen in a movie in some time. Consequently just about every scene features a view or two that is drop-dead gorgeous. Another reason the film is worth seeing is its terrific international cast: Really, are you going to pass up a movie featuring Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, Pascal Greggory and the remaining international cast with whom TrustMovies was not as familiar but who are very, very good.

Mr. Sachs' (the filmmaker is shown at left) gift for largely doing away with exposition (or couching it so very well that we don't even notice) seems to have somewhat deserted him here so that we get more expo than we do action or plot.

There are probably times in which this would not mater. But here it eventually stalls the film to the point that we grow impatient for more to happen.

More never comes, so we fall back on the gorgeous cinematography (by the fine Rui Poças)  and the excellent work from the performers, for whom every moment rings true -- even if the movie as a whole doesn't quite make it. And then, Sachs drags his finale on well past the point of no return.

The tale told is one of internationally famous film star (played by Huppert, above) hosting a family-and-friends get together in Sintra during which much is revealed (much of which we, if not some of the other characters, already know). Revealing any of what is revealed risks spoilers -- in a movie that boasts so little plot that even spoiling a single thing seems too much.

So let's just concentrate on that cast of characters at this extended-family reunion to which a couple of outsiders are included. Ms Tomei (above) plays one of Huppert's dearest industry friends (she does hair for movies, as I recall) who brings along a director of photography (Mr. Kinnear) who surprises her with a sudden proposal.

Mr. Gleeson (above, right) essays the role of Huppert's current hubby, while Mr. Greggory plays her former spouse and M. Renier (below, right) is grumpy/sexy as Huppert's grown son who's equally concerned about his mother's health and what he'll inherit, once she has departed.

As I mentioned, we get all this via exposition that's not up to Sach's usual abilities, but the performances are good enough to carry us along, while the background locations, with their eye-popping visuals, keep us happy.

From Sony Pictures Classics, in mostly the English language with some English-subtitled French and Portuguese occasionally tossed in, and running 98 minutes, Frankie, which opened in our cultural centers a few weeks ago to not-so-hot critical notices, hits South Florida tomorrow, Friday, November 22, in the Miami area at AMC's Aventura 24 and in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters -- among other possible venues (Sony's Frankie website has not been updated to include any actual theater locations at this point in time).

Judy Greer's directorial debut, A HAPPENING OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS, opens

I am hard pressed to think of another actor whose performances over 21 years -- 129 of them, according to the imdb, and generally in supporting roles most often of the comedic variety -- have garnered her such good will (at least among movie-goers like me) than Judy Greer.

From Jawbreakers and Three Kings through Cursed, The Descendents and the recent Measure of a Man plus countless TV shows, Ms Greer, shown below,  has proven consistently interesting, reliable, funny and smart. When TrustMovies learned of her directing debut via a film entitled A HAPPENING OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS, he was both excited and expectant.

The stellar cast Greer is working with, too, could hardly be bettered and includes Common, Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, Jennifer Garner, John Cho, Katie Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani and Keanu Reeves. (Mr. Reeves does not appear until movie's end, but his scene -- taking place mostly in a very colorful restaurant men's room, pictured at bottom -- proves bizarrely memorable.)

So: What's not to like? Let's start with the movie itself, which, although Ms Greer, who has directed well enough to pass muster and has most of her actors achieving as consistent a tone as possible, is working here with a screenplay written by Gary Lundy (below) that pretty much sinks the best intentions of the rest of the cast and crew.

What exactly was Mr. Lundy going for, I wonder? Some kind of satire of American society, hypocrisy, the current workplace and our school system, perhaps? If so, the result is slipshop and half-assed. The plot is undercooked, while certain characters -- the school administrator played by Rob Riggle, for instance -- are overdrawn and banged home with a vengeance.

To note but a single joke gone wrong: the suddenly deceased gardener with the name "Kevin," which of course in the Los Angels area where the movie takes place is so wrong, since all gardeners must be Hispanic. The idea may be funny but given the Lundy/Riggle combination, it is repeated so often, long and loudly that what would have been clever once or twice is instead done to death.

Greer and her very able cast try to put the spin of reality (occasionally hyper-reality) onto this mess, but the script and characterization keep upending them.

There are dead moms aplenty, the school's career day in which parents participate, a workplace coffee machine that gets sabotaged, adultery and its payoff, possible suicide, father-daughter/father-son tsuris and other assorted situations, none of which quite work for either comedy or pathos (and especially not for credibility) but instead begin to make us feel real sadness for the performers caught up all this, especially Common, who works particularly hard as a single dad trying to please his daughter while doing his job, as well as his assistant, played by Ms Garner. (The actor is shown above, left, with Mr. Whitford, who plays his nasty new boss, and below, right, with Storm Reid, who plays his sweet, intelligent daughter.)

Along the way there are some funny and/or enjoyable moments, as well as decent performances, too. But the tale told is too often too nonsensical to hold water yet not nearly clever enough for decent satire. Perhaps I am missing the point that screenwriter Lundy is trying to make -- is he just going for something goofy? -- or don't understand or appreciate the style he's using to accomplish it. But I'd have to call this one a misfire of monumental proportions.

From Great Point Media and running 82 minutes, A Happening of Monumental Proportions opens this Friday in a limited run of theaters across the country. In New York City, it will screen at the Cinema Village, and in the Los Angeles area at both the Laemmle Monica Film Center and the Ahrya Fine Arts. 

A family of French farmers deals with World War I in Xavier Beauvois' THE GUARDIANS

Ah, a new film from Xavier Beauvois! This is the fellow who gave us both Le Petit Lieutenant and Of Gods and Men, two films that TrustMovies enjoyed very much. And yet, when I went to further research Beauvois on the IMDB, I was shocked to discover that, while I think of this man more as a filmmaker than an actor, I had actually seen much more of his work in the latter category than the former. His acting is perfectly fine, but it's as writer/director that I most remember him -- particularly for his multi-award-winning Of Gods and Men.

M. Beauvois, shown at left, is an unhurried movie-maker. He takes his sweet time and concentrates on the details -- of character, situation, location and time period. While this can make his filmmaking slow-paced as was, even to some extent, his police procedural, Le Petit Lieutenant, his work is never for a moment uninteresting. His latest entry as director and co-adapter (with Marie-Julie Maille and Frédérique Moreau) of the novel by Ernest Pérochon, is THE GUARDIANS (Les gardiennes), a story of World War I set entirely on the French home front with not a scene of war-time action to be found.

Oh, the movie begins clearly and cleverly enough with a long tracking-the-landscape shot of dead bodies, some of these wearing gas masks, so we immediately know the WWI time frame. Yet, once the film's story begins we never leave that home front -- the farm and the village in which our group of main characters live and labor.

Yes, young male characters come and go (early on, one of the sons of the family comes home for a short leave, followed by the leave of a second son and a son-in-law), only to be killed, wounded or taken prisoner by the Germans. Yet we never see any of this; we only hear about it second-hand.

This means we concentrate mostly on the womenfolk who must carry on just as before, but without the help of the stronger males. The work, if you know anything about farming (and a century ago!), is difficult, often back-breaking, and near-constant, yet these women must manage it.

The film's female leads include the mother (the usually glamorous Natalie Baye, above, looking as plain and aged as we've ever seen her),

her daughter (the lovely and, as as one character calls her, "elegant" Laura Smet, above), and a young worker the family must hire as help who has only recently left the orphanage in which she was raised (the wonderful red-haired newcomer Iris Bry, shown below and on poster, top, whom we are certain to see again soon).

What happens to all these folk, women and men, is as believable, sometimes terrible and always understated as life itself. Beauvois and his co-writers have managed to include so little coincidence into their film that when a sample of that credibility-ripping stuff suddenly happens (involving an overseen kiss), it comes as quite a shock. But I think any film deserves a single instance of this, so you'll probably be able to let this one pass. (Downton Abbey this movie definitely is not.)

Performances are everything you could want them to be --  as real as the farmhouse dirt. These people are not big on a lot of talking, so we get used to the silence and visual routine of their lives and then hang on their occasional words, as events pile up and more needs to be said.

The great strength of Beauvois and his cast and crew's work is that though some terrible things happen, some out of the characters' control, others firmly within that control, we are somehow able to understand the dreadful injustice of all this -- given, especially, the time and place. That our heroine is able to accept this and move on is difficult but salutary, and the filmmaker never underscores her achievement with the usual soaring music and feel-good stance. Instead The Guardians (ironic title, that) achieves its ends in all too ordinary but appropriate ways. This is good, strong, rooted filmmaking, and I hope you will give it a viewing.

From Music Box Films, in French with English subtitles and running 135 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, May 4, in New York City at the Quad Cinema and on the following Friday, May 11, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7. In the weeks following, the film will hit another 15 or so cities. Click here and then click on THEATERS on the task bar half-way down the screen to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and venues.

Soderbergh's back -- with the smart, fast, funny but low-key frolic, LOGAN LUCKY

Steven Soderburgh (shown below) said goodbye to movies a few years back -- but not to cable TV, for which he'd already directed Behind the Candelabra and soon would oversee The Knick. Now, like Frank Sinatra and his many good-bye concerts and recordings, the filmmaker is back. And if his latest -- LOGAN LUCKY -- is any indication, he's simply gotten all that much better during his flirtation with those premium channels. Over the past couple of decades, TrustMovies has been up-and-down regarding Soderburgh's work. Some of his most successful -- those Oceans movies and especially Traffic (his mediocre remake of one of the best-ever British television series) and the more recent Magic Mike -- have been among my least favorites.

Logan Lucky, I think, is one of Soderburgh's best. Maybe the best. Among this filmmaker's biggest strengths is his ability to match his style (never a hugely showy thing) to the particular atmosphere and content to which he's currently involved. Thus we get the Oceans movies' gloss, The Underneath's noir-osity, The Good German's sense of time and place, Erin Brockovich's documentary feel, and Haywire's speedy, lo-calorie smarts. Though Logan Lucky is a heist movie (as were the Oceans), it is set in what we might fondly call the redneck territory of NASCAR racing, among the lower-, middle- and upper-classes of our nation's no-one-would-mistake-them-for-classy citizens. Hence, his film, which is supremely well-written (though it is credited to one, Rebecca Blunt, the IMDB says that this name is likely a pseudonym), has the slow-but-sure look, feel, sound and movement of that down-home place and people. The movie may take it sweet time to unfurl, but, boy, does it deliver 'dem goods!

It also gives Channing Tatum (above) another great role to inhabit, which he does in spades, playing the careful, caring dad who, like so many Americans these days, is having employment trouble. (That's the sweet young actress, Farrah Mackenzie, above, who plays his daughter.)

To solve our hero, Jimmy's, financial problems, he and his Iraq War-wounded brother, Clyde (another fine job in another unusual role by Adam Driver, above, left), conspire to rob the NASCAR racetrack vault. This is of course ridiculous, but so cleverly is the convoluted screenplay conceived and executed, with Soderburgh taking just enough time to explain what we need to know when we need to know it, that we're suckered in and then hooked from beginning through the very exciting heist itself, and on to the to the film's funny climax and quite fabulous, if quietly ironic, denouement.

Along for the ride is such a huge and mostly memorable cast that I don't begin to have time to list them all. But, in the movie's biggest hoot of a joke, the end credits herald the "introduction" of an actor by the name of Daniel Craig. Yes, that classy Brit-and-Bond-ish Daniel Craig, above, in a role the likes of which you will not have seen this very capable performer previously essay. Hillary Swank (below) makes a very late-in-the-game entrance, too, and she provides a good deal of quietly determined fun.

I hope this movie is a huge success, but I do have some doubts. Its heist plot is so complicated that I fear a mainstream American audience may not be able to easily or properly follow it. So concentrate, please. There are plenty of funny, exciting, clever moments along the way to keep you occupied, as well as all those name actors popping up and doing their smart thing smartly.

From Bleecker Street and Fingerprint Releasing (Soderbergh's own firm, which you can read more about by clinking the preceding link), Logan Lucky opens nationwide this Friday, August 18. Here in South Florida, you can see it all over the place: In the Miami area at the AMC Sunset Place 24 Theatres, AMC Hialeah 12, AMC Aventura Mall 24, AMC Tamiami 18, AMC Pompano Beach 18, Cobb Dolphin Cinema, Cobb Hialeah Grand 18, Cobb Miami Lakes 17, CMX Brickell City Center, Cineopolis Grove, Regal The Falls, Regal Oakwood, Regal Kendall Village 16, Regal Westfork, Regal Southland Mall, and Regal South Beach 18.

In Ft. Lauderdale it will play the AMC Coral Ridge 10 Theatres, Classic Gateway, Silverspot Coconut Creek, Cineapolis Deerfield, Cinemark Paradise 24, Thunderbird Drive-In, Paragon Ridge Plaza 8, Regal Magnolia Place, Regal Cypress Creek, Regal Broward 12, Regal Sawgrass.

In West Palm Beach/Boca/Delray and further north areas, look for it at the Living Room Theater, Regal Shadowood 16, Movies of Delray 5/Movies of Lake Worth, Cinemark Boynton Beach 14, AMC City Place 20, Cobb Downtown at the Mall Gardens, Paragon Wellington 10, Regal Royal Palm Beach 18, Regency Square 8, AMC St Lucie 14, AMC Indian River 24 , Palm 16, Regal Treasure Coast Mall 16, Majestic 11, Cinepolis Jupiter 14. Normally, I'd provide links for the all these many theaters, but I need to get to bed by midnight for an early day tomorrow....

Wherever you live across the USA, to locate a theater near you, click here. 

SPOTLIGHT ON A MURDERER: one of Georges Franju's lesser works hits Blu-ray/DVD

If you've ever wanted to learn more about those semi-famous son et lumières that were born in France back in the 1950s and then came to international prominence in the 60s, have I got the film for you! Rather pedestrian in all other ways, this disappearing-corpse-that-then-turns-into-a-murder-mystery movie was directed and co-adapted by Georges Franju, the fellow who gave us the enduring Eyes Without a Face and the lesser-known but lovely WWI fantasia, Thomas The Imposter.

In the Special Features section of this nicely produced Blu-ray disc, M. Franju, shown at left, discusses the film on camera in footage made during the shooting of this 1961 release. The filmmaker explains that he wanted his movie to be all sorts of things -- from mysterious to thrilling to funny, surprising and more. SPOTLIGHT ON A MURDERER is all of those things. What it isn't, however, is very good. The film was co-written by the team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, who gave us the novels upon which both Diabolique and Vertigo was based, as well as the adaptation of the much better Eyes Without a Face.

This odd mixture of tones worked better in other Franju films. Here, however, it combines with the typical and not particularly convincing "mystery" tropes and the lavish attention to detail regarding the design and execution of the son et lumière in a manner that becomes almost a kind of "exercise" in weirdly near-experimental film-making.

It's fun for buffs, certainly, and for Franju "completists," too, but it will probably leave the more typical arthouse/foreign film patron scratching his head -- in wonderment. Or annoyance.

On the plus side is the very starry (for its day) cast of pros, led by a young and slickly handsome Jean-Louis Trintignant and the then popular Dany Saval (both shown above), with names like Pierre Brasseur (below) and the sleazily sexy Philippe Leroy in supporting roles.

The plot has to do with an old, wealthy Count who inhabits a fabulous French castle and one day disappears. When his would-be heirs gather, what they learn sets off the plot in which, one after another, they begin being "bumped off."

Modern-day movie-goers will remain a few steps ahead of the plot at all times -- except for a couple of genuine surprises along the way. And the use of the castle for the son et lumière, the design and execution of which (above) cleverly figure into a few of the murders, is also fun. If only the film's pacing had been a bit faster.

Still, the chance to see a Franju film of which few of us will have heard should prove enticing to many, as will the chance to view M. Trintignant so young and spry.

From Arrow Films' new Arrow Academy division, in French with English subtitles and running 95 minutes, Spotlight on a Murderer is distributed here in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group and hits the street for purchase and/or (I hope) rental this Tuesday, May 30.

As usual with Arrow's endeavors, the transfer is excellent, bringing the black-and-white cinematography to crisp, sharp life. Extras includes the original trailer for the film, plus that aforementioned interview, which is part of a made-for-French-television documentary from Le courrier de cinéma series shot during film-making in 1959 and aired on New Year's day 1960. The documentary includes interviews with Franju, Brasseur, Trintignant, Saval and other actors and runs 28 minutes.

World War II France again -- done spendidly -- in Christian Carion's COME WHAT MAY

Anyone who has seen and enjoyed the French television series A French Village (all about a relatively typical village and what its inhabitants endured during World War II) will probably want to view COME WHAT MAY (En mai, fais ce qu'il te plaît), the new film from Christian Carion (of The Girl from Paris, Farewell, and the Oscar-nominated Joyeux Noel), a movie that seems appropriately dedicated to those displaced folk from the French countryside who had to leave their homes and take to the road once the Germans invaded their country.

Consequently, this film becomes rather like an extended road trip, during which two groups of protagonists make their way along the roads, across the countryside, in and out of villages, trying to reach their destination and, in fact, reunite. M. Carion (shown at right), a filmmaker whose work I've much enjoyed over the years since his 2001 feature debut, is what I'd call arthouse/mainstream. His films appeal to a larger audience than those of some foreign filmmakers because his subjects, as well as his handling of them, are somewhat standard and certainly easy enough to follow. And yet, within this, the man often surprises us.

Consider what he did with that "Girl From Paris," at one point lifting us off into a gravity-defying moment of sheer cinematic beauty and allowing his two stars -- Mathilde Seigner (who also appears in his new film, above) and the late Michel Serrault to play off each other with great specificity and little sentimentality. In Come What May, he brings us wartime in all its perversity, ugliness and horror, and yet -- since this movie is filmed in the glorious French countryside -- so much beauty that this helps stifle to some extent our shock and terror.

Carion proves especially good at avoiding melodrama by instilling his film with a good deal of surprise and arbitrary happenings so that we experience the shock of wartime -- not knowing what will occur and who will survive or perish. The rules these people have lived by for so long no longer apply. This means that characters we grown to love and care for may not make it to the next scene -- a circumstance that keeps them and us unsteady but on our toes. Cation also captures very well the inevitable distrust that must grow out of a time and situation so fraught with life-threatening possibilities.

Even the filmmaker's occasional "action" scenes are done extremely well. The larger ones are handled with speed and flair, the small ones so personally that we come quickly to care for characters we barely know. Yes, the German troops did horrible things to their conquered, but when we are in the midst of a threesome of German soldiers, boys barely out of school, Carion ensures that we suddenly feel for them, too, as vulnerable human beings. Interestingly and ironically, the director reserves his greatest hatred and disdain for a German filmmaker whom we watch along the way, as he makes a propaganda movie for the Nazis.

The tale here tells of the populace of one particular village, under the leadership of their decent mayor (Olivier Gourmet, two photos above), who decide to abandon that village and try to make it to a larger city. They take with them a young German boy named Max (Joshio Marlon, above), who -- along with his father (August Diehl, below), both Communist refugees forced to flee from Nazi Germany -- has been living in the village masquerading as Belgian, until the father is arrested by the French authorities and the two are separated.

The father's attempted reunion with his son -- with the help of a British soldier (Matthew Rhys, below) whom he encounters early on -- becomes the movie's second plot strand. Given the film's desire and general ability to avoid melodrama, the result of dad's search is the one event in the film that I think could have been handled better.

On a technical level, the movie sparkles -- from cinematography (Pierre Cottereau) to costumes (Sandrine Langen) to the subtle, quiet and lovely musical score by Ennio Morricone.  Despite that single misstep that seems a tad too-easy and coincidental, this movie should quickly engulf you and hold you thoroughly in thrall. It is a fine tribute to a generation (including Carion's own mother's) who took to the wartime road to save their lives and those of their family and friends. (That's Alice Isaaz, below, left, who plays -- and very well -- the school teacher who protects our young Max.)

From Cohen Media Group, in French and English with mostly English subtitles and running a lengthy but easy-to-watch 114 minutes, Come What May opens this Friday, September 9, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and the Paris Theatre. The following Friday, September 16, it hits another dozen cities across the country, including Los Angeles at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5), and here in South Florida at the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton and the Bill Cosford Cinema in Coral Gables. Click here to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.