Conference bookie::movies

939.0. "Frankie Starlight" by TROOA::BUTKOVICH (blink and I'm gone) Thu Sep 14 1995 10:28

    Frankie Starlight (****.5) - I wasn't expecting too much from this   
    movie - basically chose it because it stars Gabriel Byrne and Matt   
    Dillon and also because it was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg who   
    directed "Let it Be", other musical videos and "Brideshead Revisted" I   
    was enthralled for the entire movie.  It takes place over a number of   
    years and the story flashes backwards and forwards from the main   
    characters perspective. He is Frankie, a dwarf who is isolated in his   
    adult years by his deformity. We learn about his mother's past - in   
    1946 she stored away on an American troopship and partied with a number   
    of the men until she was discovered by the ship's officer and then put   
    off the boat in Ireland.  Alone, penniless and pregnant, she tries to   
    make her way in this new country. She meets Jack (Byrne) who is married   
    and has a family of his own but who is attracted to Bernadette and   
    becomes her lover as well as a father figure to Frankie. Jack is an   
    amateur astonomer and he inspires in Frank an abiding love of the night
    sky and dubs him "Frankie Starlight". After Jack and his family move   
    away, Bernadette meets a young Texan (Dillon) who also helps Frank   
    along the road to adulthood. He takes Frankie and his mother back to   
    Texas, but she is never content. I don't want to give too much more of   
    the story away. I hope this movie finds distribution because it is   
    really special and very charming. The question and answer session after   
    was great - Lindsay-Hogg is a real talker and some of the interesting   
    points were:    
    
    *  the adult Frankie was played by Rudi Davies who
    had never acted before. He is a famous sculpture in Dublin and hopes
    to act again, although the demand for dwarf actors is obviously
    slight        
    
    * the young Frankie was played by a wonderful boy named Corban Walker.    
    He is almost 13 and was more thrilled that he got to meet some of the
    British football players than he was with the actors he worked with       
    
    * there is a film clip of "A Place in the Sun" used in this movie and   
    someone asked why that clip - he answered that he wanted to use a clip   
    that showed the most beautiful people at that time (Elizabeth Taylor   
    and Montgomery Cliff) and contrast them to Frankie who may not have   
    been beautiful on the outside, but he was on the inside
    

    sounds good.  was this on video?

    Mr Butkovich is reviewing new releases he's been seeing at the Toronto
    Film Festival.

    If Mr Butkovich is, in reality Ms Butkovich, I apologize.

    Cool.  Some of these films will show up at the Museum of Fine Arts film
    program as the director of the program is there as well. 

                     -< he is in fact a she (that's me!) >-
    
    Apologies.  With no name attached, I had a 50-50 chance.
    
    					andrew

    My name's Chris .... would that have helped?

Nope.

-Chris