For a while I thought Val Kilmer was trying to avoid the spotlight due to his health problems, but that is apparently not true. In Val, directors Ting Poo and Leo Scott deliver us a faithful documentary on the life of Kilmer. The film is an excellent representation of Kilmer’s talent, success, fame, and waves of both good times and bad times, and much of it is in the voice of Kilmer’s son, Jack. I found myself sinking in my seat with tons of emotions, and they were all positive ones.
 
The film spans 40 years of Val Kilmer’s life, starting from his younger days, and it rotates between the present and past in Val’s life. Although the film shows a lot of Val’s work ranging from his stage acting days to becoming a film actor, it is more than just a recap of his career. Val lost his voice to throat cancer recently, and his story and the structure of the film, with his son Jack narrating much of it and Val voicing others despite his cancer, is very moving. It shows that love for acting, the arts, and life still exist in Val’s life.
 
I found myself thinking back to some of Val’s movies that I loved the most, including Top Gun (1986), Real Genius (1985), Batman Forever (1995), and many other classics that he has starred in. Val’s recollections of his films, by Val himself, were mesmerizing.
 
Overall, Val is a faithful and winning documentary. I learned so much about Val Kilmer from this film, and I loved seeing that Val is not giving up despite his throat cancer. He still has the talent to tell his story, and many people will be touched by it. Do not miss Val. It is a beautiful film with a vast landscape. I give it four stars.

Like director Tom McCarthy’s previous films, Stillwater displays an unpleasant yet intriguing mood. The premise of this dark thriller is harrowing, the plot is gripping, and it is the perfect film to display Matt Damon’s ability to play a complex character.

Stillwater stars Damon and it is set mostly in Marseille, France. The film focuses on Bill Baker, played by Damon. Bill lives in Oklahoma and goes to Marseille to visit his daughter Allison, played by Abigail Breslin. She is in a French prison for murder, and Allison believes she has evidence that would exonerate herself. This puts Bill on a mission to trace the events surrounding the crime. But Bill soon begins his own life in France when he falls in love with a French woman named Virginie, played by Camille Cottin. She had been Bill’s translator and her involvement leads to some dramatic scenarios that put both Bill and Virginie at risk, and make life in prison more difficult for Allison.

Stillwater is emotionally moving and well-acted, but the differences in the law between France and the United States can sometimes make the film confusing. Despite that occasional confusion, the film had me enthralled. And the legal differences can actually sometimes make Stillwater more intriguing, because it gives Bill multiple hurdles to clearing his daughter. The film often feels like a race for Bill to prove Allison’s innocence.

Stillwater is loosely based on the true story of American Amanda Knox’s case and that connection, combined with the disturbing and sometimes depressing realism of Stillwater, had me feeling the pain and frustration that Damon’s character had throughout the film, as well as the pain and frustration of Breslin’s character. Stillwateris not a feel-good movie, but it is a realistic representation of how challenging it can be when life goes awry.

Stillwater is visually beautiful and the cinematography is brilliant. During my 2016 internship at the Cannes Film Festival I had the privilege of roaming much of the vast scenery around Marseille depicted in Stillwater, and maybe that is why I found some light in this dark film. The film could be hard to watch at times, but it was in-depth, moving, and a worthy watch, and it will speak to many people. It just may be a one time watch for many, including me. Three stars for Stillwater.

Isabelle Huppert has a relentless and fearless attitude that is perfect for movie roles with perilous situations. In the French film Mama Weed there is heated conflict, but also lots of laughs and cliches. The film can be engrossing, at least in bits and pieces, and Huppert is the reason why. But Mama Weed can also be redundant, and that requires patience (which also happens to be her name in the film) on the viewer’s part.

Huppert plays Patience Portefeux, a French-Arabic translator in Paris. She finds herself in financial trouble and decides to do translation work for the police in a drug sting operation. Patience becomes the contact for drug dealers, but she knows more than she is telling the police and she parlays this into more income. She can’t keep this discreet operation going for long, though.

Where I found the most fun in Mama Weed is when Huppert dresses in a headdress and sunglasses for her discreet operations. The entertainment value is that she doesn’t get caught up in the dangerous situations, the drug dealers do, and she walks away with a lot of the money. The sting operation scenes in Mama Weed can be funny, and though it seemed predictable, there were also some twists. But I wouldn’t call the film suspenseful or intense. It is more like a comedy spy thriller, with a small amount of drama thrown in. It wasn’t exactly mesmerizing, but it was entertaining, had a few laughs, and is worth a watch.

Some may think Mama Weed is going to be like Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (2016), a film also starring Isabelle Huppert that I saw while an intern at the Cannes Film Festival. Huppert is known for her dark performances, so people may assume that Mama Weed will be dark like Elle, but it is not. In Mama she can be dark and serious at times, but the film is nowhere near as suspenseful, violent, or disturbing as Elle was.

Mama Weed is not memorable, but it’s fun to watch, and it’s Huppert’s acting and humor, not the plot or suspense, that are the reason. I believe it’s one of those films that will grow on some cinema enthusiasts (including myself) over time, maybe with a few more viewings. I give Mama Weed two and a half stars.