Loyola Greyhound

Issue date: 9/23/08 Section: Arts & Society

Media Credit: Photo Courtesy of celebritywonder.com Onscreen husband and wife, Bob and Phyllis Kearns (played by Greg Kinnear and Lauren Graham), are pictured in a scene from their new film Flash of Genius. The movie chronicles inventor Bob Kearns decade-long fight against the Ford Motor Company that stole his intermittent windshield wiper design.

Walking into the Intercontinental Harborcourt downtown with the fancy trimmings of luxury hotel, you turn the corner into the lobby to find the comfy Victorian couches filled with a pack of obvious reporters with pen and paper at the ready.

Upstairs in a suite decorated with floral wallpaper and Flash of Genius posters resting loosely on well-placed art easels sits Marc Abraham, a film producer with an extensive resume spanning twenty years in Hollywood. But by looking at the man you would never know it.

Instead of giving off the businessman/producer-type with a three piece suit, a Blackberry and a self-obsessed attitude much like the archetype in film or an episode of Entourage; Abraham wears a pair of jeans, crisp white tennis shoes and a relaxed brown corduroy jacket more akin to a college professor's.

His personality matches his outfit, as he makes you feel as if you are talking to your friendly next door neighbor rather than a man who has worked with the Hollywood elite, ranging from Harrison Ford to Anthony Hopkins.

His highly successful career as a producer isn't what brings him to Baltimore; it is his new role as a first-time director for the film Flash of Genius.

The film chronicles the true-life story of Bob Kearns (played by Greg Kinnear), the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper who has his idea stolen by the Ford Motor Company.

This leads the quiet engineering professor and father of six to bring his fight all the way to the Supreme Court. Kearns never quits his quest for what his right even when it threatens to tear apart his family.
It may not seem like the kind of story that would hold any cinematic appeal, but for Abraham, there was no doubt in his choice to make this film.

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