SUNDANCE 2020: Amusing ‘DOWNHILL’ Remake Assumes American Stance, Lets Comic Giants Ride

January 28, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Downhill, Force Majeure, Jim Rash, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Miranda Otto, Nat Faxon, Reviews, Sundance 2020, Will Ferrell, Zach Woods Leave a comment

A remake of the critically-acclaimed Swedish drama Force Majeure, Downhill is kind of exactly like most American remakes of critically-acclaimed foreign dramas: amusing but unnecessary. A blue-square redo of a double-black-diamond story. With the hard-packed dual casting of Will Ferrell (who’s better here than he’s been in years) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who also produced), the dramedy from The Way Way Back co-writers and directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash borrows the premise and some of the critical breaking points from Ruben Östlund’s film but also finds room for new traumas and dark comedic moments to unfold. Read More

NETFIX: 9 Foreign Films to Watch Now That America’s Birthday is Over

July 13, 2015 by Lillian Angelle Posted in Lists, Netfix Tagged A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a hijacking, amelie, Force Majeure, let the right one in, Netfix, oldboy, The Babadook, The Hunt, We Are the Best! Leave a comment

The great thing about Netflix is that it gives you a lot of TV and movie watching options. The bad thing about Netflix is that it gives you…a lot of TV and movie watching options. To cut down on your Netflix search and discover time, Netfix aims to ease the process of parsing the good from the bad. The great from the not so great. From action films to foreign dramas, we’re raked the catalogs to offer only the finest that the preeminent streaming service has to offer. So settle in, get your remotes ready and prepare for the red wave of Netfix to wash over you.

FORCE MAJEURE (Ruben Östlund, 2014)

Ruben Östlund‘s Force Majeure was a favorite at the 2014 Cannes Festival, boasting a talented cast, beautiful cinematography and an original balance betwixt thrills, suspense and comedy. When a Swedish family takes a holiday in the French Alps, an avalanche strikes, causing major upheaval in the psyches of Tomas and his wife, Ebba. A character study of morals, you could say, Force Majeure is an offbeat collection of misunderstandings and displaced desires in supposed paradise.

AMELIE (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

It’s hard to have missed this quirky 2001 French comedy starring Audrey Tautou, but if you still haven’t seen it, prepare to be charmed out of your mind. Amélie tells the story of a whimsical, oddball woman who decides to bring people together in lovely ways through acts of kindness. If Wes Anderson were a French director, he might have made something like this film. Also, the soundtrack is supremely pleasant.

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)

Pretentious in a hipster kind of way, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a wildly confident Iranian Vampire Western, filmed in black and white. Blending genres can be hit or miss, but in this case it’s most definitely a hit. The film follows a young female vampire, played brilliantly by Sheila Vand, as she roams the empty, silent streets of Bad City. The western vibes enter around the character of Arash, who offers the vampire a ride one night.

THE HUNT (Thomas Vinterberg, 2013)

This expertly portrayed story of false persecution delves into the lonely life of Lucas, played to perfection by Mads Mikkelsen, following a disparaging misunderstanding between him and a student that costs him everything. Any further information would be too much information. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, this is Danish cinema at its finest!

WE ARE THE BEST! (Lukas Moodysson, 2014)

1982 Stockholm is the world three preteen female protagonists live within in We Are the Best!, navigating through their angst, vastly different home lives and the 80’s punk scene. Friendship, gender equality and youthful rebellion are just a few topics this film touches on, and in the most charmingly adolescent way that smacks you with nostalgia, especially if you’ve ever cut all your hair off as a young girl, which I am certainly guilty of on more than several occasions.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

A young boy becomes friends with his next door neighbor and realizes she’s responsible for a few murders about town, yet this doesn’t scare him off. Adapted for the screen by original author John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In is a creepily portrayed glimpse of adolescent angst. Americanized in 2010 as Let Me In, both versions are certainly worth a watch. But watch this one first.

A HIJACKING (Tobias Lindholm, 2013)

While we’re on the subject of Americanized versions, A Hijacking, out of Denmark, was released the same year as Captain Phillips. The two could be considered companion films, although vastly different in portrayal. A Hijacking focuses evenly between the hostage protagonist, and the back and forth between the captors and the CEO of the freight company.

THE BABADOOK (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

Australian horror flick The Babadook is a psychological journey into the home life of a troubled young boy and his insomniac mother as they deal with personal demons. When an unsettling children’s book finds its way onto Samuel’s shelves, Amelia is forced to see her son’s unstable condition not as hallucinations or imaginative stories, but something real.

OLDBOY (Park Chan-wook, 2005)

Oldboy follows Oh Dae-su as he’s inexplicably locked away in prison for fifteen years, only to be eventually released with no information on why he was ever incarcerated. Quirky, comic and full of revenge violence, this South Korean film of vengeance won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Festival, and rightly so. Rightly so.

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Weekly Review 62: DEVIL, EVERYONE, PHILIP, FORCE, LOW

November 9, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Weekly Review Tagged Force Majeure, Listen Up Philip, Low Down, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Reviews, The Devil's Rejects, Weekly Review

Another fairly lax week at the theater held screenings of Interstellar and Big Hero 6 – both of which I had high hopes for (the former far more than the later) and was fairly disappointed by both. At home, I had some time to catch up with a few new screeners (bringing my cume of 2014 films to a whopping 198), none of which impressed me more than the Swedish avalanche drama currently making the rounds in limited release. As far as films opening this week, it’d probably be the one I’d most recommend. Chris sat down with Michel Hazanavicius and Berenice Bejo to chat The Artist and their upcoming film The Search. It’s a great interview so be sure to give it a look. Otherwise, let’s boogie down with some Weekly Reviews.

DEVIL’S REJECTS (2005)

A mild improvement over Rob Zombie‘s debut effort House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects is an unreservedly more cinematic sequel. Moving outside the circle of abject grossness stuffed in leaky caves and dark tool sheds, Zombie moves his marks into the desert to cook up some sun-baked horror the aesthetic likes of Natural Born Killers. There’s a semblance of social commentary churning within Devil’s Rejects but it’s too half-baked to ever truly make heads or tails of. Nevertheless, it signaled the development of a filmmaker that has since descended into lesser material. All in all though, an interesting, if repetitive, watch and one worthy of seeking out (next Halloween) for genre fans that have passed it over. (C+)

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (2005)

An oddball little indie film ensemble piece, Me and You and Everyone We Know is like a successful version of this year’s Men, Women and Children (overbearingly long title accounted for.) John Hawkes plays a shoe salesman whose wife has just flown the coup and is surrounded by a menagerie of strange cityfolk all with their own quirks, secrets and peculiarities. Miranda July‘s debut showcases comedy consistent in its gentle biting nature – more a thing of misunderstood awkwardness than anything – but it’s got a genial heart to match. July’s strange little piece packs an undeniable heartbeat and isn’t suffocated by its girthy cast of characters, even though it’s all rather weird. (B-)

LISTEN UP PHILIP (2014)

One of the more decisive films of 2014 (many loved it) is also one of the hardest to really feel anything towards. Jason Schwartzman plays a misanthropic writer who rages and alienates his way through New York City until he meets novelist idol Ike Zimmer (Jonathan Pryce). The two swirl in a whirlpool of self-pity, self-importance, intellectual superiority and ultimately regret, eventually driving one another towards that most extreme state of NYC misanthropy. Schwartzman’s Philip may be hard to care for because of how much of a douchebag he is but he’s also not a very interesting character. Wallowing arrogance is only arresting in short bursts and Philip long outstays his chilly welcome. (C)

FORCE MAJEURE (2014)

To call Force Majeure a dramedy would be to misrepresent what it is, but I can’t think of another term to describe the hazy mixture of deeply uncomfortable comedy and shrill, sometimes even heart-breaking, dramatics. Ruben Östlund‘s Swedish vacation film follows a family of four as they holiday in the stunning French Alps until a life-threatening event changes the course of their vacation and their relationships. As the familial tension mounts, you’ll find yourself quietly cackling one moment and alarmingly affected the next. A great display of foreign cinema taking greater risks than we’re used to stateside, Force Majeure studies the effects of a near-miss on the rocky ethos of a nuclear family and does it all while threading a narrow thematic needle. (B)

LOW DOWN (2014)

John Hawkes plays a talented jazz musician who moonlights as a heroine slinger and deadbeat Dad to competent daughter Amy-Jo (Elle Fanning). Like jazz, Low Down wanders almost aimlessly, riffing here and there on the strong father-daughter relationship at its center and amidst themes of the cyclical nature of co-dependence, but is still without a strong narrative center point. If Llewyn Davis is a tone poem about a time and a scene, Low Down is a k-hole of the destructive spiral of musicianship and drugs. Not entirely without worth (the acting from Fanning, Hawkes, Glenn Close and Lena Headey is rock solid), Jeff Preiss‘ biopic of esteemed pianist Joe Albany is a narrative desperately in need of a through line. (C-)

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