Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell go "Downhill"

Abe Fried-Tanzer reporting from Sundance

Any time a foreign film is truly successful, there seems to be almost instantaneous talks of either a remake or a TV series coming soon for American audiences. Parasite is considering the latter and last year at Sundance, After the Wedding was a hot ticket, adapted from the 2006 Danish film. There was some skepticism when it was announced that the uncomfortable Swedish comedy Force Majeure, nominated for a Golden Globe and well loved here at The Film Experience, was getting an American treatment, but surprise: this remake is worth the price of admission...

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So 'Downhill'

by Murtada Elfadl

They went and remade Ruben Östlund’s brilliant Force Majeure (2014) with Juia Louis Dreyfuss and Will Ferrell and called it Downhill. The story, as those of you who saw the original know, is about the repercussions on a marriage after the husband cowardly runs away from the sight of an avalanche, leaving his wife and children to face it alone. The original was a funny smart satire about manhood and patriarchal responsibilities in the modern age.

After premiering at next month's Sundance Film Festival, the movie will be released on February 14th. Let’s give the newly released trailer the YES NO MAYBE SO treatment.

Click to read more ...

On the First Day of Cannes......

It's Murtada reporting about Cannes, but sadly not from Cannes.

The main competition jury at Wednesday's photo call

The first day of Cannes always brings news of intriguing collaborations as projects are announced for the sidebar film market. Like Joaquin Phoenix working with Lynne Ramsay. Or Colin Farrell reteaming with The Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos. Errr… Johnny Depp making another movie called The Libertine? With Brett Ratner? About Dominique Strauss-Kahn?? Run away, Marion!

However the two news items that got this reporter most excited are :

Isabelle Huppert in Elle
Sony Classics has acquired main competition entry Elle, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Isabelle Huppert. You know the same company that got Cate Blanchett and Julianne Moore their best actress Oscars and Michael Haneke and Asghar Farhadi multiple nominations and foreign language wins recently. So our excitement knows no bounds. We are 9 days away from reviews and reactions to Elle - it screens on the last day of the festival - but we can rest easy knowing it will be coming our way this fall.

Captain Dad
If you’ve seen Sebastian Silva’s last outing Nasty Baby (2015), you know that he can provoke his audience and upend expectations. Well now he’s teaming with Will Ferrell and this is the logline (from Deadline):

Rich Peelman (Ferrell) gives his wife Linda (Catherine Keener) the gift of a lifetime for her birthday: a trip through the Caribbean on a sailboat with all six of their kids and their partners. Stubborn, competitive and overly confident in his sailing abilities that are clearly out of sync with reality, Rich is determined that the vacation be run on his terms. But things do not go according to plan. His “father knows best” attitude clashes with the rest of the Peelman clan. And by the end, even the most patient of the bunch are ready to throw Captain Dad overboard, bringing new meaning to the idea of the dysfunctional family.

Michael Cera plays one of Ferrell's antagonists, so color us doubly intrigued. 

                                                       

If you are not at Cannes, which part of it do you follow online? The reviews? The fashion? The film deals? All of it?

Beauty vs Beast: It's A Walk Off!

Jason from MNPP here, flashing my signature look your way as we mount this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- it's fifteen years later and we're set to return to the Derek Zoolander School Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too this Friday with Zoolander 2, the 2001 film's slow-cooked sequel. The film reunites most of the original cast while bringing in a few new (stretched, preening) faces - I can't even tell you how many times I've watched Kristen Wiig's "Youth Milk" commercial; she's the entire reason I will be returning. I do have good feelings towards the original film though, so let's make our best right turns and flash a Blue Steel backwards in time...

PREVIOUSLY We wished Jennifer Jason Leigh happy birthday with a glance back at 1992's Single White Female, and this time out it was her crazy crazy Hedra that came out on top, sticking a single high heel (and sixty percent of the vote) into poor innocent Bridget Fonda's fashion hopes and dreams. Said DJDeeJay:

"Yes, she kills a puppy, but she also gives a guy a BJ AGAINST HIS WISHES. Totally subversive, haven't seen anything like it before or since."

Box Office: Get Hard at Home While We're Young

Another weekend, more millions in Hollywood coffers for by-most-accounts weak films. The three biggest hits this weekend were all poorly reviewed.

WIDE RELEASE
01 Home $54 NEW
02 Get Hard $34.6 NEW  
03 Divergent: Insurgent $22 (cum. $86.3) 
04 Cinderella $17.5 (cum. $150)  Review
05 It Follows $4 (cum. $4.7)  Review

Yup, the big stories were Home wildly overperforming (we all thought it might flop given Dreamworks history, just documented in Tim's fascinating two-part retrospective) and Get Hard doing well and reinforcing that mainstream audiences love Kevin Hart... and rape jokes. Always the rape jokes.

PLATFORM RELEASE
01 Wild Tales (Argentina) 116 Theaters  $.2 (cum. $1.5) Review
02 What We Do In the Shadows (New Zealand) 146 Theaters $.2 (cum. $2.1) Review
03 While We're Young (US) 4 Theaters $.2 NEW Review
04 Danny Collins (US) 29 Theaters $.2 (cum. $.3)
05 '71 (UK) 121 Theaters $.1 (cum. $.9) Review

Wild Tales held its theaters but the big story was Noah Baumbach's seventh feature While We're Young, charting a surely-soon-to-be-broken 'best indie debut this year' with a $60,000 per screen average. Meanwhile the long and frankly mystifying journey of Serena, starring two or our most bankable actors Bradley Cooper & Jennifer Lawrence and based on a bestselling novel no less, ended with a whimper. The movie finally ended up in theaters, albeit only 60 of them and grossed just over $100,000 in its first week. Meanwhile Hungary's wildly acclaimed and Oscar submitted allegorical thriller about rampaging dogs named White God (read Jose's interview with the director) stuck its toe into two US theaters for $16,000. 

What did you see this weekend? Did any of you see Serena? Was it from morbid curiousity. If you haven't will you please take our advice and seek out Wild Tales or '71?