In the droll Swedish dramedy Force Majeure, a smugly affluent family of four vacations at an upscale ski resort in the French Alps. The wife explains to a friend that they take the vacation because otherwise the husband never sees the family. But, while the wife is blissed out, the kids fidget and complain, and the hubby sneaks peeks at his phone.
Then there’s a sudden moment of apparent life-and-death peril; the husband has a chance to protect the wife and kids, but instead – after first securing his iPhone – runs for his life. How do they all go on from that revealing moment? The extent that one incident can bring relationships into focus is the core of Force Majeure.
Clearly, the family has a serious issue to resolve, but there’s plenty of dry humor. In the most cringe worthy moments, the wife tries to contain her disgust, but can’t keep it bottled up when she’s in the most social situations. The couple repeatedly huddle outside their room in their underwear to talk things out, only to find themselves observed by the same impassive French hotel worker. The most tense moments are interrupted by an insistent cell phone vibration, another guest’s birthday party and a child’s remotely out-of-control flying toy.
Force Majeure is exceptionally well-written by writer-director Ruben Ostlund. It was just his fourth feature and the first widely seen outside Scandinavia. He transitions between scenes by showing the machinery of the ski resort accompanied by Baroque organ music – a singular and very effective directorial choice. Ostlund has gone on to direct The Square and Triangle of Sadness, both of which won the Palm d’Or at Cannes; (but Force Majeure is his best film.)
Force Majeure was Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It is available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube and is free on HBO.
[I’ve included the trailer as always, but I recommend that you see the movie WITHOUT watching this trailer – mild spoilers]
Photo caption: Jay Baruchal and Glenn Howerton in BLACKBERRY. Courtesy of IFC Films.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – a review of the new audience-pleaser BlackBerry, opening today. Also streaming recommendations of The Last Lullaby, an overlooked neo-noir, and Best Worst Movie, an entertaining documentary about a laughably bad horror movie. I also highlighted Preston Sturges’ wickedly funny satires Sullivan’s Travels and Hail the Conquering Hero; if you missed them on TCM this week, you can still stream them from the major services – after eighty years, they’re still hilarious.
Sasha Alexander and Tom Sizemore and in THE LAST LULLABY. Courtesy of Chaillot Films.
Rodents of Unusual Size: 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian. Amazon, AppleTV.
The 11th Green: a thinking person’s paranoid conspiracy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Magallanes: some wrongs cannot be righted. AppleTV.
ON TV
Audrey Totter and Richard Basehart in TENSION.
On May 16, Turner Classic Movies will present the deliciously sordid Tension, where Quimby (Richard Basehart), the wimpy night manager of a drugstore, has one of the worst wives in film noir. Claire (Audrey Totter) spends her daytime hours belittling Quimby and her nighttime hours cuckolding him. When she moves into Barney’s beach house and lets the hairy-chested Barney (Lloyd Gough) beat up her nerdy hubbie, the humiliated Quimby has had enough. There’s a murder and a frame. Will the cops find the real murderer? Rising star Cyd Charisse plays the good girl, and Barry Sullivan plays the cop who outsmarts them all.
Gordon Lightfoot died this week, so it’s fitting to stream the amiable biodoc Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind from Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV or KinoNow.
The 11th Green: a thinking person’s paranoid conspiracy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
The Wave: Everything you want in a disaster movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Magallanes: some wrongs cannot be righted. AppleTV.
ON TV
Vampira and Tor Johnson in Ed Wood’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
First, the good movies – on May 9, Turner Classic Movies will be presenting the best work of Preston Sturges: The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan’s Travels, Hail the Conquering Hero and The Great McGinty. I’ll be writing more about them on Sunday.
And now, the bad one – on May 11, TCM will air Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), often ranked as the worst movie of all time and #1 in my Bad Movie Festival.
This movie is so bad that Tim Burton made a Johnny Depp movie about it – Ed Wood, named for its zealously persistent, but pathetic, creator. Ed Wood throws everything at the screen, hoping that something interesting will stick: dying vampire star Bela Lugosi, the TV fortune teller Criswell, the horror movie hostess Vampira, zombie-look-alike pro wrestler Tor Johnson and stock footage of a nuclear explosion. None of it is tied together with any coherence, and it’s all unintentionally funny. This one’s good for the whole family.
Lugosi died while making this film and was replaced by a taller, non-speaking “double”, who stalks about covering his face with his cloak. The double shows up in the trailer.
Harris Dickinson and Lola Campbell in Charlotte Regan’s SCRAPPER at the SLO Film Fest. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m attending the SLO Film Fest (tonight is Surf Nite), and here’s my Best of the 2023 SLO Film Fest. Plus there’s a recent Oscar coming up on TCM, and I’ve got a a remembrance of Harry Belafonte. Watch for a new review of new review of Little Richard: I Am Everything.
Note that I’ve launched my Best Movies of 2023 – So Far and have completely refreshed The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.
REMEMBRANCE
Harry Belafonte in ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW.
Already a big musical star, Harry Belafonte burst on screen with searing performances in the 1950s – Carmen Jones, Island in the Sun, Odds Against Tomorrow. He only made a few movies after 1959, but they were good ones: Sidney Poitier’s Buck and the Preacher, Robert Altman’s Kansas City and The Player, Spike Lee’s BlacKKKlansman. Belafonte could have had an even bigger film career, but, early on, he refused roles that he found demeaning and then devoted the last six decades of his life to civil rights work, where he made immense contributions.
CURRENT MOVIES
Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
Hannah Ha Ha: what makes for human value and fulfillment? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Roise & Frank: therapy dog and hurling coach. In theaters.
The Lost King: not all cranks are cranky. In theaters.
Living: what is it to live? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
A Dark, Dark Man: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan. MHz.
On April 29, Turner Classic Movies will air the sly comedy Local Hero. An oil company sends a corporate lackey (Peter Riegert) on a scheme to buy a remote Scottish village – the entire village. The canny locals, however, are not without their own wiles. Scottish writer-director Bill Forsythe made Local Hero to follow up his art house hit Gregory’s Girl. Forsythe went on to make my favorite of his films, the wonderfully droll and absurd Comfort and Joy. But then he made three box office bombs with big movie stars and stepped away from filmmaking in the mid 1990s.
On April 30, TCM will broadcast the Iran hostage thriller Argo, already officially a Turner “Classic” from 2012. Of course, Argo was a big Ben Affleck Hollywood movie that won the Best Picture Oscar and a Supporting Actor Oscar for Alan Arkin. But, besides, Arkin, Argo is rich with brilliant supporting performances. Victor Garber, Clea Duvall, Scoot McNairy, Zeljko Ivanek, Christopher Denham are especially good as “house guests”. Farshad Farahat is compelling as the commander of the final revolutionary checkpoint. The rest of the cast is equally superb: Bryan Cranston, Philip Baker Hall, Richard Kind, Michael Parks and Chris Messina. Watch for a bit role played by 80s horror maven Adrienne Barbeau.
A reflection on Ben Affleck, who has become easy to lampoon. Affleck has “gone Hollywood” in a big way, made bombs like Pearl Harbor and Gigli, has been on a bumpy journey with and without alcohol, and his dating history is made-for-TMZ.
Let’s remember that Affleck was the youngest person ever to win the screenwriting Oscar (for Good Will Hunting). He’s directed Argo and Gone Baby Gone. After beginning with two exceptional indies, Dazed and Confused and Chasing Amy, he’s acted in some of the very best big Hollywood movies: Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love, Argo, Gone Girl, The Last Duel. This body of work demonstrates that Ben Affleck is an important filmmaker – we’ve been lucky to have him.
Photo caption: Park Ji-min in RETURN TO SEOUL. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – my first coverage of the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival – SLO Film Fest is just around the corner. There’s also a new review of Hannah Ha Ha. I’ve launched my Best Movies of 2023 – So Far. And I have a completely refreshed The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
Note: Bill Nighy’s superb performance in Living can now be streamed.
CURRENT MOVIES
Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
Hannah Ha Ha: what makes for human value and fulfillment? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Roise & Frank: therapy dog and hurling coach. In theaters.
The Lost King: not all cranks are cranky. In theaters.
Living: what is it to live? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
A Dark, Dark Man: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan. MHz.
Rodents of Unusual Size: 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian. Amazon, AppleTV.
The 11th Green: a thinking person’s paranoid conspiracy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
The Wave: Everything you want in a disaster movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Magallanes: some wrongs cannot be righted. AppleTV.
ON TV
Gene Hackman in NIGHT MOVES
On April 23, Turner Classic Movies is airing the 1975 character-driven neo-noir Night Moves, with Gene Hackman as an LA private eye who follows a trail of evidence to steamy Florida. Hackman shines in the role – the detective is deeply in love with his estranged wife (Susan Clark), but unsuited for marriage. Night Moves also features Melanie Griffith’s breakthrough role as the highly sexualized teen daughter in the Florida family; Griffith was right around eighteen-years-old when this was filmed, and had already been living with Don Johnson for three years. Night Moves features an impressive ensemble of supporting actors: Harris Yulin, James Woods, Edward Binns, Max Gail (Wojo on Barney Miller) and the sui generis Kenneth Mars.
Humphrey Bogart and Martha Vickers in THE BIG SLEEP
On April 17, Turner Classic Movies presents Humphrey Bogart as Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled LA detective Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Bogart’s performance is iconic, and The Big Sleep is famous for its impenetrably tangled plot. It’s also one of the most overtly sexual noirs, and Lauren Bacall at her sultriest is only the beginning. The achingly beautiful Martha Vickers plays a druggie who throws herself at anything in pants. And Dorothy Malone invites Bogie to share a back-of-the-bookstore quickie.
Speaking of the plot, I recently heard Eddie Muller say that, after filming, the studio bosses had more scenes written for Bogart and Bacall (and we thank them for that); to make room for those new scenes, some exposition was cut, leaving at least one loose end. I have to say, though, that I enjoyed watching The Big Sleep many times over the decades before I learned about the supposed hanging plot thread. You probably won’t notice it, either.
Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP
Photo caption: Bríd Ní Neachtain in ROISE & FRANK. Courtesy of Juno Pictures.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the delightful Gaelic dramedy Roise & Frank, the gotta-see-it-to-believe-it I’m an Electric Lampshade and the surprising Reggie Jackson doc Reggie. And a totally refreshed CURENT MOVIES section.
CURRENT MOVIES
Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
Roise & Frank:therapy dog and hurling coach. In theaters.
Mary Astor in DODSWORTH, the subject of SCANDAL: THE TRIAL OF MARY ASTOR
On April 11, Turner Classic Movies airs the recent documentary Scandal: The Trial of Mary Astor. It’s worth a watch for its tale of America’s Victorian social mores running headlong into the emerging celebrity culture. In 1936, movie star Mary Astor suffered through a humiliating child custody trial; her vindictive ex-husband stole her diary, in which she had documented her sex life with the playwright George S. Kaufman and others, and leaked it to the press. The trial was held at night so Astor could shoot Dodsworth during the daytime. And, in another bizarre twist, Astor won over the court on the stand by channeling her extremely sympathetic character in Dodsworth!
Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels in 1931’s THE MALTESE FALCON
If you want to understand what Pre-Code is all about, take a look at the 1931 The Maltese Falcon, which has an entirely different tone than the 1941 John Huston/Humphrey Bogart/Mary Astor The Maltese Falcon that you’ve surely seen. The 1931 Falcon, which is coming up on Turner Classic Movies on April 4.
Ricardo Cortez’s Sam Spade is lecherous, cocksure, leering and pawing. Indeed, if this Pre-Code The Maltese Falcon is about anything, it’s about sex. It opens with a woman adjusting her hose before leaving Sam Spade’s office, evidence of a just-completed sexual encounter.
Bebe Daniels plays Miss Wonderly/Brigid O’Shaughnessy as sexually aggressive. She’s shown taking an obviously post-coital bath, and deals out lines like “who’s that dame wearing MY kimono?“. At one point, a large banknote is missing and Spade takes Brigid into an adjoining room and strip searches her. This 1931 movie is the only Maltese Falcon that contains this sequence. What we see on camera is an apparently nude Brigid clutching her clothes behind the door.
The Hays Code prevented the re-release of The Maltese Falcon in 1936, which led to the 1936 remake, Satan Met a Lady. Because it’s so risque, the complete version of this 1931 film was not screened again in the United States until 1966.Here’s my essay on the three faces of The Maltese Falcon.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of Sansón and Me. Watch this space for upcoming reviews of Turn Every Page and Roise & Frank.Wind River is highlighted on my most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.
On March 28, Turner Classic Movies airs one my personal favorite movies, The Paper Chase, which traces a young man’s (Timothy Bottoms) first year at Harvard Law School and is based on the memoir of a recent grad. Although IMDb labels The Paper Chase as 1973 movie, I saw it in the summer of 1975, just as I was about to enter law school myself. It’s such a personal favorite because just about EVERYTHING in the movie is something that I experienced myself at in my first year at Georgetown Law – everything, that is, EXCEPT dating Lindsay Wagner. It’s a compelling story and the great producer John Houseman won an acting Oscar for his performance as the mentor/nemesis law professor; Houseman immediately cashed in with his ”They make money the old fashioned way… they EARN it” commercials for Smith Barney.
The Paper Chase is also notable as the first feature film credit for actors Craig Richard Nelson, Graham Beckel (Brokeback Mountain, L.A. Confidential) and Edward Herrmann (known for many portrayals of FDR). All three are stellar as members of the law school study group, and these guys have now combined for over 300 screen acting credits. The Paper Chase is also available to stream from Amazon, Vudu and YouTube.
John Jay Osborn Jr., who wrote the autobiographical novel which was the source material movie, died last year.
The Whale, with its spectacular performances by the Oscar-winning Brendan Fraser and by Hong Chau.
Aftersun, with its Oscar-nominated performance by Paul Mescal.
Broker, which was spurned by the Oscars despite being a masterpiece.
REMEMBRANCE
Sadly, the actor Robert Blake will be remembered for the horrific childhood and sordid post-career detailed in his NYT obit, a hit TV show with a parrot and an absence of personal boundaries on TV talk shows. He was a child star, exploited by an abusive parent, in Our Gang and even The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. But he proved his underlying talent in In Cold Blood.
On March 24, Turner Classic Movies airs Metropolitan from 1990, the work of writer-director Whit Stillman, who is essentially his own genre. What Stilman does really well is bring us unto the world of old money Eastern preppies with their refined manners and their odd customs like debutante balls. His well-educated characters have earnest late-night existential conversations in complete sentences. Nobody else does this, and Stillman’s dialogue has always kept me wholly absorbed. I keep thinking, I should despise these people, and yet their ruminations are kind of intoxicating. Stilman’s next movie, Barcelona, is enjoyable, too.
