As a huge fan of Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot au Feu, which I praised a few weeks ago during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, I was heartbroken to learn that it’s been acquired by IFC Films and Sapan Studios.

The Pot au Feu (aka The Passion of Doudin Bouffant) could become a major adult-market hit (it’s the greatest foodie flick of the 21st Century) and perhaps a major contender for Best International Feature Oscar, depending on whether or not France officially submits it.

Forgive my prejudiced viewpoint, but I’ve long believed that an IFC Films distribution deal is almost tantamount to a kiss of death. It’s certainly a guarantee that a first-rate, ecstatically reviewed European film will not be vigorously publicized and hooplah-ed. What IFC Films seems to do, in fact, is acquire exciting, critically hailed titles only to bury them.

History tells us that whenever a terrific Cannes movie is acquired by IFC Films, it is (a) never promoted for Oscar consideration (too costly for a cash-strapped distributor) and is (b) always released to low or non-existent buzz several months after the initial Cannes or Venice Film Festival breakout.

They certainly buried Kent Jones‘ Diane (’18) or at least the Best Actress prospects for Mary Kay Place, who won Best Actress trophies from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress. They buried the hell out of Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper, which exploded in Cannes in 2016 only to limp its way to an anemic box-office opening in March 2017. God’s Country, an IFC Films acquisition, whiffed when it opened on 9.12.22. IFC had a nice little charmer in Stephen Frears‘ The Lost King (HE-reviewed on 3.24.23), and it barely made a ripple.

People see what they want to see, of course, but it always seems as if excellent movies under-perform when IFC Films is at the helm.

Will IFC Films (which currently has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating) at least offer to screen The Pot au Feu in Telluride and Toronto? This movie is a hit waiting to happen, at least among over-40 types.

But Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount, 7.12) is totally wowser — a shot of grade-A adrenalin and nothing but breathtaking elements top to bottom, plus some of the action sequences struck me — this was surprising — as almost Buster Keaton-ish in a welcome way. But the Austrian train wreck finale is in a knock-your-socks-off category by itself — an INSTANT CLASSIC.

The NYC screening starts at 6:30 pm, give or take. Update: It’s now 6:03 pm.

Nobody talks anymore about Sir “Low” Grade‘s Raise The Titanic, which opened and bombed in August 1980. Which means they’re also not talking about an incident that happens around the halfway point, when salvage experts begin to prepare for the dangerous job of actually raising the Titanic from the ocean floor.

At a depth near 10,000 feet, one of the project’s submersibles, Starfish, experiences a cabin flood and implodes.

“This is Turtle…we got Starfish in visual contact.”

The early car conflict scene between two old guys (Lou Gilbert‘s “Rosenbaum” and Ben Dova‘s “Klaus Szell”) is one of the most gripping sequences in John Schlesinger‘s Marathon Man (10.8.76).

Set on a one-way street in the 70s or 80s in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it must have been a bitch to shoot with all the traffic control issues and whatnot.

One problem: I’ve never believed that both men would recklessly and obliviously drive full-speed into a fuel truck. Perhaps one of them but not both. A potentially great scene ends on a note of disappointment.

Sidenote: 24 or 25 years before Marathon Man Gilbert played “Pablo,” a trusted friend and ally of Marlon Brando‘s Emiliano Zapata, in Elia Kazan‘s Viva Zapata (’52)

No matter what the topic, Jeff and Sasha are reminded that there isn’t a single aspect of Hollywood diversion these days that hasn’t been woke-modified, influenced, or compromised by the urge to educate and enlighten by way of progressive guilt-tripping. Hollywood, in short, has totally torpedoed the classic idea of entertainment and Average Joes are sick of the preaching.

Oscar Poker Substack topics include the imminent financial disappointment of India Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Ethan Coen and Trish Foster‘s Drive-Away Dolls and the rare journalistic cojones of Deadline‘s Michael Cieply.

Again, the link.

This Tonight Show taping happened around ’75. Ann-Margret had broken through in Bye-Bye Birdie (’63) and Viva Las Vegas (’64), and she was now 34 — four years after Carnal Knowledge, three years after her Lake Tahoe stage accident.

It went without saying that her gymnastic dance moves were secondary to the main attractions.