Three films about…mountains: Downhill (2020), Everest (2015) and Eddie the Eagle (2016)

Why am I writing about these movies now?

Well, I’m moving my back catalogue of movie (and occasionally TV) reviews from another site to Medium — covering many of the best-known releases of the last decade, as well as more obscure fare. To make it a bit more fun, I’ll be grouping them thematically (as here), but unless I spot actual errors I’m not doing any editing…so my opinion may have changed since I first wrote them!

My reviews of new cinema, streaming and disc releases, as well as retrospectives on old (and not-so-old) classics, will mostly continue to appear on the Medium publication Frame Rated.

Anyway, here goes. Enjoy…

Downhill

More Marriage Story Lite than Austin Powers or Zoolander, Downhill is a surprisingly sweet and gentle vehicle for Will Ferrell that also offers Julia Louis-Dreyfus a chance to shine in the more nuanced role of his wife.

The trailers may have led you to expect a guffaw-a-minute farce but, though there are some amusing lines (delivered relatively straight), it’s more wry than ribald. And if the premise is a tiny tad contrived — as an avalanche hurtles toward an Austrian ski lodge, phone-obsessed vacationing dad grabs his mobile and saves…