All is Lost - Danny's review

Warning - all reviews could contain spoilers, this one definitely does in the last paragraph.

This is a remarkable film, featuring only a boat and a 77 year old man with blonde hair. It starts with Robert Redford on his yacht, with no hint as to how he got there. We don't know who he his or what he's doing. He could have terminal cancer, he could be a millionaire or about to reunite with his long lost son, we don't know. He doesn't even have a name, and is just listed in the credits as Our Man.

He hardly speaks at all in the whole film. There's a little bit of talk on the radio, but this is strictly functional, and there's no attempt to tell the story via his monologue. If they wanted to do that, he would have had a dog to explain things to. There's no dog.

You need to watch quite carefully to notice things, as it's all explained by visual cues. This is OK though, as there's no dialogue you have a lot of time to concentrate on the picture. For example, at one point he heads towards a shipping channel, which is made very clear to the audience by repeated looks at his map where a series of X marks on the map show his approach to the channel.

Our Man is pretty resourceful. He starts whittling a broom handle in a mechanism to bale out the ship before you even know that he is going to do any baling. He's one step ahead of the viewer, and as you watch in admiration you're trying to work out what he's up to. He has a slightly weary air about him, but never gives up and meets each new crisis with dogged resolve and a grim fatalism. As he floats around you get a sense of the vastness of the ocean, and it's very vast indeed. Just at one point the film gets a bit Life of Pi with some CGI sharks circling him, which doesn't last too long then it's back to a standard marooning.

The only hint of any connection to friends or family is when Our Man is unpacking a special old wooden box of navigation equipment. In the box there's an envelope with a card in, which to me looked like some sort of birthday card. He picks it up, then shrugs and puts it down to pick up his sextant (or whatever it is). He never returns to the envelope. In a film with so little human contact this is quite a big moment, and very eloquently shows Our Man's lack of sentimentality. Even his message-in-a-bottle doesn't have much warmth to it.

I'm not sure if Robert Redford's acting is brilliant, or if in fact there's any acting involved at all. This film might have worked just as well with any old man playing the lead. He just goes about his business on the ship, in a fairly natural way, and the power of each situation lends gravity to his impassive face.

He's looking spritely for a 77 Year Old, but I did notice he dozes off an awful lot. I suppose some of this is from exhaustion, but in the second half in particular nearly every scene begins with Our Man coming out of another long nap.

Spoiler alert - in the end he nearly drowns, but is suddenly saved when you see a bright light and a hand reaching down. To me this is actually just a metaphor for him dying and accepting his death, and he's not really saved. Though sadder, this interpretation is more satisfying in completing the story then the corny ending of a last minute rescue.

In conclusion, this was a very good film. Probably not the best kind of thing to put on at a party, but good to get into on your own.

Gravity - Danny's review

This is exactly the sort of film you should see in the cinema. It's full of huge visions of Space and Space Stations and Space Shuttles and what Earth looks like from Space. There's lots of 3D effects and lots of spinning round. I'm not sure it would be enjoyable on TV, and it would be very poor to watch on a little screen on a plane, where it would also be unsuitable as there's a lot of Space crashes.

The plot is fairly simple. It's the crew of a Space Mission coping with an incident and trying to get back home. That's all I'm saying. Much of the story is told visually, and those are the best bits. There is also a fair bit of chatter with mission control to tell the audience what's going on. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock handle the dialogue well, but I do wonder if the movie could be even more striking if they cut out lots of the dialogue and relied even more on the visuals - in the manner of All is Lost (review to come), where Robert Redford's marooned sailor barely says a thing.

It's a fine line to tread in a film making astronauts seem realistic, but also have some human qualities. I've recently read retired astronaut Chris Hadfield's book about being in Space. He's the guy who recorded Space Oddity, and also filmed lots of everyday things in zero gravity like brushing your teeth. I can report that he's actually not a very fun guy, and likes to ruthlessly over-prepare for everything. When he gets in a lift he checks the safety instructions just in case it crashes. When he went to see Elton John he practiced playing Rocket Man over and over just in case Elton recognised him and invited him on stage (he didn't). Reading his book was a lot like reading Lance Armstrong's. These guys are machines.

So I'm not sure the George Clooney character would be regaling Mission Control (Ed Harris) with his hilarious story of New Orleans Carnival, and quipping about Sandra's blue eyes, or are they actually brown. Every second of every minute of a space walk is meticulously planned, and it's at once exciting and very boring. Of course the point of Clooney's clowning is to make it clear what a laid-back veteran he is, and in fairness he does snap into mission-mode quickly when he hears of an emergency. There's only one moment where it's all a bit hard to believe, when Clooney is shooting around on his jet-chair and another guy swings around on a cable shouting "look at me!" and they all chuckle. Sandra is at least trying to do some work, while the other two are really just pissing about in Space.

Some other Space observations - I think the film must be set in the future as it features a lot more Space Stations and technology then we have now. I think sometimes the film-makers forgot the Golden Rule of zero gravity, that you don't weigh anything. So, if for example, someone is hanging on to something for dear life, and someone else is hanging on to them in a classic cliffhanger scenario, the second person doesn't actually weigh anything and wouldn't be pulling the first one down. Also it doesn't need a lot of fuel to move along in 0G, once you get going you just keep going. In fact you need half the fuel to speed up and half the fuel to slow down - they're not very good at the slowing down part. The best Space Physics moment is when Sandra throws away a fire extinguisher in the opposite direction to the way she wants to go.

I liked seeing all the Space detritus floating round. At one point you see a hand gripper tool, which I think they really do use in Space to keep up hand strength in 0G. That's a nice touch. A vodka bottle has a special nozzle to drink from, because just drinking from the bottle normally wouldn't work. Another nice touch. Not so good is when you see a table tennis bat floating along. Table tennis in zero gravity? I don't think that would work very well.

I realise that most of this review has focused on Space, and not much on the film itself. So in conclusion let me say it was a very enjoyable film, gripping from start to finish. Excellent use of CGI for all the Space bits, which could only be done with modern computers (or a budget of hundreds of billions). The film is a very eloquent case for the benefits of CGI in films, which is however nearly totally undermined by a gratuitous and very irritating computer generated frog in the last minute. That's the dark side of CGI, doing stupid stuff just because you can, there was no need for that. Unforgivable.

American Hustle - Jamie's review

Christian Bale has already appeared in an 'American' film, fact fans. But Bale's fat, shambling conman Irving Rosenfeld doesn't have much in common with Patrick Bateman other than a propensity for getting other people to believe his lies.

When his new mistress, Amy Adams, gets fingered by a greasy FBI man (a ferociously jerry-curled Bradley Cooper), Rosenfeld has to agree to use his unique skillset to catch more crooks to keep her out of prison. Soon he's in way over his head, and the game is whether he'll figure a way out.

Amercian Hustle, based on the huge Abscam sting which caught a half dozen crooked congressmen and a senator in the 1970s, is a light and lively affair with plenty of outrageous vintage fashion (obese kipper ties compete with giant haircuts and plunging necklines for square metres of the cinema screen). It wisely chooses to skip over the fact that Rosenfeld was a despicable conman who cheated desperate people out of their savings, preferring to cast him as a sympathetic sadsack on heart pills who loves his son, is browbeaten by his manic wife (Jennifer Lawrence, on top form still/again) and who just wants the ride to stop.

What sets Hustle apart from other films in the con genre (apart from the top notch cast, which also includes Jeremy Renner as a likeable mayor and Louis CK as a doormat of an FBI chief) is its startling decision to show what makes the con artists tick. It's the most nakedly emotional con man movie ever made. Even the best of them (e.g. The Grifters, The Sting and pretty much anything by Mamet) fail on that front because a con movie almost always ends with a reveal that one character was fooling another all along.

But though it's only apparent in retrospect, Hustle dispenses with fakery and shows its grifters at their most vulnerable. Bale and Adams are messy people who don't hide their needs and dreams at all. They may fool their marks, but they don't try to fool each other or the audience.

American Hustle - Danny's review

I got a book about Seagalogy for Christmas. In the last week I've watched ten Steven Seagal films, along with some of his excellent Lawman series. Although it's difficult to watch a film that has no chance of featuring Steven Seagal, I thought I should give it a go. I've been looking forward to American Hustle, as it looked like a guaranteed good time, and it certainly was. There's loads of larger than life characters, catchy music, and the thrill of the con.

There's some amazing 70s styling. The best bit is when it pans across a couple of impressive three piece suits, then cuts to the Mayor Jeremy Renner and his associate, looking fantastic. Probably didn't need the obligatory 70s disco scene, but the rest of it is all very welcome.

Like any good con-artist story, it's not always clear who's conning who. Not just in terms of monetary scams, but in their relationships. I was accidentally conned too, and didn't realise that Amy Adams' character was only pretending to be English as she adopted her English accent so early on. She has a saucy relationship with both the male leads, played by Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper, and talks a lot of talk about being real. It's hard not to stare at her breasts.

Christian Bale is excellent, playing a strangely resigned and downbeat middle-aged man. He must have eaten loads to get that paunch. He's a bit washed up like he is in The Fighter, but don't worry he's still got it, and as time goes on you trust him a lot more than the unhinged Bradley Cooper. Bradley's mad streak comes out, like it does in Silver Linings Playbook, which also starred Jennifer Lawrence. She plays the wacky first wife, who is a sort of comic relief but is actually pretty good, and in the end you feel sorry for her too she's so messed up.

The 'big con' that they pull off at the end is a bit disappointing, as it's built up too much. In fact, there's a few references to what a great trickster Christian Bale is, but we don't see much evidence of it. Maybe they wanted to keep it as an ensemble piece, focusing on the characters, rather than turn it into a crime caper, which it nearly is. The worst bits are the dodgy mafia involvement, with a token Robert De Niro mobster.

There's one interesting plot point. Amy Adams seems to be flirting with Bradley Cooper even before he is revealed as an agent (spoiler alert). Is it because she really fancied him, or was she on to him and already playing a very clever long game?

In summary, it's a lot of fun, and I'd certainly watch it again if it was on TV, mostly for Christian Bale. It's not my favourite 'American' movie, that would be American Psycho, followed by American Beauty, then American History X. But it's much better than American Pie.

2014 Preview - by Danny

Here's 20 films I'm going to try and see this year.

January 17	Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit	Kenneth Brannagh
February 12	Robocop	José Padilha
February 21	Pompeii	Paul WS Anderson
March 7	Grand Budapest Hotel	Wes Anderson
March 28	Noah	Darren Aronofsky
April 11	Sabotage	David Ayer
April 18	Transcendence	Wally Pfister
May 16	Godzilla	Gareth Edwards
June 6	Edge of Tomorrow	Doug Liman
June 20	The Purge 2	James DeMonaco
July 18	Jupiter Ascending	The Wachowskis
August 8	Lucy	Luc Besson
August 15	The Giver	Phillip Noyce
September 26	The Equalizer	Antoine Fuqua
October 3	Gone Girl	David Fincher
November 7	Interstellar	Christopher Nolan
November 14	Dumb & Dumber: To	The Farrellys
November 21	Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1	Francis Lawrence
December 12	Exodus	Ridley Scott
December 25	Unbroken	Angelina Jolie

A few blockbusters, one remake, and lots and lots of excitement.

A big prize for me if I manage to see them all.