ALL IS LOST, a J.C. Chandor film starring Robert Redford as an old yachtsman adrift

Surpassed my expectations, just a couple quibbles about the last 20 minutes. Bob delivers, just doing stuff mostly; the emoting is almost beside the point. And no backstory.

I feel like movies that are this pared-down require fewer flaws in execution to pull off properly, and this *just* missed the mark for me as a result. Didn't like the Life of Pi-style distant, pretty far shots or the particulars of the ending.

I dug this quite a bit. Thought it was more harrowing than Gravity, personally. Took the ending literally at first but on way home realized there was possibly something else entirely going on and for once that ambiguity felt interesting and not a gimmick.

Partly because it's an ambiguity about whether it's ambiguous!

I liked this and Gravity about the same - I appreciated Gravity more on a technical level, but admired Chandor's restraint when it came to holding back on character particulars.

But it is almost funny how similar the movies are - actors marooned alone in vast emptiness, collisions with human detritus, failed attempts to communicate with the outside world, etc.

i'll tell you whats lost... the 100 minutes i spent watching this pile!!!

actors marooned alone in vast emptiness, collisions with human detritus, failed attempts to communicate with the outside world, etc.

i.e. Robert Redford since 1968

jerk :)

But it is almost funny how similar the movies are

...unconvincing CG marine life...

i will say redford's "fuck" is p incred in this

Here's to your "fuck", Robert

I was amused no one had made a thread yet, i guess this is what happens when the survival-movie star doesn't strip to underwear at first opportunity.

Pretty sure there would be many memes if that happened during this movie.

I mentioned it on the Gravity thread because I have a phobia about starting new threads.

one thing I really like about this movie, in line with how I feel about the ending, is that all of it's "extreme" choices don't really feel extreme at all. it's doesn't feel like Chandor said to himself he was gonna create an austere wordless movie with Robert Redford before even writing the script. I didn't even realize there was almost no talking until the end. it's really a miracle for something so formally driven to feel rather more organic than, yes, Gravity.

it's doesn't feel like Chandor said to himself he was gonna create an austere wordless movie with Robert Redford before even writing the script.

i agree with that. i knew going in that there was gonna be no talking basically but it wasn't showy about it at all. this is a movie i probably would've really responded to if i saw it at the right time and place, but that time & place was definitely not mere weeks after gravity rocked my ass off

ha I saw this right after Gravity too and so took the moral to be: the ocean is way more fucked up than space!

gravity already had that covered, cuz the scariest part is when the water's rushing in the capsule and the suit is too heavy!

that said i dont wanna compare this too much to gravity. it can stand on its own. the parts where redford loses his cool were almost shocking to me, you're not used to seeing the cracks in the facade. a non-literal take on the ending didn't occur to me too, so that's a cool thing you mentioned

preferred this to gravity def but yea didnt really think to compare them idk

how did ppl not immed get the possible ambiguous ending it works but is p heavy handed (yes) tbh

I haven't followed the release pattern of this one (cuz who does), but it peaked at 350 theaters around Thanksgiving and stiffed, now down to about 140 -- total gross around $5 M. So, yes, it's as close to an ART FILM you will see with this profile, given what the ADD crowd is used to.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/All-is-Lost#tab=box-office

got the screener, will watch this weekend. Just don't put us in a boat together.

^industry pirate

have never forgiven Bob for Havana?

I've got friends in low places.

This never opened in Upper Armpit Tupelo.

Havana isn't lifeless so much as infused with that blond torpor that's the Redford specialty.

Comparisons between this and Gravity are of course inevitable but I think very superficial, and tend only to be in service of pointing out the perceived deficiencies in one or the other. That being said ... this is just an artier Open Water, no?

The ambiguity that stuck with me wasn't in the ending (which is obvious) but in considering the possibility that he was actively courting death up until the movie's beginning. And then when he found himself staring at it right in the face, decided that maybe he wasn't ready yet.

To get up in the morning is to court death. As would further be, say, rock climbing without a harness.

i'm not recalling what Open Water is just now.

Open Water = 2003 Sundance movie that made a minor splash, about two divers who are left behind by their tour boat and treading shark-infested water for 90 minutes. It's pretty intense.

Partly because it's an ambiguity about whether it's ambiguous!

I hadn't realized the ending was ambiguously ambiguous until you suggested it! The film is loaded with ambiguity from the beginning, though - that V.O. line is: "I'm sorry. I know that means little at this point, but I am. I tried. I think you would all agree that I tried. To be true, to be strong, to be kind, to love, to be right. But I wasn't."

basically tells us what species he is

(btw Chandor said he intended no ambiguity in the ending; I didn't take any, actually)

Well he's a fucktard.

^hot take

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. well. Enjoyed is the wrong word. But I was locked in from the beginning, and really felt quite emotional about his situations throughout the movie. The quiet of it did not feel at all pretentious, and kinda heightened the whole thing for me.

i like the ambiguous ending. whether or not it was intentional, i like that different people can walk away with a different ending.

a friend of mine saw this recently and said it was okay. but that it "didnt feel like he (redford) learned anything, it was kind of pointless".

i think that might be the thing that makes me like it more. plus the age of the character, heck the age of the actor even, feels like a huge key to the whole story. the wisdom to know when to fight, when to survive, and when to let go. and maybe how you respond to that says something about where you are in your own life, as far as fighting/surviving/letting go goes. agh, idk. that might be too navelgazey.

but just all the sailing stuff, and the sextant , and the levels of survival and the kits and devices that go with that... i got a perverse enjoyment from all of that stuf.

feel like i need to see this again

i'm kinda wondering if gravity-ppl maybe do need to give it a rewatch, it seems to affect people's reading of the movie somehow

i have not seen gravity btw

i get the feeling like this will actually play better for me on TV than it did in the theater

Redford gracious about non-nom, not crazy about Lionsgate's distribution.

“These films are reliant on campaigns. We suffered from little to no distribution. We had no campaign to help us cross over to the mainstream. It can get very political,” he noted of the Lionsgate domestically distributed film. “I don’t know what they were afraid of. They didn’t want to spend money or they were incapable,” he added. With those comments, Redford also was very practical about his unsuccessful nomination chances for a film that has only made about $8 million at the box office. ”Hollywood is a business and a very good one and I have nothing but respect for it,” the actor added.

http://www.deadline.com/2014/01/robert-redford-2014-sundance-film-festival-addressed/

diplomatic. he should've got nommed rather than dern

Or Bale, or McConaughey, but like that was ever gonna happen.

It was handled disgracefully. It's had two SoFl runs, a total of five days.

I thought that was at your request, you blondophobe!

Seeing this tonight!

HOLY SHIT

I'm even LESS interested in sailing around the world, now

lol

Seriously this was intense.

I kinda wish there had been zero score. I also would like to smack everyone at my screening who didn't turn their phone off.

This is still in theaters?

there's an entertaining (presumably trolling) meme on youtube that this movie is "Obviously just Life of Pi without the Tiger"

Eric, it came to the college theater near me for a limited run. Next up is "Dallas Buyers Club."

hits your stores/platforms today

this is a good movie and i will never relinquish my "ambiguous" reading of the ending no matter what anyone says.

relinquish I say!

i will also accept Eric H.'s interpretation:

The ambiguity that stuck with me wasn't in the ending (which is obvious) but in considering the possibility that he was actively courting death up until the movie's beginning. And then when he found himself staring at it right in the face, decided that maybe he wasn't ready yet.

A month or so later and I'm willing to admit that reading would kind of hinge on him telekinetically summoning a freight container into the side of his yacht.

yeah but you can always telekinetically summon a METAPHOR.