The trailer for J.C. Chandor’s (Margin Call, A Most Violent Year) All Is Lost was incredible. It shows a man Robert Redford (The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), sailing his yacht in the middle of the sea. He has a smile on his face. The sun is shining brightly. The wind is blowing lightly through his hair. The shots of him are broken up by black frame credits that say “Alone at Sea,” “A Man Has Only Himself,” and “His Will To Survive.” And then we go to a shot of him sleeping in his cabin. Seconds later, water comes gushing in, and it’s obvious he has crashed into something. Then we see all hell breaking loose, including high waves, heavy rain, his belongings hitting off the walls as a result of the yacht rocking back and forth, his yacht capsizing, him saying goodbye to his craft from a raft, unsuccessful attempts at making S.O.S. calls, and flare guns shot into the night sky. Critical praise is flashed on the screen, making it seem like this movie might be the most suspenseful movie ever made. Of course, it’s not, but the trailer makes it look that way.
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Category Archives: Adventure
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
I suspended my beliefs at the door when I stepped into the theater to see Francis Lawrence’s (I Am Legend, Water For Elephants) sequel to The Hunger Games. I couldn’t do this for the first movie and was dissatisfied. I wanted the film to be more of a survival movie and less a fantasy/science fiction movie. When I wasn’t able to do that, I just started to question everything that was happening. I liked The Hunger Games but did not love it. I liked it enough to continue with the franchise, though. Every successful fantasy book franchise is being made into a movie these days. I have never read a word of a book or seen a second of the film in either the Harry Potter or Twilight series. I get the cult-like following to both of these movies, though. I do understand how you can be engrossed in a franchise like this. I have not read, nor will I read, any of The Hunger Game books, but I will continue to see the movies, even though I am upset about the franchise’s finale Mockingjay, split up into two movies. I am also lukewarm about the Insurgent franchise coming to the theaters. They showed a trailer for the first Insurgent movies before Catching Fire, and I was disappointed to see Kate Winslet on the screen. In these movies, you don’t need superstars outside the main character or two.
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World War Z (2013)
World War Z is, hands down, the best movie for the first half of 2013. For the longest time, the film was being compared to a movie like Waterworld, which had grand ideas but was hampered by extensive reshoots, long delays, and a ballooning budget. Reports have swirled that the movie cost over $170 million to make. If the movie had not been good, it would have been considered a colossal failure by all accounts. But with the film, at last count, grossing over $535 million worldwide, Paramount Pictures is getting the last laugh. I am disappointed that this movie only earned a 67% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I recently watched Aliens, a great movie. But the fact that Aliens gets a 98% positive rating and World War Z gets only a 67% positive rating is a bit of a joke.
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Life of Pi (2012)
Life of Pi is a visual masterpiece that film purists should not miss. If this movie is all intriguing to you, I recommend seeing it as quickly as possible. To experience the true value of this movie, it must be seen in the theater. The 3D effects are superb, but just as important is experiencing this movie on the largest screen available. As I told a friend, if you only go to the cinema a handful of times per year, there might be better movies to see. I might even recommend a film that isn’t as good as Life of Pi based on your preferences. But if your goal is to see as many great movies as you can in one year, this is not to be missed.
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The Impossible (2012)
The Impossible is flat-out the best movie of 2012. I went into the movie thinking it would be one of the ten best of 2012, but I didn’t think it would crack the top five, let alone take over The Dark Knight Rises. As I’ve stated many times, a great movie has an advantage over other great movies if it is based on a true story. Not “inspired by a true story” or “based upon true events” but “based on a true story.” A great movie can lose a lot in my book if it turns out that much factual information is exaggerated or incorrect. Remember The Titans went from being in my all-time top 25 to fall out of the top 150 because of how factually incorrect it had been. Rather than winning the state championship on the game’s final play, as depicted in the movie, the TC Williams Titans won that game handily 27-0. And while I haven’t sought out any discrepancies between what was shown in The Impossible and what happened, I haven’t heard anybody say that the events were untrue.
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