Just Re-watched "All Is Lost"

[ZULU40]

Originally Posted by jmorrison146

Second dumbest movie ever. Dumbest is "Eyes Wide Shut", even though Nichole Kidman gets naked for a bit early on.

sounds like you should have got out of the bathroom to see the rest ...

[Peregrine1983]

WingRyder, nice evaluation. I agree with you.

If I had been given that script cold, I probably wouldn't have read it. Not sure how many here have read a lot of film or TV scripts, but the entire script would be all action. Zero dialogue. Which means DENSE.

Making an entertaining film about one character, on a boat, alone, with no dialogue is a daunting task. I thought they pulled it off well.

[anacapaisland42]

Dead Calm for the scariest
Bill

Originally Posted by WingRyder

With all the ridiculous same-as-the-last-one, superhero flicks out there... I could hardly call this the worst. I agree on Eyes wide shut though... I'm not a big Kubrick, Tarantino, Scorsese fan either.

[medevicerep]

I must say I really enjoyed this movie in spite of the obvious mistakes that experienced sailors will easily notice. The movie was made for the general public, not the less than 1 % sailing enthusiasts. I like the way it demonstrated how sailors are resilient and creative in solving life threatening situations. My take is that he was not rescued in the end but that he died and it was the hand of God reaching to him.

[senormechanico]

For dumb sailing movies, "Wind".

[Caribbeachbum]

I could live with the collision with the container to set up the movie, and even the calm sea state. I could live with the unbelievable lack of knowledge that the character (and the filmmaker) had about the boat and its equipment and seafaring in general.

But the series of stupid decisions the main character made ruined the movie for me. They were an overt manipulation, a lazy writer's way of making the situation more and more dire with the passage of time.

The same movie would have worked brilliantly if the main character faced an increasingly dire series of circumstances despite making the best possible decisions. But that would have required a lot more knowledge and hard work by the writers and filmmakers.

This is probably why I liked Gravity (a similar theme) so much more than All is Lost, even though the orbital mechanics were laughable.

Also, I thought the guy died at the end, and that the visuals were some "death symbolism" that I thought was ridiculous.

[rthompsona]

I once heard someone say that you can never enjoy a movie that you know too much about. I think that was the case for me. I got pulled away from the movie plot because it was not really believable to anyone who understands sailing. I agree that the character development was really the story. The boat stuff just got in the way.

[patrick brooks]

as I watched movie I realized that my boat was the same or very close to same model. the interior being a match were container hit behind nav station on my boat would be the worse place on mine access to damage, and center for all electric controls pump radio ect. hurt to watch it sink fair winds

[Adelie]

I read that they used 3 Cal39s for filming.

[kmcshane]

"All Is Lost" director lured Redford from Sundance Film to do this film on the strength of his prize winning "Margin Call" (Demi, Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci...riveting performances).
Trigger for the screenplay: director (Chandor) promoting Margin Call was riding trains up and down the East Coast past acres of boatyards, each boat representing someone's dreams...voyaging, freedom, meticulous planning and ultimately facing the vagaries of wind and sea.
Yet, all these boats setting on hard ground, mostly going nowhere season after season, facing no angels or demons.
So denigrate the Redford character if you wish, but whatever his shortcomings and the plot fails, he was out there; not comfortably buffing the topsides or tinkering with the latest gizmos.

[Brewgyver]

Originally Posted by WingRyder

Snip snip

Also, Last of the Mohicans... Daniel Day Lewis played a Mohican... After 2 hours, I was like, "Finally, we're down to the last Mohican!"[

Hawkeye, the Lewis character, is White, he’s the adopted son of Uncas, and it is Uncas who winds up being the last of the Mohicans.

All is lost, IMO is a pretty damn good movie.

I agree, I enjoyed it as well. If I didn’t ignore all the absolute impossibilities presented is almost every genre of film and TV, I’d have nothing to watch at all, seemingly.

[Peregrine1983]

Originally Posted by Brewgyver

If I didn’t ignore all the absolute impossibilities presented is almost every genre of film and TV, I’d have nothing to watch at all, seemingly.

Exactly. Suspension of disbelief.

[captlloyd]

Originally Posted by kmcshane

"All Is Lost" director lured Redford from Sundance Film to do this film on the strength of his prize winning "Margin Call" (Demi, Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci...riveting performances).
Trigger for the screenplay: director (Chandor) promoting Margin Call was riding trains up and down the East Coast past acres of boatyards, each boat representing someone's dreams...voyaging, freedom, meticulous planning and ultimately facing the vagaries of wind and sea.
Yet, all these boats setting on hard ground, mostly going nowhere season after season, facing no angels or demons.
So denigrate the Redford character if you wish, but whatever his shortcomings and the plot fails, he was out there; not comfortably buffing the topsides or tinkering with the latest gizmos.

I enjoyed the film with all of its shortcomings, I like about anything Redford is in. It was a shame the movie didn’t offer any real solutions to the holing of a boat. The characters attemps to slow the stem of water were feeble at best. A true battle between the sea/hole and Redford would have added a lot to the story.

[grantmc]

The film was made shortly after the huge success of Life of Pi. The Pi film is reported to have made a nice fat half billion profit.

So I think that All is Lost was made in the hope of hooking a trailer up to that thundering truck of money. The public bought in to Life of Pi's unrealities, and won all manner of accolades. So they made a film in a similar vain with the hope for a serious chunk of money. And as someone else pointed put very difficult to make a film with a single character and pull it off. Redford would have been regarded as a bankable actor to achieve that, and to be fair for the most part does. The plot is controlled by the writers.

Even All is Lost was a success so far as film buffs were concerned.

Obviously for the sailing community it was/is a comedy and that's unfortunate. But at least the basic plot was realistic in the sense of single late middle aged/elderly man, sailing solo, in an old mono hull. There are many many guys like that out there on the ocean blue. Boats not really up to it, but get along ok for the most part. And there are shipping containers floating about.

[Dougtiff]

The issue i had with Redfords "All is lost", was the technical aspect, which were many,this is something a very small percentage of movie goers "Sailors" would recognize, the vast audience would have tuned in to the psychological story [which i didn't], it,s like the movie Kevin Kostners movie" Message in a bottle", about a Shipwright, building a Wooden sail boat, all goes well technically until the scene showing installing a plank [offering up], from a steam box, that is like 3 feet long, which is ludicrous, but only one who does this for a living would know, being a 20 year Oilfield Diver [Sat diver], i have watched a number of films about that subject, that were also goofy, but only one who did it for a living would know.