What Keith's Watching: All Is Lost (2013)

Admittedly, I started off with biased feelings toward All Is Lost due to my man crush on Robert Redford. I don't think I've seen a bad Robert Redford movie - this neglects the fact that I haven't seen all of his films.

All Is Lost is simply a survival tale at sea. One man on his boat versus the elements. Think The Old Man and The Sea minus the fish.

I think he's a fantastic actor and nothing proves it more than All Is Lost. It's not a new concept, but it's not a popular one either. The movie is just him on a boat. No other characters, no voices -- all Redford. It's like the part of Castaway when he's on the island, but with less dialogue. Redford's character doesn't feel the need to to craft a friend, because he frankly doesn't have the time. He focuses on his survival, fighting the urge to give up hope as his situation worsens.

There have been a handful of movies that have attempted to have one actor carry the film. Buried with Ryan Reynolds comes to mind, but he was given a disembodied voice. The really challenge of that movie was the cinematography. Really though, Castaway is the only one to spend that much time with an actor with such little dialogue. But not even Hanks dared to carry the entire film on his very trustworthy shoulders.

The concept isn't for everyone. I told someone it was excellent, and after they saw it, they questioned if something was wrong with me. This is another movie for acting fans. All Is Lost is also perfect for people who are looking for something different away from the generic action, comic book, thriller, or rom coms that are populating film these days. It's not a sequel, it's not meant to put your ass in the seat. It's meant to do what film does and conveys a story.

What Keith's Watching: Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Glengarry Glen Ross is what every writer wants his work to become and what every actor wants to be a part of. The acting is amazing, but this may only be because they have such great words to work with.

Glengarry is based on the David Mamet play. And the movie is one of the closest things to a play on film you can get. It really gives the acting a chance to shine and it helps when there's such great talent in the movie. The worst one is Jude Ciccolella as the cop, but his role is so limited, he doesn't have a chance to stretch himself into the role.

I went in thinking it was just about salesmen, but it's so much more. Maybe I relate more to the story, the sales environment and their depression because I worked in sales for a few years, but I think this movie holds up and is infinitely relatable. Glengarry will be relevant until the idea of sales and capitalism dies out. Even then, it may be a warning of why not to go back to those ways.

But really, the reason to see this movie many, many times is to eat up the acting. I knew about Baldwin's speech and recognized references to it, but to see it was a different experience.

Jack Lemmon is amazing as ever. He disappears in his character's desperation. he conveys the desperation we all feel at some point in our lives. 

Jonathan Pryce and Al Pacino have a wonderful scene towards the end that really pulls you in and expresses what both characters are feeling. As a viewer you relate to both sides so much that you don't know who you want to win. 

If you are an action person, Glengarry will seem boring. All the action - especially what drives the second half - happens off-screen. The other "action" is all in language and acting. The "action" is reaction - to the world, to stress, to desperation, to a fear of failing. If you are a fan of acting, storytelling and dialogue, and you haven't seen Glengarry Glen Ross yet, well, then you aren't allowed coffee.

What Keith's Watching: Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

I'm not a Shakespeare guy. I probably know more about Shakespeare and his work than the average person, but that's mainly because I still harbor a dream that one day I will be on Jeopardy and they always have a Shakespeare category.

I generally don't watch adaptations of his work, unless his work only served as a rough base for the movie (i.e. Warm Bodies.) But Much Ado About Nothing was different. It was done by a director I love, starring actors I enjoy. There was something about it that seemed fund. Not to mention the story behind the making of the film blew my mind wide open. If you're not familiar with it, basically, while Joss Whedon was on vacation from The Avengers, he got all his friends together and made a movie in 12 days. He shot everything at his house. What Hollywood people do things like that these days? Apparently, Whedon and his crew do and I hope they do it again.

Of the Shakespeare plays I know, Much Ado wasn't one of them. So I went in fresh which may have helped me in my love of this movie. There's nothing I can point to and say that Whedon got it wrong. Given the man's passion for this project, I doubt he would get anything "wrong" but you know what I mean. In fact, I looked up to see what if anything Joss changed. He added a few shots at the beginning that elevate the story to a new level that couldn't be done by words alone and he made a couple tweaks to wording that would come across as racist by today's standards.

A lot of what Whedon does in making the play his own is visual and adds a lot of humor to the story. Being set in modern times, there are many parts of the play that Shakespeare intended to be funny, but don't come across that way. We just don't understand the wording of the joke - like when Yakov Smironoff told jokes in front of a brick wall. But the visual gags Whedon adds are hilarious without dumbing the subject matter down. It's exactly what we would expect from him.

It doesn't hurt either that he packed his movie with talent. Talent that seem to share Whedon's passion for the source material. And that's what I really think makes this movie stand out. The excitement and fun just come through the screen and you can't help but be wrapped up in it.

However, if you are the type of person that doesn't like trying to decode the plot and what the characters are saying because they are speaking centuries-old English, maybe this isn't for you. But if you like a great movie that's fun and leaves you satisfied, and you're willing to work for the payoff, then you are in luck.

VERDICT: Thou Must See

What Keith's Watching: Grown Ups 2 (2013)

Grown Ups 2 is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I knew I was in trouble when the opening to the movie involves a deer peeing on Adam Sandler. From there, the movie seems to follow no storyline. There's no discernable plot to the movie that keeps the characters moving forward. At the end, you might be able to think back and see how things tied together, but while you're watchign the movie you almost feel like you're watching an ode to Slacker, only fucking atrocious.

The story, if it can be reffered to as that, seems to involve a group of friends and somehow they have an 80s-themed party. I don't know how this happens or why anyone cares. Not much effort was put into cause and effect as the focus seemed to be on cramming as many gags, "jokes," and slapstick into the movie as possible. Also crammed throughout the movie are many cameos from just about anyone who was ever on SNL. My assumption is that the producers made a bet along the lines of "I bet you can't fit a million cameos in this piece of junk." to which the other gentleman replied: "Challenge accepted!"

I can't help but wonder if this is the same type of humor that made Adam Sandler damous in the first place with Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. It's been so long since I've seen either one, I'm worried. But at least those movies had a story that I could follow and the character seemed to go through something and be better in the end. In Grown Ups 2, I'm not sure anything really happens to the characters except they have a crazy day and survive things that should leave them dead or severely injured. For a group of friends that are adults and have families, yet act like kids, you'd think maybe they'd learn to grow up. (You know, like the title of the movie.) But no, they don't. In fact, they seem to just bring others down around them. And not in the way where they teach someone not to take things too seriously and have a little fun, in the way to teach others to be dumbasses.

It's possible that I missed something by not seeing the first movie, but that's an awful lot to dump on the shoulders of one movie. I can't believe that one movie would fix all the problems with the sequel -- primarily the lack of laughter. In the 100 minutes of this movie, I laughed zero times. How many times did my fiancee laught? Once. Maybe I would have laughed more if I wasn't trying to figure out what was going on, or what the point was, or trying to understand why every single character had to have their own seperate storyline.

It might have also helped if I wasn't distracted by the ridiculous amount of CGI in this movie. For a movie about 4 friends, there seems to be an awful lot of CGI. Presumably for laughs, but that didn't happen. (Remember the pissing deer?)

The real tragedy of Grown Ups 2 is that it made almost $240 million, so I assume we'll be seeing a Grown Ups 3. Maybe they'll remember jokes this time.

VERDICT: AVOID AT ALL COST

What Keith's Watching: Pacific Rim (2013)

Pacific Rim is one of those movies where you automatically love the concept. It's not a high concept, but someone says to you: "giant monsters versus robots" and you say: "I want to see that!" But then you see it.

I really wanted to enjoy this movie a lot more than I did. And I did enjoy it, but I wanted to enjoy it more. The best parts of Pacific Rim are the fights between the kaiju and the jaegers. The parts in-between don't blow me away. The characters don't have great story arcs and the ones that do are pretty much the same stereotypes. Great acting might have saved these troupes, but that would require acting that the Pacific Rim cast lacked in spades.

Honestly, a lot of it felt like I was watching the pilot movie to a new SyFy channel TV series that was reusing Battlestar Galactica sets. Everything seemed really bright - at least it did on my TV. If the end of the world was on the horizon and the characters all seem to know that, then maybe we should have a little mood lighting. Instead every room seemed to have a dozen 100 watt bulbs.

Also, if this has been going on for so long, and cities are regularly getting attacked, it seems weird that these Pacific cities would continue to do such large scale rebuilding, or that they would remain so heavily populated. I'll buy it to a certain extent, but even looking at natural disasters, it takes YEARS to recover.

Visually, everything with the kaiju-jaeger fight scenes look great and that's the reason to watch this movie at least once. But otherwise the story and the world are too campy for me to rematch many times. Maybe if there was a more captivating performance in the main role, I might get more out of it. I have serious doubts that Charlie Hunnam can transfer from a leading TV role to being a leading film guy. He could probably get some great supporting roles in movies, but right now, I doubt he can carry a movie on his own. The real tragedy in the acting though, is that Idris Elba couldn't save it.

(Side note: I've never watched an episode of Sons of Anarchy, so about halfway through the movie, I finally realized that Charlie Hunnam was Lloyd from Undeclared. This blew my mind.)

Pacific Rim is worth a watch. It will probably become a recurring thing in "nerd culture" because of the concept alone, but not on any of the other merits we judge films by.

VERDICT: Watchable