For Your Consideration: All Is Lost

All Is Lost (2013)

J.C. Chandor’s ocean-based study of isolation and survival watches Robert Redford all at sea. In fact, that’s all it watches, as Redford’s ‘Our Man’ does everything in his 77-years’ worth of power to weather the storm and return to his friends and family on dry land – whoever they may be.

So tell me…when exactly did Hollywood decide that water was cool? I enjoy a wild dip as much as the next man, but over the last couple of years a fleet of film-makers have had the bends for the deep blue sea. Last term’s Oscars saw Life of Pi, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Norwegian Kon-Tiki take a dip in the Academy pool , while Captain Phillips embarked on its own awards voyage earlier this year. And now Margin Call’s J.C. Chandor has jumped on board with his one man sophomore movie All Is Lost.

The premise is almost perverse in its simplicity. Solo seaman Robert Redford has sprung a leak in his yacht after colliding with a stray cargo container. Over the course of the subsequent 106 minutes, Redford swims, climbs, flails, bails, gets knocked unconscious, and generally does everything his frail bones will allow him to stay alive.

And it’s this threadbare synopsis in which the success of All Is Lost lies. Despite the absence of dialogue and twilight years of its star, the film moves on at an engaging rate of knots. It is a tribute to the director’s ingenuity and Redford’s presence that the action, or lack thereof, rarely tests the viewer’s patience. On the contrary, it invites sincere absorption in ‘Our Man’s’ plight and his anonymity is no obstacle to the viewer’s compassion.

Although the sea-based setting evokes parallels with the picture’s aforementioned briny brethren (particularly Life of Pi during scenes in which Redford tows himself along in an inflatable life-craft while trying to catch fish, purify salt-water and talk to a tiger), the more apposite comparison is with this year’s Gravity. An individual’s near-impossible struggle for survival with no sight, sound or sign of assistance and relying on their own wit and spirit to survive.

If only young Alfonso C had delayed production of his visual masterpiece by a year or so and caught All Is Lost on a legal subscription-based streaming service before putting the pen down on his own screenplay. He would have learned that an audacious vacuum in Sandra Bullock’s script matching the vastness of outer-space would have served to heighten – not lessen – the drama. That by crowbarring in a dismal after-thought of a back-story would palpably detract from the jaw-dropping spectacle he’d created.

Chandor eschews any notion of ‘Our Man’s’ history, family or friends; he is simply fighting to live, allowing him to stand as a totem for any allegory that we choose to thrust upon him. In doing so, the director avoids getting shackled by clunky narrative gimmicks to sketch a biography that we never needed to know in the first place. Alex Ebert’s minimalist, almost prosaic, score is the perfect accompaniment to a story that is low on the bombastic and high on realism.

With a fraction of Cuarón’s budget, Chandor was never going to compete on a visual footing, but there is a CGI-lite charm to his effects. Redford’s vessels are convincingly tossed, turned, battered and capsized (one of the film’s cinematographers, Peter Zuccarini, worked on Life of Pi and the Pirates of the Carribean franchise) and you can almost feel the damp chill of his perpetually saturated attire. While the visual effects are unlikely to feed the thoughts of the Academy, it is buoying to see a throwback to action that doesn’t resemble a cut scene from an animated computer game.

After surprisingly missing out on a Screen Actors Guild nomination, Redford still has an even chance of picking up an Oscar nod following his Golden Globe recognition; and with good cause. It goes without saying that a solo film like All Is Lost lives and dies by its lonely performer and, 40 years after his only performing Oscar nomination to date for The Sting, Redford is equal to the task. Craggy of face and weak of limbs, he is entirely convincing as a semi-experienced sea-farer now well out of his depth. His calm under pressure at the beginning of the piece intensifies his acute desperation when conditions escape his control.

But it is Chandor’s bravery to deliver a script so refreshingly bereft of flotsam that will hopefully cannonball All Is Lost into the Best Picture category as a dark [sea]horse in January.

All Is Lost; 2013; Dir: J.C. Chandor; Stars: Robert Redford; 106 mins; 7/10; Probable nominations: Best Actor (Robert Redford); Possible nominations: Best Picture, Best Cinematography (Frank G. DeMarco & Peter Zuccarini), Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score (Alex Ebert)

5 things we learnt about the Oscars race from the Golden Globe nominations

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s SAG nominations, the Foreign Press Association today announced their own Golden Globe nominations. As you’ll have predicted with weary acceptance, I’ve implored my lacklustre thinking cells to consider what the announcement means to 2014’s Oscars race.

I guess in many ways, you could say that today was yesterday’s tomorrow. And if you’re not saying that then can I recommend that you take the longest, hardest look at yourself in the nearest mirror (although the vicinity of the mirror is optional, I’m simply trying to endorse your very own convenience. My pleasure).

For the less able of you, I’m hacking on about the fact that a mere day after the SAG award nominations were announced, we have a complete and, indeed, longer set of filmy names to look at and consider. The dear, dear Golden Globes used to be a firm statement of intent upon the awards season, but has recently taken a lengthy sojourn to backlash city. Luckily for you however, my perpetual insistence to remain behind the times means that I’m still keen to consider them as a chief indicator for the Academy awards.

A real list of the nominations is here and my thoughts are down there:

1. It’s a shoot-out between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave

Ok, so we’ve probably known this for a good while now, but the Best Picture will more than likely be picked between these two. Having considered their best film nominations and nods for Cuaron and McQueen, and utterly cleared your mind of words like ‘argo’ and ‘zerodarkthirty’, they are dead certs for Best Picture nominations at the Oscars.

At this point, their competition seems to consist primarily of American Hustle, which looks like a jocular performers’ romp as opposed to a heavyweight contender, and Captain Phillips which is perhaps a little to Argo-ish to pick up the votes it will require. Nebraska is certainly a dark (black and white, indeed) horse, but it’s been a hell of a long time since Bruce Dern’s win at Cannes and it’s a pony that may well have bolted a long time ago.

2. Idris Elba is the Mandela

Idris Elba in ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’ (Credit: The Weinstein Company)

Call me a disgusting old cynic but absorb these card, hold spoonerific facts:

a) Nelson Mandela exited this earthy realm on 5th December 2013;

b) Golden Globe nomination ballots closed on 9th December 2013; and

c) Idris Elba was Golden Globe nominated for his role as Nelson Mandela on 12th December 2013.

Hey. Hey.

Now the bounce may not quite last until March, but may well secure Elba his first Academy Award nomination come the 16th January. And, for fear of reprisals, that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

3. The Best Original Song category could be an utter star-off

Coldplay, U2, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake. No, it’s not the playlist for Radio 2’s upcoming ‘Middle of the Road’ Music Festival. They’re all nominated for a Golden Globe this year for their Original (the term is, of course, used in its lightest terms) Songs. Great news for my dad; a bummer for the rest of us.

If it makes it any easier to bear, Jon Bon Jovi, Keith Urban and Taylor Swift (I know…AGAIN) were all nominated last time around without troubling the Academy’s crimson carpet, so there is yet hope that Chris Martin and Bono can leave their dinner jackets in one of their many walk-in wardrobes.

4. Aha. There may be a Partridge amongst the paparazzi

While Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa’s dismally weak jokes meant that it was never in danger of a shock Oscar call-up, Steve Coogan may well still get an invite. As ventured in this very blog, his splendid screenplay for Philomena has impressed the Foreign Press Association sufficiently to garner a screenplay nod and this should be a good indicator that the Academy will duplicate the honour.

5. There’s still hope for my Mads

With 2012’s The Hunt inexplicably earning a Best Foreign Language Film nomination (yes, I know that it probably isn’t inexplicable and no, I don’t want your boring explanation as to why that is) and likely to do the same at the Oscars, there is yet a slim hope that the masterful Mads Mikkelsen may muster a mention from the Academy.

Ok, so it’s true that the last couple of days weren’t overly kind to him and the Best Actor category is, as ever, looking very strong (it’s got ruddy dead Nelson Mandela in it for crying out loud), Mikkelsen’s stock is pretty strong at the moment after his lead A Royal Affair was nominated last year and now that he’s Hannibal shitting Lecter. Stranger things may or may not have happened.

My super apologies, but I just can’t justify spunking reams of cyberspace on listing the nominees in full, so Wikipedia will have to be your friend. I’ll be back in due course with more films For Your Consideration, reviews and the Oscar nomination news. As no serious person ever says in all sincerity, peace out y’all.

5 things we learnt about the Oscars race from the SAG nominations

With Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Judi Dench and Emma Thompson among its nominees, the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations boasts some of Hollywood’s biggest hitters. But exactly who else is nominated, and how does the list affect next year’s Academy Award nominees.

Here you were thinking that the SAGs was just a hilarious name for your ageing year 10 geography teacher’s drooping mammary satchels. Well you were wrong, because it’s also the name of a movie awards ceremony of deep, deep import. Boasting an 86% accurate prediction rate for the Oscars acting categories (correct as of last year; I can’t be arsed to recalculate the statistics again), you’ll understand why I’m getting my rancid knickers in an excruciating twist.

As well as giving you the full list of film nominees (scroll down, fool), you also get to look at some of my well wise opinions in a run down divided 5 ways. Check THIS…

1. It’s finally Matthew McConaughey’s time

Matthew McConaughey in ‘Dallas Buyers Club’

Hollywood’s true renaissance man, McConaughey’s remarkable career arc has been a blessing for Radio 4 producers everywhere who are struggling for content. From chick flick go-to-gimp, his 40s have seen him utterly transformed into the southern U.S. creepazoid of choice. With acclaimed roles in Mud, Bernie, Killer Joe, The Paperboy and Magic Mike, the Academy has taken a while to catch up with the new hot-thing-who-used-to-be-an-utter-laughing-stock on the block.

But that persistent Texan bastard will keep on turning in great performances won’t he. And this year he gave Oscar two to choose from. Still tipped for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his lunacy in The Wolf of Wall Street, the Guild has erred on the side of Best Actor for playing, and I quote Wikipedia here, a “homophobic, drug addicted rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof is diagnosed with AIDS and is given 30 days to live” in Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club. Ooooooh, sounds complex.

2. Best Supporting Actor promises a debut winner

Unlike last year’s gold-heavy category, the SAGs suggest that we will see a completely new home for Oscar to curse in March. And what’s really odd is that the prospective nominees aren’t exactly fresh off the boat. An average age of over 38 and stacks of quality big-screen work among them (Michael Fassbender, Daniel Brühl and Jared Leto are the who I refer to here) betrays the lack of erstwhile Oscar love.

Barkhad Abdi is probably the surprise package, particularly considering my assertion that his pirating in Captain Phillips wouldn’t quite be sufficient to have him swimming in the Californian Pacific Ocean with the rest of the nominated fish. And then there’s James Gandolfini…

3. There’s potential for a second posthumous Oscar winner in 6 years

James Gandolfini with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in ‘Enough Said’

“You wanna know how I got these crazy scars”. You all remember that one. Right? Yep, it was a line that Heath Ledger went and done said when he was in that film The Dark Knight. Yea, you remember. He was the Joker and Batman was also there. And then Heath Ledger died and then he won the Oscar. That’s it. Well done.

And now James Gandolfini might repeat that success in memoriam. Tucking away stacks of awards for utterly being Tony Soprano all those years, it is in death that big-screen prizes may be foisted upon him. And poignantly, if so, it will be for playing against type in the charming romantic comedy Enough Said.

4. Expect Academy royalty among female contingent

Tell me what you think of when you hear the names Dench, Roberts, Streep, Thompson, Blanchett, Bullock and Lawrence.

If you said something of utmost whimsy like, “That’s the seven dwarves, right?” then you can seriously go do one. The correct and rather more sensible answer is that they’re all nominated for SAGs and they’ve all won Oscars in their varying lengths of past. Got it? Good.

5. The Wolf of Wall Street got mugged right off

With a cast list longer than a cast-list-one-name-shorter-than-the-actual-cast-list-of-The-Wolf-of-Wall-Street, The Wolf of Wall Street promised to be a yet another Scorsese Academy love in. With stylised performances from the likes of DiCaprio, McConaughey, Jonah Hill and (snigger) Spoke Jonze, the odds were stacked firmly in favour of a nomination or two.

But alas, those SAG scallywags gone and pulled a fast one and went all snuberific. Not a nomination in sight.

But will the Academy agree with this or, indeed, any of what SAG had to say? The Golden Globe nominations follow tomorrow and we’ll have to wait until 16th January for the Oscar nominations. Wake me up then. No, but seriously, do; I’ve a dentist appointment in the afternoon that I DO NOT want to miss.

The full list of nominees

Best Film Ensemble

12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
August: Osage County
The Butler
Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actor

Bruce Dern for Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave
Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips
Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club
Forest Whitaker for The Butler

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock for Gravity
Judi Dench for Philomena
Meryl Streep for August: Osage County
Emma Thompson for Saving Mr. Banks

Best Supporting Actor

Barkhad Abdi for Captain Phillips
Daniel Bruhl for Rush
Michael Fassbender for 12 Years a Slave
James Gandolfini for Enough Said
Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club

Best Supporting Actress

Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o for 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts for August: Osage County
June Squibb for Nebraska
Oprah Winfrey for The Butler

Guest Picture: Bruce Dern

In reverence of Bruce Dern’s award-bothering performance in Nebraska, I’ve taken a look back at his only Oscar nomination to date in Coming Home.

What’s more, I roped in my buddy Jon Hill to help out. Below is his splendid portrait of Dern all trussed up in his Captain’s get up in Hal Ashby’s 1978 anti-Vietnam movie.

And if you like that (and who wouldn’t?), then do check out the rest of his art work. It’s utterly sublime…

www.jon-hill.co.uk

Courtesy of Jon Hill – http://www.jon-hill.co.uk/

New Country for Gold Men: Bruce Dern

In Nebraska, which is released in the UK today, Bruce Dern is set to show that he is more than an inevitable epitaph reading “Character Actor and Father”. He was honoured with the Best Actor garland at Cannes this year and is now, at the age of 77, preparing a mild-mannered assault on the impending Academy Awards. But this will be the second crack of the Oscar whip, after his nomination 35 years ago for Coming Home.

Courtesy of Jon Hill – http://www.jon-hill.co.uk/

Just like the Liberal Democrats of their own pre-election manifesto and when Weezer made good records, Bruce Dern is pretty easy to forget. The quintessential essence of that old-Hollywood tautology – the character actor – he has spent over five decades and 140 roles (thanks IMDB) ghosting on and off the big and small screen.

Yet for sci-fi fans, he is etched firmly in their cosmic mind tanks as the unhinged yet strangely likeable Freeman Lowell in the cult-classic Kermode over-championed Silent Running.

The role commenced a George Best-like mazy, jinking run of performances in the 70s that included Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, Smile, Hitchcock’s last film Family Plot, Black Sunday and culminating in the thriker of a finish, his Oscar nominated supporting role in Hal Ashby’s Coming Home.

The performance

As Captain Bob Hyde, Dern takes a ride on the tried-and-test anti-Vietnam film narrative rollercoaster. Starting the piece as a war advocate and chomping at the bit to go a-gook-hunting, he leaves behind a loving, if ever-so slightly disconnected wife, played by Jane Fonda on Oscar winning form. He’s bright eyed and bushwacker tailed.

While he’s away doing his patriotic and bloody duty, his abandoned spouse takes little time jumping into bed with a wheelchair stricken Viet vet (Join Voight, who matched Fonda’s gold). Physically and mentally maimed by his service and entirely against the conflict, she is apparently attracted to this complete opposite of her absent husband and commits presumably-treacherous adultery.

Back on leave comes Hyde, and he too has been left shell-shocked by his time in Tết. Emotionally violated and a ticking time bomb of fury, he…well, let’s just say that he doesn’t take the news of his wife’s infidelity so well and the holy triad of cinematic instability – guns, bayonets and nakedness on the beach – are volleyed upon the audience at will.

Dern is undoubtedly an engaging and sympathetic screen presence in Coming Home and his performance more than matches those of Fonda and Voight. Unfortunately, he is let down by the fact that the movie is far from Ashby’s finest. Lacking his usual nuance of socio-political commentary and wit, it plays to modern eyes as a cliché-riddled anti-Vietnam lecture. This manifests in a character that has to play two extremes, with not a lot in the middle. From a militant Elmer Fudd to a broken maniac in the last act who, it seems, is constantly on the verge of erupting into a “YOU AIN’T NEVER SEEN THE THINGS I SAW” meltdown.

As Roger Ebert correctly commented in his surprisingly lauding review: “The closing scenes show the film at its most uncertain, as if Ashby and his writers weren’t sure in their minds how the Dern character should react. And so Dern is forced into scenes of unfocused, confused anger before the film’s not very satisfying ending.”

While Variety was equally as sparing in its gushing for Dern, stating: “Dern’s character is the trigger for certain major events, but there remains enough exposure for him to be convincing as a career soldier disillusioned by Vietnam.” He is an avatar of the hideousness of Vietnam for Ashby, and yet clearly viewed by the director as far less interesting than the main stars.

Another problem is that Dern wasn’t exactly driving this tank for the first time; there are inescapable parallels with earlier roles. Captain Hyde shares the same pushed-over-the-edge psychosis as the aforementioned Lowell and, as Vincent Canby of The New York Times pointed out: “Mr. Dern’s role is a sort of modified version of the nut he played in Black Sunday.”

It’s a shame, because this could have been Dern’s immortalising opus. A celluloid classic. Why, this could have been his Christopher Walken moment. More on which just a little later…

The competition

I’m not the only Brit who wasn’t overly taken with Dern’s efforts. He failed to get a look in at our still-then-Blightycentric awards. The BAFTAs preferred a home-grown personification of mental disintegration; John Hurt’s remarkable turn in Midnight Express (reviewed by Bloscars here), which was also enough to garner the Golden Globe.

Jack Warden was nominated for his perfectly likeable comedy foil to Warren Beatty in the largely overrated Heaven Can Wait, (while I preferred Charles Grodin’s more weasely offering) and Richard Farnsworth is even more incidental still in Comes a Horseman. With limited screen-time in this humdrum Jane Fonda vehicle, I can only imagine that the former stuntman’s riding skills were the prompt for recognition. He would be nominated 20 years later for a far more compelling performance in David Lynch’s The Straight Story.  Jason Robards’s despicable land owner in the same film would have been more worthy or recognition, but three consecutive supporting actor Oscars may well have been too big a deal for the Academy even to entertain.

The deserving winner

Christopher Walken in ‘The Deer Hunter’

I suppose it’s a shame for Dern and Coming Home that the late 70s was rife with other anti-Vietnam movie and one in particular in the very same year; The Deer Hunter. Whereas Coming Home is a rather domestic, personal view of the consequences of America’s crazy quest to tear up Indochina, The Deer Hunter’s panorama is set firmly on the scale of epic.

And yet its show was stolen by a bug-eyed gravity-defying follicled bit part actor, with a red headband around his crown and a gun pointed to his temple with his own finger on the trigger.

To describe Christopher Walken’s performance, one would be excused for thinking that I was describing Dern’s. A life forever defiled by the horrors of the Vietnam war, Walken’s Nick is irreversibly tainted and driven to mad acts finally resulting in the ultimate self-sacrifice.

Yet, there is a certain intangible deadness behind Walken’s eyes that is so indescribably haunting, that he utterly earned the twin accolades of Oscar win and Hollywood icon.