Movie Nation

No, they weren’t film fans taking all the Michael Bay hate rhetoric on the Internet too literally.

The Hong Kong set scuffle that involved Mr. Bay appears to have been some sort of old fashioned shake down.

Wait, there’s still extortion and strong-arm stuff in China, almost 70 years since the communists took over and ended that sort of thing? Do tell.

It’s no secret that actors lie, or at least stretch the truth, to get a role. Even Robert Redford.
“He kept talking about his boating experience, admitting it might take a while to get his ‘sea legs’back,” remembers director J.C. Chandor, who needed an actor of a certain vintage for his survival at sea epic, “All is Lost.” “Turns out, he was talking about the few times he’s been motor-boating in Lake Powell (Arizona!). In the desert!”
And that wasn’t all. Chandor (“Margin Call”) needed this older actor to be someone who could hoist himself, by bosun’s chair, up the mast of his stricken sailboat to make a repair.
“He didn’t tell me he was afraid of heights,” Chandor says, laughing. “It was all just ACTING.”
Redford, 77, chuckles himself, remembering that perilous bit of business. Yeah, that was him up there.
“You figure out just how scary that was when they have you up there, hanging off the top of the mast” of a 39 foot sailing sloop. “But you go up there because you have to. Something’s broken. And once you’re there, you worry, ‘Is my weight going to play a role in which way the boat (heels)? Is the boat going over with me on it?'”
Mentioning to Redford that there’s a less-scary/less dangling way of climbing a 50 foot mast on a swaying sailboat, the Mast Mate (a ladder you hoist and then climb with safety gear) just annoys him.
“Wait. There is? Does J.C. know about that?”
Maybe. Maybe not. Redford knew, from seeing Chandor’s Oscar-nominated Wall Street drama “Margin Call” at Redford’s Sundance Film Festival, that he wanted to work with the 39 year old director. Bluffing his way into the role, Redford figured he’d trust Chandor on all the sailing stuff. It turns out, Chandor has a little blue water (ocean) sailing experience — a voyage from the Caribbean to Bermuda. And he’d taught sailing at summer camps.
“I knew enough to make this movie authentic,” Chandor says. “And I knew I Redford would be perfect” playing an older man, in over his head when his boat collides with something in the Indian Ocean.
“All is Lost” would be an acting exercise, a story told with virtually no dialogue. Chandor was relying on “Redford’s relationship with the audience,” going back over 50 years, to create empathy. And Redford would have to summon up memories of his first acting classes to pull this character off.
“I wanted to know, ‘How could a person who did a piece that was so ‘talky’ (“Margin Call”) be going in this direction, where there was no talking?'” Redford says. “I was intrigued by the challenge he was setting up for himself. And I was attracted to a work that gave me a chance to go back to my roots. That kind of clean, clear, improvised performance — almost like mime, in a way — in an existential setting (the sea), pulled me. And once I figured out J.C. wasn’t crazy, I was in.”
Chandor recalled the silences and the roar of an angry sea from his earlier sailing experiences, heightened by the loneliness of that setting. He used that setting to explore an old man’s sense of perseverance. He knew that he could build Redford’s character by casting the right boat — a 1980s vintage Cal 39 foot sloop.
“You can tell a lot about the person by their boat. He’s not rich, it’s maintained, but he’s not that experienced because he’s always relied on technology — GPS.”
And this unnamed sailor “has to improvise his way through this accident,” Redford adds. ” He’s not a super sailor. He’s got his limits in skills, preparations, physical abilities.”
That “existential setting” gave the story its emotional heft. Though Redford is loathe to talk about it , he was making a harrowing trial at sea, a movie that invites the viewer, and the actor starring in it, to contemplate their own mortality. 
“By the third act of the film, late in the shoot, we both realized that’s what he was playing,” Chandor says. “The realization of your own mortality is a tough thing to face and the fascinating thing to see him go through here.”
Redford was interested in exploring the uestion, “At what point, when all seems lost, do you give up? And what makes some people keep going while others just quit? Do we keep going just because that’s all there is to do?”
That emotional and intellectual heft is earning “All is Lost” the best reviews of Redford’s long and storied resume, with Time Magazine calling it “the capstone on Redford’s career” and New York magazine praising the “actor in his element…” who “anchors your gaze-and gives the performance of his life.”
Not that Redford is calling “All is Lost” his coda, his curtain call. He’s directing and co-starring in the old men on the Appalachian Trail comedy “A Walk in the Woods” next spring. Chandor also has his next film lined up. But the young director gets to carry the memory of “All is Lost,” of working with a legend, the Sundance Kid, on an acclaimed film late in his career.
“He gives this look, as he’s falling down, putting on his foul weather gear, and that look IS the movie, for me,” Chandor says. “He realizes, ‘Whoa, I’m way behind this crisis,’ maybe for the first time in his life. That’s the movie, and that scene is why he’s perfect in it.”
Even if he had to trick his director to land the part.

Once one of Hollywood’s Young Turks, an acclaimed screenwriter (“The Gambler,” “Bugsy”) and offbeat director (“Fingers”, “The Pick Up Artist”), James Toback’s most recent success was his quite-revealing documentary-interview with Mike Tyson (“Tyson”).

He had this idea to make a movie, sort of a “Last Tango in Paris” set in Iraq, a “Last Tango in Tikrit,” he called it. Sexual boundaries would be tested, guilt, morality and inner and outer conflicts would be explored.

It wouldn’t cost much, and he lined up Alec Baldwin and Neve Campbell (“Scream,” “The Company” “Wild Things”) as his stars.

Then he and Baldwin went to Cannes to pitch the idea and sell it.

You can see the problems, right off. No truly commercial stars, a tricky location (sex scenes shot anywhere in the Middle East?), an older director (about to turn 69) without a hit on his directing resume.

But the idea appears to have been to do the documentary about how impossible it is to make a mid-low budget movie ($15 million) in this day and age, to follow the James and Alec dog and pony show (Coarse, blunt, very witty as a team) and show the sorts of people filmmakers have to go to for money — characters, playboys, heirs and heiresses, hardnosed businessmen and cynics.

“Seduced and Abandoned,” Toback’s documentary about that process, is funny and revealing and comes to HBO Oct. 28.

He’s a great interview and a great interviewer. Questions for Mr. Toback? I am talking with him and am looking for questions beyond my, “What, are you nuts? What were you thinking?”

Comment below, and thanks for the help.

Stallone was always a better actor than Schwarzenegger. That burning question, for those old enough to have asked it and deluded enough to have never figured it out, is answered once and for all in “Escape Plan,” a vintage prison escape movie in the classic Sly and/or Arnold mold.
They’re both in it, both locked up and both looking for a way out of a super prison that has all the escape-proof conveniences that private enterprise can cook up. The old pros hit their marks, and each other. They spill some blood and have theirs spilled.
Sly takes a few beatings and hunts for that one epic brawl with a bad guy, a guard played by Vinnie Jones. Ah-nuld finally speaks his native German in a Hollywood film in long, deranged rant, and tracks down the biggest gun available.
A few one-liners and catch-phrases — “You hit like a vegetarian!” —  and there you have it, Sly or Arnold in their heyday, in a nutshell.
Stallone plays Ray Breslin.
“I break out of prisons for a living.”
He literally wrote the book on how security is compromised in maximum security prisons, and he co-owns a security company, inserted into prisons which he then breaks out of so that he can then teach the Feds how to make their prisons more escape proof.
His new challenge is a super secure “secret” prison set up for the C.I.A. and run by private contractors. It’s a place for terrorists and their ilk, people who need to disappear. Ray goes in, but his team (Amy Ryan, 50 Cent) have their safeguards in place.
Only they’re foiled. There’s no tracking Ray, no telling where he’s been taken to and no way of explaining who he is so that he can get out.
In the cavernous new prison, there’s no sunlight. Cells are all glass, the guards wear black storm trooper suits and sci-fi face masks. Solitary confinement is a cell with blinding high intensity lights. And the warden (whispering Jim Caviezel, pretty good) is a fastidious fussbudget who collects butterflies, constantly checks his suit and tie and has just a hint of sadism about him.
“You’re here, now. And you belong to me.”
Director  Mikael Håfström (“1408” “Derailed”) is at his best studying his stars and their surroundings in extreme closeups. We catch the details Ray does, only to figure out later what those details mean to him. The action arc here is predictable. But the standard prison issue fights in the “yard” (indoors) or mess hall are handled well. The Islamic bad guy (Faran Tahir of “Elysium”) has dimensions even as the head sadist (Vinnie Jones) doesn’t.
The bonding scenes between Ray and the big, friendly Teutonic terror (Schwarzenegger) are clumsily written but have their amusing moments. The heroes have great hair and makeup. And the escape plans have a pleasant dose of “MacGyver” about them.
Villains are a tad too obvious and the finale you can see coming from miles off. And the rapper 50 Cent is still a terrible actor, though he’s now sporting Hollywood dentistry.
So yeah, it’s undemanding. But the tempered violence, the nature of the villains, the easy bonhomie of our leads and a cast peppered with great supporting players make “Escape Plan” go down easier than the other “Rambo/Last Man Standing/Expendables” pictures that brought these two aged action stars back from the dead.

MPAA Rating: R for violence and language throughout
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Amy Ryan, Jim Caviezel, Vincent D’Onofrio, Faran Tahir, Vinnie Jones, 50 Cent. 
Credits: Directed by , Mikael Håfström written by Miles Chapman and Jason Keller. A Summit release. 
Running time: 1:52

Sophisticated, well-cast and heartfelt, “Grace Unplugged” is further proof that a little Hollywood sheen goes a long way in the faith-based film genre. But in blending the “kid corrupted by the music biz” formula with a story of core values put to the test, this engaging drama stumbles into many of the same pitfalls of its predecessors.

It’s largely humorless, and when you rub the rough edges off characters and situations to get that PG rating and the church going audience that comes with it, reality and depth are sacrificed. Even the villains can seem a little bland.

Grace Trey, played by AJ Michalka (“Secretariat,” “The Lovely Bones”) is the gorgeous teen daughter of a “one hit wonder” (James Denton) who stumbled into drugs and alcohol back when he topped the charts with his hit, “Misunderstood.” He found Jesus and purpose and got his life together, marrying Michelle (Shawnee Smith) and raising Grace, who now sings with his band at their Birmingham church, where he’s music pastor.

But Grace is forever upstaging him, seizing the spotlight and going all Taylor Swift on Dad. And dad isn’t having it.

“I have my OWN style!”

“It’s a WORSHIP service!”

Grace longs to be a pop starlet like her idol, Renae Taylor. And when Dad’s old manager (Kevin Pollack) shows up to offer him a comeback tour and Dad turns him down, the just-turned-18 Grace eschews college and flees to LA to “blow people away with my music.” She covers Dad’s one hit, and she’s on her way to glory.

But what kind of glory? Brad Silverman’s film keeps faith in the foreground as Dad (Denton is quite good, despite looking a tad too much like Lance Armstrong) tries to put his foot down with a rebellious teen. He’s a bit of a tyrant, like all dads. And Grace isn’t having it.

How far is she willing to go to “blow people away” with her talent? She lets herself be “managed,” going through an image makeover, “publicity dating” a notorious young Hollywood womanizer. He gives the sheltered church girl, who’s never heard of Rodeo Drive, her first drink. Her manager is picking her tunes for her.

“Your other songs, they’re not religious, right?”

And then there’s Quentin (Michael Welch of “The Twilight Saga”), the Christian office assistant at Grace’s new record company. He remembers her singing with her dad and gently reminds her of the values she seems to be abandoning.

Except she doesn’t. Timidly is the curse of Christian films, and this one is no exception. A few sips of champagne and a couple of slurred words, even for the child of an alcoholic, don’t constitute a steep fall. Tyrannical Dad isn’t that much of a tyrant. The assorted ruthless music folk aren’t that bad and the people Grace lets down (a best friend back home, a little boy she was mentoring in music) are underdeveloped and weak illustrations of how low she’s sunk.

But the music — especially “Misunderstood” — is pleasant enough, with that one-hit from the “one-hit wonder” sounding contemporary enough to get radio play in today’s Top 40.

And Michalka’s girl-next-door good looks and stage presence make up for some of the shortcomings of “Grace Unplugged,” which needed more movie to go with its message.

MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements and brief teen drinking
Cast: AJ Michalka, James Denton, Kevin Pollack, Shawnee Smith, Michael Welch
Credits: Written and directed by Brad J. Silverman. A Roadside Attractions release. 
Running time: 1:49

“Oh Lord,” the old fisherman’s prayer goes, “Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”
Anybody who has ever sailed a boat — any boat — over the wine dark sea has that line at the ready for those inevitable moments when hopeless peril is at hand.
The old sailor (Robert Redford) doesn’t say it aloud, but you wonder if it crosses his mind as his boat, his gear, his body and his luck fail him. He doesn’t say much of anything, just a certain well-played swear word that sums up everything that happens to him in “All Is Lost.” Considering that moment, no one will blame him.
“All is Lost” is “Gravity at Sea,” a brilliantly spare film about the hazardous inner journey that tests one old man’s intestinal fortitude and his resourcefulness to the max as his small sailboat is disabled in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
“I tried to be true,” he says when we meet him. “I tried to be right. But I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”
He’s writing a farewell note to those he left on shore. We don’t see them or meet them and we don’t even know this old mariner’s name. But Redford, in a compact, tour de force performance, tells us all we need to know just with his reasoning, his competence and those moments hi competence comes up short.
His small sailing sloop — a 35 footer, from the looks of her — collides with a loose shipping container full of sneakers and the hull is stove in.  Our sailor has to gather his wits, free the boat from the container, patch the flooded hull and pump it out. He needs to rinse and dry out his electronics, which tell him where he is and with which he could tell the world he’s in trouble. He needs to find land, or help, using skills — navigating by the stars — he never bothered to learn.
From the floating shipping container collision on down, these are all familiar tropes in the modern lost at sea saga. They’re the ingredients of a thousand contemporary cruising sailor tales, people used to modern devices forced to rely on everything they know — which might not be much —  when the modern stuff fails.
Writer-director J.C. Chandor (“Margin Call”) switches gears with this intimate story of silences and severe tests at sea. Yes, there’s a storm. Yes, there are sharks. And yes, gigantic, under-crewed and inattentive container ships like the Maersk Alabama of “Captain Phillips” play a role.
Chandor provides Redford with a grueling, Oscar-worthy role in a story told in a long “eight days earlier” flashback, sending the 77 year old actor up the mast (clever camera placement) and under the waves, nearly drowning time and again as he tries to save first his boat and them himself.
And Redford isn’t shy about letting us see his age. Pulling yourself up a mast in a bosun’s chair could exhaust a 30 year-old, and whatever makeup might hide in the fresh air is exaggerated under water. We see every bloodied, cracked crevasse lining his face and root for him to rage, rage against the dying of the light. Or to at least catch his breath.
You don’t have to be a sailor to appreciate Chandor’s skill in creating a character who is no “old salt,” but a fellow who quite probably took this late ’70s vintage boat to sea as a late-life hobby, a man forever reacting, slowly, a step or two behind the ills that befall him. You see storm clouds, you furl or reef the sails. Your boat is damaged, you don’t go below decks to ride out that storm in denial.
This solo ordeal won’t be to every taste, but “All Is Lost” is a grand vehicle for the actor and for that viewer ready to consider his or her own mortality, the problems, conflicts, strengths and shortcomings you’re sure you leave behind when you just sail away. As it turns out, you don’t.

(Roger Moore’s interviews with Robert Redford and J.C. Chandor are here).

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language
Cast: Robert Redford
Credits: Written and directed by J.C. Chandor. A Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate release.
Running time: 1:45