All is Lost - What is this movie really about?

Spoiler Alert: This is not a movie review, but rather an analysis of the symbolism exhibited in the movie All is Lost. If you haven’t yet seen the movie, this analysis will detail many major aspects of the plot as well as give away the ending.

All is Lost is a movie starring Robert Redford as a man alone on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, and through a series of disasters we watch as he struggles to survive on the open water. If taken at face value, it might be compared to a movie like Castaway where one person must be creative with resources in order to make it out of a deadly situation. If you wish to look a little deeper, you might say that it’s an allegory about a man preparing for the inevitability of death. Either way, it works.

My take on this movie is that it’s all meant to symbolize the way small businesses are constantly being overrun by large corporations. I’ll explain the many reasons why I reached this conclusion in the list below:

• Robert Redford's character represents the small business owner and the sailboat symbolizes his business.
• While he was sleeping, his sailboat gets struck by a Chinese shipping container. Given the difference in times on the other side of the world, China does business while we in America are sleeping.
• The shipping container also represents the way in which cheap foreign imports often make things even more difficult for small business.
• Redford's character is resourceful and he has the means and know-how to fix the hole in his boat. However, he spends so much time trying to patch that one problem that a storm catches up to him.
• The storm represents the current state of the economy, or even the business world in general.
• Once the storm hits, the sailboat (business) holds up for a little while, but ultimately takes on too much water and starts to sink.
• Redford's character is forced to downsize by transferring to the life raft. He scrounges what he can from the sailboat to take along with him, including a sextant.
• The sextant represents Redford's character relying on old school tried and true methods. It works for a little while.
• After getting into the raft, we start seeing a lot of underwater shots and at first a school of small fish can be seen following underneath.
• A short time later, some barracuda show up to eat the smaller fish. This is an obvious ploy on the adage about how "there's always a bigger fish" and is somewhat foreboding.
• A few large ships pass by Redford but he's so small on the water that they don't even notice him. This is meant to show how large corporations view small companies - or rather how they give them no notice at all.
• Sharks eventually show up to circle the life raft. These are meant to represent the banks and financial institutions, as demonstrated by how Redford's character is fishing and has the catch taken by a shark right before he can pull it in the boat.
• When Redford sets the raft on fire to signal the other boat, this could possibly be interpreted as a fire sale. The way that it burns in a large ring like a big zero also plays into this.
• At the very end, when Redford is rescued by the other boater, pay attention to the size of the craft. It's a very small boat, meaning that it was another small business owner that reached out to him. Businesses supporting other businesses is how small businesses survive. That's how I saw the ending.

What do you think? Am I onto something here or completely off base? The movie is available on Netflix and I highly recommend it, whether you enjoy it for the adventure on the water or choose to look deeper for other meanings behind the action on screen.

Halt and Catch Fire - Season 1

Halt and Catch Fire isn't on Netflix yet, but it probably will be since most of AMC's shows are on there. This debut season just finished up and I was quite enthused by it since the story is based on a computer company in the early 1980's.

Lee Pace stars as a Steve Jobs type who may or may not be a total psychopath. He's manipulative as hell but manages to force greatness from people even if it nearly destroys them. In some scenes, he has a chest full of scars and offers multiple explanations for how they got there while we still don't know the real truth. He's also willing to sleep with men or women to get what he wants. This guy is a mess, and he's leading up a group of techies to build what he considers to be not just the next big thing in computing, but the thing that gets us to the next big thing. He's trying to project that far ahead.

Scoot McNairy plays the Steve Wozniak here who is still trying to get over a previous failure while being coaxed into this wild project by Pace's character. He and his wife dive headfirst into things and it causes problems between them. Meanwhile, a hotshot young programmer (Mackenzie Davis) is adding a little punk rock to the mix with her unique way of doing most everything, including the coding of a brand new operating systems. It both helps and hurts that she's sleeping with the boss. This first season ends with them all at a Comdex computer convention where they get to show off their work alongside everyone from IBM to Apple, then we find out what they've really accomplished.

I do hope that AMC renews Halt and Catch Fire for at least one more season because I would like to see what direction it takes after what all they've done with this first season. I believe the writers get the subject matter well and it's not technically inept at any level while still being understandable to those who weren't around back in those days.

Update: Halt and Catch Fire Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix. The new season starts this summer on AMC!

Authors Anonymous

Authors Anonymous (2014) is a mock documentary about a group of writers who find themselves insanely jealous when one of their writing club members lands both a publishing deal and a movie deal. It pokes fun at the publishing industry as well as wannabe authors, and I enjoyed it though some of the jokes hit a little close to home.

What makes this movie watchable is the talent on screen, since the story isn't particularly memorable and it really goes for long stretches without enough funny parts. Kaley Cuoco (of Big Bang Theory) is the lead here and she's who gets the publishing/movie deal even though she's kind of a ditz. Chris Klein plays a fellow writer who may have waited too long to tell her how he really feels. The late Dennis Farina plays a Viet Nam vet who thinks he should be the next Tom Clancy, and he steals every scene he is in. Other actors include Dylan Walsh and Teri Polo, plus a cameo from Jonathan Banks, who is better known as Mike from Breaking Bad. Tricia Hefler (the blonde bombshell from Battlestar Galactica) also has a small role.

I liked this movie because I am a self published author and know exactly how these characters feel. I have also met some people somewhat like the characters here - the ones who want so badly to get published and be famous but would rather talk about it than really put in the work. In some ways, this was kind of a sad film given how the characters acted plus seeing Dennis Farina's last role was bittersweet because he was the liveliest of the bunch. I see this one as having a somewhat limited appeal due to the subject matter, but it's still worth checking out.

The Ledge

The Ledge (2011) stars Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) and Liv Tyler as a doomed couple whose lives are threatened by an overbearing Christian played by Patrick Wilson. It was meant to be a mainstream atheist movie but fell flat due to poor characterization and a plot where the hero is as much of an antagonist as the villain.

The story involves a young couple (Wilson and Tyler) who live in the same building as two men - one straight and one gay - who are roommates. Charlie Hunnam plays the straight guy, and he immediately takes a liking to Tyler. One night the four of them get together for dinner and Wilson's character prays for their sinful lifestyle, which infuriates Hunnam since he's not even gay. He then romantically pursues Tyler as a way of rescuing her from her "bigoted" husband and when Wilson finds out, he begins to exact a horrific revenge plan on Hunnam.

What hurt this movie more than anything else is that it presents a ridiculous situation with a forced conclusion that I think was supposed to be preachy but came across as dumb. There was some shock value but that didn't save the movie. The story paints the characters as extreme forms of whatever they're meant to represent - the christian, the atheist, the homosexual, the former addict - and does so with such heavy handedness that they might as well be wearing t-shirts with the word "Allegory" printed on them. They could not have been more one dimensional.

In the end, I didn't care for The Ledge. It would have been a much better and more effective story if the characters had all been a little more reasonable in their behaviors. The same setup still could have played out but then it would have been more believable.

Sightseers

Sightseers (2012) is a dark comedy from the UK where a seemingly normal couple takes a vacation and leaves a bunch of murder victims behind them. It's like a lighthearted version of Natural Born Killers, minus all the overt symbolism.

The movie opens to the sound of an elderly woman distraught and moaning in pain because of the loss of her beloved pet dog. We later find out that the dog was accidentally killed by her daughter. That same daughter and her bearded boyfriend decide it's time to get away for a while, so they rent a small RV and head out on a cross country trip.

While on a tour bus at one of their first stops, another passenger deliberately litters and then flips off the boyfriend when he asks the litterbug to pick it up. After the tour is over, the young couple accidentally run over the same littering guy in the parking lot. He dies covered in blood beneath the RV tires. The girlfriend starts screaming, but her boyfriend looks on with a bit of a smirk, then they just drive off. Thus begins the killing spree.

For the rest of the movie, these two go from town to town looking for victims to take out for next to no reason. One guy gets his head bashed in at a national park, and in another scene a bride-to-be gets thrown off a bridge during her bachelorette party. It's even worse when they befriend a fellow traveler with a unique tent/camper of his own.

Although there were a couple of mildly humorous moments, this movie has an obvious mean streak about it. The deaths are bloody and vicious, and often coupled with music best suited for a horror movie. The main character's indifference toward is all is a bit unnerving, but maybe that was the point. Stories like this tend to work better when there is some kind of underlying theme going on, but this one is just about a boring couple who go around killing people for no good reason. It's kind of pointless.

In the end, I sort of liked Sightseers because it was so bizarre, but at the same time it lacked that extra something-something that would have made it really stick in your head.

Jug Face

Jug Face (2013) is a very disturbing horror movie about a bunch of hillbilly cultists who worship a pit in the woods near where they live. They offer human sacrifices to it, and the way they decide the victims is how the movie got its name. You'll have to watch it to get the full explanation.

The movie starts out with a teenage boy and girl chasing each other through the woods and eventually going off together for some you-know-what. We later find out that the two are brother and sister. Not too long after that, the girl finds out she is to be the next sacrifice, but she manages to hide this news from the rest of the group. This causes some very bad things to happen, as if the place wasn't hellish enough already.

While I did think this story was heavily inspired by The Lottery, there were some weird supernatural elements that helped make it stand out. This is a low budget movie from a first time filmmaker who does an excellent job of creating tension. Nearly everything about this movie is preposterous to an almost comic level, but it all still manages to work.

In the end, I really enjoyed this one because it was so creepy and unlike most anything I've seen lately. You need to check this little indie gem out as soon as you get a chance. It's only about 80 minutes long.

Escape

Escape (2012) is a subtitled medieval thriller from Norway. It's a little over an hour long, including credits, so there's not a lot of content here but I still found it to be entertaining. Think of it as sort of like a D&D encounter without any monsters.

The movie opens with a family traveling through the mountains when suddenly mom gets hit with an arrow. Two kids hide inside a wagon while dad tries to fight off a gang of vicious Viking-like marauders, and he gets cut down as well. When little brother tries to run, they put him down with another arrow. The only surviving member is a pre-teen girl who they capture for the purposes of impregnating so another little girl with the group can have a younger sister. These are very bad people.

Some pretty horrible things happen here, especially at the beginning when the family is slain and the girl gets captured. She eventually escapes and the rest of the movie has her being chased by the group, which is led by a psychotic blonde (Ingrid Bolso Berdal) who loves shooting people with her crossbow. There's plenty of blood and gore, a couple of good stunts, and not many dull moments given how short the movie was.

In the end, I liked Escape for its costumes and props as well as great use of the scenery. There are no big castle or village scenes so the whole thing is just a handful of actors chasing each other around some rather beautiful landscapes while trying to do horrible things to each other. If you like medieval type action movies, you may want to check this one out.