Twenty years ago “A Walk in the Woods” would have starred Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon as grumpy old men in a movie that plays like “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” with a dash of the finding-yourself-in-the-woods movie “Wild” thrown in. Matthau and Lemmon are long gone, but in their place are weathered icons Nick Nolte and Robert Redford as old (literally and figuratively) friends hiking the twenty-two hundred mile Appalachian Trail.
Based on Bill Bryson’s 1998 memoir of the same name, the movie sees Redford as Bryson, a travel writer grappling with growing older. In an effort to clear his head and feel alive again he ignores his wife’s (Emma Thompson) objections—“I don’t think you’re too old,” she says. “You ARE too old! Can’t you just do this in the Volvo?”—and embarks on the Georgia-to-Maine trail.
None of his friends are interested in making the five month, five million step trip with him. “Next time asked me to do something fun… “like a colonoscopy,” says one, until Stephen Katz (Nolte), an estranged friend who owes Bryson money from their last adventure, volunteers to go. Is he up for the trip? “I walk everywhere these days,” he says, “especially since they took away my license.”
Despite their age, their differences and the fact that less than 10% of the people who start the trail, finish it, the pair set off on a journey that will give them a deeper appreciation of home.
“A Walk in the Woods” brings Redford back to the light comedy of his early career but he spends much of the film playing straight man to Nolte’s disagreeable Santa routine. Nolte lurches through this movie with all the subtlety of a drunken elephant, filtering his lines through a voice that sounds like a broken whiskey glass. He has most of the laugh lines and displays good comic timing, dropping well placed swear words and gags with precision.
The movie itself is episodic. Every step takes them closer to a new opportunity for a gag whether it’s a collapsing bunk bed or a bit of mild slapstick in a river. While many scenes are left hanging with no resolution and, occasionally, no real purpose, it’s so amiable watching these two (and their stunt doubles) walking through the woods that you’ll forgive the randomness of several of their adventures.
The guys are the focus, to the detriment of Emma Thompson and Mary Steenburgen who aren’t given near enough to do. Only Kristen Schaal as an annoying over confident hiker makes an impression.
“A Walk in the Woods” won’t ever be mentioned in the same breath as any of Redford or Nolte’s classic films—it’s too silly and the message of leaving home to appreciate home is too obvious—but watching these two charismatic actors onscreen it’s not hard to remember what we liked about them in the first place.
Adam Corolla holds the Guinness Book of Records title for “most downloaded podcast,” is the author of two books and a filmmaker whose most recent movie is a documentary called Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman.
Just don’t call it a documentary.
“I wanted to make this documentary feel like a movie and not a documentary,” he says. “Sometimes documentaries feel like homework. I think if you strike the balance correctly you can entertain and learn.”
Most of Newman’s fans found out about him through iconic movies like Cool Hand Luke, The Sting or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Not Corolla. He discovered Newman by buying and restoring the actor’s race cars.
“I always respected and appreciated him but I was never a big Paul Newman fan,” he says. “I knew his movies were some of the best movies but [I didn’t like him] any more than any other celebrity whose movies I’ve enjoyed. Tom Hanks didn’t race cars and I race cars but I don’t have six of Tom Hanks’s race cars so I figured I’d keep it to something I know. I have Paul’s cars which is what propelled me towards Paul Newman.“
The film paints a picture of a deeply private man who loved pranks, cars and cherished the outlet that racing gave him as a pressure valve release from the day-to-day of being one of the most famous men on the planet. It focuses on his passion for racing but this isn’t a film for gearheads only. Racing is treated as a portal into the actor’s personality, an entrance into what really made him tick. By zeroing in on one of his passions Winning gives us a broader look at what made the man tick.
“I don’t think he had a half assed way of doing anything,” says Corolla. “There’s a part in the Newman movie where he says, ‘I guess if I don’t want to do it anymore, all I have to do it stop.’ I always think about those words. All Paul Newman had to do was stop at any point. He didn’t need to do any of it. The salad dressing, the popcorn, the racing. He didn’t need the money. When Paul Newman sixty-five years old he could have just stopped, and he always knew, ‘If I want to stop I could just stop but until then, I’m busy.’”
NEED FOR SPEED: CELEBRITY RACERS
Screen legends Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Gene Hackman all had the need for speed that would have allowed them to turn pro, but they aren’t the only serious race car contenders.
Patrick Dempsey recently came in second at the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours in France and Furious 7 star Paul Walker competed in several top level amateur races.
When he isn’t playing Mr. Bean Rowan Atkinson is a car enthusiast, racing (and crashing) a McLaren F1 while Star Trek actor Eric Bana has been driving competitively since 1996. Jason Priestley began open wheel driving in 2002 and is co-owner of the FAZZT Race Team.
Less successful than his fellow actors—on the track, anyway—was racing wannabe Tom Cruise. Driving opposite Newman at the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) competition in the late 1980s, Cruise fishtailed twice and spun out completely on a turn. As far as Cruise was concerned the SCCA was nicknamed See Cruise Crash Again, with one of the drivers joking, “I drive faster going to work.”
“Racing became his passion and he went for it.” So says Paul Newman’s “Butch Cassidy and he Sundance Kid” co-star Robert Redford. Although Newman didn’t start racing cars until his late 40s, when most racers are thinking about retirement, it became a permanent part of his life following the making of the 1969 film “Winning.”
In that movie he plays Frank Capua, an up-and-coming racer with aspirations of winning the Indianapolis 500. For maximum realism it was decided the stars—Newman and Robert Wagner—would drive their own cars. He had always been interested in motor sport but had never been behind the wheel of a race car until signing up at a high performance driving school in prep for the film. He immediately felt the need for speed and became obsessed. “After that he got so boring,” laughs Redford. “[Racing] was all he talked about. It drove me crazy.”
As a driver and the owner of the Newman/Haas Racing team the actor would mentor Willy T. Riggs, the first African American championship racer, and win more than 100 races and 8 Drier’s Championships in IndyCar Series. Newman, after trying his hand at football and boxing, had found his sport. “I didn’t have any physical grace. The only thing I found any grace in was an automobile.”
“Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman” paints a picture of a deeply private man who loved pranks, cars and cherished the outlet that racing gave him as a pressure valve release from the day-to-day of being one of the most famous men on the planet. A combination of contemporary interviews with the likes of Jay Leno, Patrick Dempsey and “Cars” director John Lasseter and archival footage, the movie isn’t just a biographical look at one facet of Newman’s life. It focuses on his passion for racing but this isn’t a film for gearheads only. Racing is treated as a portal into the actor’s personality, an entrance into what really made him tick. By zeroing in on one of his passions “Winning” gives us a broader look at what made the man tick.
Director Adam Corolla (who restores and races Newman’s cars) is clearly a fan but it is his passion for both racing and Newman that fuels the doc.
“I still get such a bang out of it,” says Buck Weaver (John Cusack) in Eight Men Out, “playing ball.”
Given the number of sports movies that have been released in the last 30 years, apparently audiences also get a bang out of watching films about baseball.
This weekend, Jon Hamm stars in a new ball picture, Million Dollar Arm. The Mad Men star plays real-life sports agent J.B. Bernstein who recruited Indian cricket players Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It’s an unconventional baseball movie, but there seems to be something about the sport that lends itself to fantastic stories and fables.
Roger Ebert called Field of Dreams, “a religious picture,” then added, “but the religion is baseball.” In this 1989 hit Kevin Costner plays an Iowa corn farmer who hears a mysterious voice. “If you build it, he will come.” The “it” is a baseball diamond and the “he” is Shoeless Joe Jackson, the legendary outfielder for the disgraced 1919 Chicago White Sox.
The movie uses a baseball theme as a backdrop for a story about following your dreams, believing in the impossible and the idea that baseball was “a symbol of all that was once good in America.”
The film struck a chord with audiences and tourists alike. Since its release, the field built for the film in Dubuque County, Iowa has attracted hundreds of thousands of people, and spawned new restaurants, shops, a hotel, all in a town of only 4,000 people.
Robert Redford’s film The Natural looks to Arthurian legends for its story. Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a young pitcher with natural ability. Cut down in his prime by a tragic accident, he disappears, only to return many years later to become a star at an age when most players are hanging up their gloves. “It took me 16 years to get here,” he says. “You play me, and I’ll give you the best I got.”
The Holy Grail of baseball
Based on a novel by Bernard Malamud, the characters in The Natural each represent a person from ancient literature.
There are elements of Round Table Knight Percival’s pursuit of the Holy Grail present in Hobbs’ story. He’s a Knight (literally, his team is called The Knights) who must bring back the Grail, or pennant, to team manager Pop Fisher, whose name is an alias for the Fisher King, keeper of the Grail.
If you think that is reading too much into the story, perhaps Woody Allen in Zelig is more your speed. “I love baseball. You know it doesn’t have to mean anything, it’s just beautiful to watch.”
“Must have freaked you out, coming back after the defrosting.” If that bit of dialogue, spoken by war veteran Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” makes sense then you already have all the backstory you need to enjoy the movie.
For those who don’t, here’s the scoop. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was a ninety-pound über patriot, too scrawny to enlist in World War II. Not to be deterred he allowed himself to be a guinea pig in the top-secret “super-soldier” experiment. Transformed into a ripped, heroic warrior he (and his trusty shield) took on risky missions and kept the world safe from the terrorist organization HYDRA. On one operation he crash landed in the Arctic and spent decades frozen in a block of ice in a state of suspended animation.
Thawed out in modern day, the MIA soldier is pressed into service by the folks at S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect freedom and the American way.
When we meet up with him in the new film he’s still catching up with the modern world. The extremely well preserved 95 year old is making a list of all the things he missed out on in seven decades of suspended animation. He likely won’t have time to get up to date—take in “Rocky” or listen to Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” for instance—before having to deal with the chrome-armed Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), a villain from Cap’s long distant past and battle against a threat from deep inside S.H.I.E.L.D., his own spy network.
With his new world collapsing around him the good Captain must determine who can be trusted. Will it be S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the flirty but deadly Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) or World Security Council bigwig Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford)? The decisions he makes could save his life and the lives of 20 million civilians.
Movie by movie Marvel has created an interconnected universe. Like a giant jigsaw puzzle the comic book company has pieced together something quite unprecedented; a series of films that aren’t sequels to one another but when combined form a loud, brash whole.
Captain America was a latecomer to the party, and while the first film was a solid introduction, it didn’t have the sparkle of say, the first “Iron Man” movie. The character seemed a bit beige; a do-gooder with no rough edges. “The Winter Soldier” addresses those concerns, fleshing out the character and providing some very good action sequences.
Evans has grown into the character. Physically he’s one big rippling muscle, but it is his personality and attitude that make him interesting. This time around he’s still a do-gooder but one who questions his missions. “You’re holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection,” he says after learning of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s violent plan to bring peace to the world. “This isn’t freedom, this is fear.”
It’s an edgy message from a Greatest Generation type to a world where drones have become common and Edward Snowden rides the line between patriot and traitor. The message permeates the plot, which is ripe with twists and turns and some genuinely thrilling moments.
Adding to the intrigue is some high powered star wattage. Robert Redford, who, if this was 1973 might have played the title role, brings credibility to Pierce. He’s an enigma, a man who turned down the Nobel Peace Prize, but also helped create a world so chaotic that he believes people are willing to give up freedom for peace. He brings some old school gravitas to the part and his very presence in the movie made me want to re-watch “Three Days of the Condor.”
Johansson is mad, bad and dangerous to know as Romanoff, and kicks so high it’s only a matter of time until she gets her own Avenger’s movie.
Of course, this is a comic book movie so for all the high-minded subtext there are still big action scenes every ten minutes or so, each one larger and louder than the last. The biggest and brashest is saved for the climax, which is where “The Winter Soldier” packs the inventiveness of its first two acts away and becomes a standard Marvel action movie. Up until that point, however, it is a funny (pay attention for a good “Pulp Fiction” gag involving Jackson), fast paced movie that is a cut above the usual super hero fare.
“All is Lost” is like “Life of Pi” without the tiger. Or like “The Poseidon Adventure” without Shelley Winters. Or Red Buttons. Or Gene Hackman… or anyone, except Robert Redford.
Redford is a nameless sailor on a solo yacht trip on the Indian Ocean. When his thirty-foot boat collides with an abandoned shipping container he must use all his resources to survive.
That’s it. The old man and the sea… and a yacht with a hole in the side. Like “Gravity,” the other recent “adrift in the great yonder” movie, “All is Lost” is an exercise in immersive cinema. Story is secondary to the character’s journey. There is virtually no narrative, just a boiled down man-against-nature plot and a growing sense of desperation as the sailor’s supplies dwindle.
The drama comes from the surroundings, the harsh world recreated by director J.C. Chandor (whose last film “Margin Call” was an overlooked gem). It’s claustrophobic, made doubly intense by watery sound effects and a building feeling of helplessness portrayed on Redford’s face.
The actor is in every frame of the film and although he only speaks a dozen or so lines—many of which are the monosyllabic utterances of distress you’d expect—he manages to create a compelling persona despite the lack of backstory, context or any of the traditional hangers characters get hung on. He is the essence of the film, a man hell bent on survival against increasingly difficult odds.
“All is Lost” is probably more audacious than it is entertaining, but it showcases Chandor’s nimble footed technique and Redford’s effortless star power. Alone and figuratively naked, he holds the screen for the entire 106 minutes, eloquently commenting on the human condition with no words, just action.
How did director J.C. Chandor convince screen legend Robert Redford to drop everything and star in a one man movie?
“He has a good ego on him, so he loved it,” says Chandor. “Just kidding. Actually he does have an ego, but he knows it, which is partially what makes him great.”
In All is Lost Redford plays a character called “our man,” a sailor on a solo yacht trip on the Indian Ocean. When his thirty-foot boat collides with an abandoned shipping container he must use all his resources to survive.
The actor is alone on camera for the entire film, battling the elements and facing his fate.
“I think he realized it was a wonderful time in his life to get rid of all the distractions,” says Chandor. “He has an unbelievably complicated and interesting life with Sundance, the Sundance Institute, his non profit work and directing.
“His life is a bit of a race but he came to Mexico for two-and-a-half months [to shoot the film]. His personal secretary was the only one who knew how to get in touch with him so all that other stuff faded away and for a two-and-a-half month period we went on this very intense journey.
“By the end of it we had gone someplace together, as a crew, an actor and a director. He really loved exposing himself both emotionally and as a performer more than he ever had.”
Critical reaction has been strong and Redford’s name is being tossed around as a shoo in for a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
“He was able to do these very complex emotional transitions but you don’t just see the shift [as a viewer] you actually feel like you’ve been on a little bit of the journey with him.”
It is a raw, emotional performance unlike anything Redford has done before on screen. In his virtually wordless performance the actor becomes a blank canvas that viewers may project their own notions of the meaning of life death and everything in between.
“If the film is working for you you’ll see the man go, ‘Don’t freak out, pull yourself together,’” Says Chandor. “[Redford] and I talked a lot about that. We are not people that have that kind of dialogue out loud so we internalized it. Our hope was that by internalizing it we would create a far more open book for the audience to bring their own hopes and fears to it. What you’re dealing with is one person coming to grips with death, alone.”
Lions for Lambs has a tagline that reads like the moral from one of Aesop’s fables: If you don’t STAND for something, you might FALL for anything. Directed by Robert Redford—his first stint behind the camera in seven years—and starring mega stars Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, the film weaves three stories together to underline the importance of courage, honesty and standing up for what is right and what you believe in.
Cruise and Streep play a Republican Senator with a new plan for victory in the Middle East and a skeptical reporter. Redford is a college professor who spends his running time debating with a bright, but lazy student while Michael Peña and Derek Luke play college students who enlist in the army to help serve their country.
I’d say Redford balances these three storylines, but there’s nothing balanced about Lions for Lambs, and that’s OK, this isn’t a documentary and the filmmaker is entitled to his point of view. So instead of finding a way to juggle these story threads he jumps back and forth between them willy-nilly.
The problem with making socially conscious films is that occasionally the passion of the message trumps the director’s instincts as a filmmaker. Redford is clearly preaching from a hate the war but support the troops platform, but unfortunately it really feels like we’re being preached to. He forgoes most of the action, instead presenting one of the stagiest and wordiest movies of the year; pedantic beyond belief.
It’s more of a pastiche than a movie, with ideas bouncing off the viewer hard and fast from a number of sources. The trouble is the ideas seem hackneyed as though we’ve heard it all before. The script presents the idea that the press, by reporting on every move of the White House, may actually simply be acting as a PR arm of the government; that America’s kids don’t have a sense of social responsibility anymore, oh, and that old chestnut, War is Hell. It’s simplistic and for all its wordy bluster is about as deep as a lunch tray.
Lions for Lambs was clearly designed to spark debate among its viewers, but I would guess the only quest they’ll be asking when they leave the theatre is, “Why didn’t we go see No Country for Old Men instead?”
Some things are better left alone. I recently read that the Jack Kerouac classic On the Road is being turned into a movie. I can’t imagine that this is a good idea as the filmmakers could never possibly translate this book, which is revered by generations of people, into a film that would be better than the book. Another, more tangible example is out on DVD this week. Charlotte’s Web is a beloved children’s book about Wilbur a little runt pig who is concerned that he is going to end up as dinner unless he takes action. With the help of a quick-witted spider named Charlotte he hatches a plan to avoid turning into Sunday dinner.
This big budget adaptation features an all-star voice cast, including Julia Roberts as the know-it-all spider and Robert Redford, Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, John Cleese, Reba McEntire and Kathy Bates with Dakota Fanning heading up the live action cast.
There’s an old saying, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig,” which seems appropriate here. Charlotte’s Web isn’t as charming as that other talking pig movie Babe, or the book for that matter, but it is sweet and maybe will encourage a few kids to turn off the TV and pick up the book.
