All is Lost (2013)

A perfect companion piece to the space-set “Gravity,” “All is Lost” also follows a lone person (Robert Redford as “Our Man,” no name) as he faces death on the vast Indian Ocean, his ultra-chic yacht sinking, every hope escaping his grasp, until suicide becomes not something to fear, but embrace. I don’t know why so many desperate lone survival tales are hitting the screen now -– think of “Life of Pi” or “Captain Phillips” -– but what a remarkable run. Here, Redford -– in a brilliantly paced, near wordless performance that wows with its refusal to go “big” –- awakens to the crash of his yacht against an adrift shipping container. His boat punctured and sinking, the man slowly and clumsily patches the gape. And just when hope is reachable, it crashes away as a violent storm hits, fresh water supplies disappear, and cargo ships –- ironically the man’s only salvation –- pass by like gods too busy to notice a believer. His technology and wits fleeting, Our Man must navigate the ocean by eye. J.C. Chandor’s (“Margin Call”) film is tense and methodical, stepping for every beat that “Gravity” rocketed past as he puts alongside Redford. Most deserved use of the “F” bomb ever. A

Hanna Arendt (2013)

The banality of evil. The very notion that anyone can commit unspeakable evil under the oh-so-wrong “right” condition is something of a cliché now. But back in the early 1960s as philosopher/teacher/writer Hanna Arendt coined the phrase while covering the Eichmann trial for the New Yorker, she was met with a crushing ethical/academic flame war. As played by Barbara Sukowa, this European art-house take of “Hanna Arendt” has the Holocaust survivor and NYC resident shunned here and in Israel after she not only wrote that Eichmann was just a boring mediocre shit with no brains, but some Jewish leaders helped open the door of Nazi extermination through contrition. It’s relatively accepted now. Not then. Not when wounds and memories were so raw. The move is at its best at these moments of personal drama and inner torment. Yet, often I feel left cold by these New York intellectual dramas as they seem to take anyone not in the “know” to task for not being a member of the party. I look at these square-heads here and think, “Why be friends with them?” My tweed jacket diet only goes so far. B

Life of Pi (2012)

“Life of Pi” follows the harrowing spiritual journey of an Indian teen named Pi (newcomer and sure-to-be-famous Suraj Sharma) who is swept away from a sinking cargo ship and lost at sea in a life boat for months, with a Bengal tiger as his sole companion and nemesis. Lost to Pi is his family -– father, mother, and brother, their zoo -– and before him lays certain death by starvation, heat stroke, thirst, insanity, or likely being the last meal of the tiger. Of all the books I read in the past decade, this has to be most un-filmable, yet Ang Lee -- who made “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” -– took it on. Cheers to him. Lee uses some of the best 3D and visual effects imagery I or you will ever see and every aspect of the film is just as top notch (including the music score) but … And I must be careful here not to spoil the end, author Yann Martel, in his award-winning book, dared stare God in the face and did not blink. Lee blinks. He shows all the beauty of spirituality, but not the darkness. Read the book. The movie insists on lightness. Martel, and God, knows different. B+

The Grey (2012)

Bloody good, “The Grey” pits Liam Neeson against the arctic tundra and a pack of man-eating wolves, their eyes glowing hellfire. This is a Jack London fable, crossed with the grisliest of survival tales and pumped with dark adrenaline and overt symbolism. Neeson is Ottway, a soul-broken sniper for an oil company in northern Alaska who finds redemption and more in the face of death. At the film’s start Ottway attempts suicide. He falters. The next day he’s on an airplane, maybe heading home to quit, we do not know, but the craft goes down, killing dozens, save six men and Ottway. It’s in the wild that our man finds the courage to not die, and to lead his men (including Dermot Mulroney) to safety and life. Nature, the wolves, death, and chance stalk all the way. Neeson – hardcore, of few words -- gives the best performance he’s dealt since “Schindler’s List,” and director Joe Carnahan pulls out of his dumb dive (“A-Team”) to return to real storytelling on film. Stay after the credits for a final shot that will fuel debate in some, and leave others assured of fate and faith. A-