One-Liners

ALL IS LOST (C+) - This is an impressive feat of acting and directing, but it's not much of a movie. It's Robert Redford alone on a leaky boat for about 100 minutes. Or in a raft. He is stranded at "sea" and battles the "elements" in what looks like a Hollywood studio tricked out with CGI in most scenes.

I was a big fan of J.C. Chandor's debut, the brilliant "Margin Call" from 2011, and that's really the only reason I even bothered to sample this. I'll admit, I fast-forwarded through some parts, which made it much more bearable. I was eager to see how it all ended. The second half is much more effective; it's truly harrowing, and you see the big metaphor for how fragile our mortality is and how easily we are snuffed out. The ocean seems as big as the universe.

The ending is smart. It seems clear, but I'd say that it can go either way whether or not he survives the ordeal. But, for the most part, this is a hulking production of a vanity project. (The end credits alone drag on for seven minutes.) At times it's no more than a dramatic rendering of an oceanographic nature film.

HARLAN: IN THE SHADOWS OF 'JEW SUSS' (2008) (B-minus) - This could have been so much more, but instead it's a rather neutered examination of the lives of Veit Harlan, who is notorious for being the premier film director in World War II Nazi Germany and for appeasing Goebbels with such anti-semitic fare as the execrable "Jew Suss" in 1940.

Felix Moeller shoots his talking heads in washed-out digital, and the result drains the emotion from the proceedings. Harlan's children and grandchildren weigh in on his legacy, ranging from a comfortable remove to all-out antagonism to the patriarch. Son Thomas Harlan has devoted his life to countering his father's black record. Included is Harlan's niece Christiane Kubrick, who was married to film legend Stanley Kubrick. An ex-wife -- who starred in most of his films, including the title film -- appears in footage from the 1970s.

Unfortunately, the talking heads tend to ramble. Moeller shoots family members at a screening/lecture devoted to Harlan, but the opportunity for insight is wasted. The result is a somewhat interesting peek into a family's tortured history, but with little dramatic pop. That makes this a curiosity at best.

A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951) (C) - An overwrought yet dull tale of a ruggedly handsome man with a secret past who wants to live in the rarefied world of Elizabeth Taylor but is dragged down by Shelley Winters.

Montgomery Clift is a cipher in this pale noir based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "An American Tragedy." He plays working class lug George Eastman who looks up a distant uncle, an industrialist who gives the young man an entry-level job at his factory. The film plods along as George defies workplace rules and starts dating a co-worker, Alice (Winters), and slowly starts climbing the corporate ladder. Eventually the uncle invites him to a posh society function where he falls for Angela (Taylor, making you wish this were in color so you could see those eyes in full glory).

Soon Alice starts piecing things together and threatens to expose George for the hick and cheat that he is. So George plots to get rid of Alice.

This all plays out way to sluggishly, leading toward a final reckoning for George, larded with globs of Hollywood sap by Oscar-winning director George Stevens ("Shane"). This is pre-Brando mush for the masses, but it fails as both film noir and grand storytelling.