Out of the Woods (2005)

I love this movie so much

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The premise is not that unusual. A lot of ungrateful sons and/or daughters try to have parents put away. I have lived on a farm with an outhouse so I know it's not a pleasant place to spend time. We had propane gas for cooking and pump water for drinking or bathing..cold water like in this film..I have had kerosene lamps for light. No overnight delivery.I know that feeling,too. Whatever Ed Asner has going for himself in the woods I do understand and appreciate.Not everyone can understand that kind of life. Los Angeles is not mainstream America. Ed Asner seems to get better with age. His grandson, Jason London is becoming a pretty good actor and does well in this turn both playing off each other. Forget all these people trying to portray this as life lessons. It's not overly sentimental and it has a pretty good flow in the story telling. This is a pretty good walk in the woods.It gets a ten for the acting and a ten for the natural beauty of the location filming.

I always give extra points for movies (even TV-movies) that are different. And this one is different. First, it elevates itself well beyond what we often see on the Hallmark TV channel. But every once in a while, Hallmark scores, and here it did.I think we always knew that Ed Asner was a fine actor, almost most of us remember him primarily from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Here we are reminded once again of just how good he really is. He plays an old man who was sought out a different life for himself, which has estranged him from his family. Through some plotting by his daughter, he is reunited with his grandson, who comes to learn that he (Asner) is dying, and has chosen a unique way to do so. Asner helps teach the grandson that city life isn't everything...although he does so through some tough lessons. No, it isn't a happy ending, but it is a real ending...though unique to non-Native Americans.Jason London does a fine job as the grandson, although I'll wait to decide on just how good an actor he is. The other parts are handled well. The script is good. This is a winner for Hallmark.

Does Larry Levenson of Hallmark just enjoy creating the same theme where people visit older folks and redeem themselves before the latter pass on? We see this theme over and over in many of Levenson's productions and "Out of the Woods" is no different.When a grandson, an attorney, is sent to deliver legal papers to his grandfather, who has moved to the woods, the former gets much more than he ever bargained for.This is basically a story of getting away from the rat race and a return to nature. While a good movie, it is cliché.The movie goes downhill when Asner is revealed to be suffering from a terminal illness. He does go gently into that good night by going off into the forests.Of course, the film brings out the grandson's redeeming qualities and that he can do better than the girlfriend he has been seeing within the L.A. scene.

How often do we have the opportunity to watch a film about a 30-year-old-man bonding with his grandfather? That is precisely the premise of this skillfully crafted made-for-television film.Edward Asner is outstanding as the crusty curmudgeon who provides a life lesson to his grandson, a hotshot attorney played by Jason London. When the old man buys a cabin in the forest and appears on verge of squandering his fortune on the neighboring land and deeding it to Native Americans, Asner's character Jack Green is visited by his grandson who is ready to serve him legal papers that declare Jack to be legally incompetent. But the young attorney is unprepared for the wisdom to be imparted to him from his stay in the woods with his grandfather. The relationship unfolded with both humor and tenderness. Both actors should be applauded for performances that hit all the right notes. Stephen Bridgewater also needs to be credited for a deft directorial touch in a number of effective montages and the beautiful photography.The writer Henry David Thoreau described his living experiment on Walden Pond with the words "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity." For the young yuppie attorney who paid a visit to his grandfather's cabin, the lesson that he learned was that of simplicity and a lot more as well. There was great feeling in this film and a profound message—one that we all may learn by taking a walk in the woods.