127 Hours

[monosylab1k]

Just saw this earlier today at the Angelika in Plano.

Holy shit. James Franco is fucking incredible. It's been awhile since I've seen a natural performance that's this good. Maybe Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson, or Bill Murray in Lost In Translation.

If they don't give him the Oscar, it may be the biggest travesties in the long history of Academy Award travesties.

The movie is great too, I think Boyle over-directed this one a tad, some parts got a little hint of ADD type Tony Scott-itis, but overall it was damn good.

Go see it whenever you get a chance :tu

OlhLOWTnVoQ

[Fpoonsie]

Is this the one that several people passed out watchin?

[monosylab1k]

Is this the one that several people passed out watchin?

I don't know of that, I do know that the inevitable scene where he cuts his arm off is pretty tough to watch. It's really intense but I don't think it's vomit-inducing or something anybody would pass out watching it. If you've seen Saw or Hostel, you've seen stuff 100x worse.

Besides Franco's performance, the only buzz I heard before seeing this was about the masturbation scene, which I was wondering how they'd do that without seeming completely retarded. And in the end it worked out pretty good.

[DisgruntledLionFan#54,927]

Looks good.

It also reminds me to get around to reading Ralston's book.

[Fpoonsie]

I don't know of that, I do know that the inevitable scene where he cuts his arm off is pretty tough to watch. It's really intense but I don't think it's vomit-inducing or something anybody would pass out watching it. If you've seen Saw or Hostel, you've seen stuff 100x worse.

Besides Franco's performance, the only buzz I heard before seeing this was about the masturbation scene, which I was wondering how they'd do that without seeming completely retarded. And in the end it worked out pretty good.


fag!!!

[monosylab1k]

:lol

[Fpoonsie]

Oh, and then there's this...

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/breakingnews/survival-films-like-127-hours-not-easy-for-queasy-audiences-shaken-by-gritty-realism-107281613.html

[monosylab1k]

I read about the fainting at screenings and such. I guess the difference between this and Saw or Hostel is that those movies always feel unrealistic and like live-action cartoons, while this movie feels very real and the emotions are very raw. I know there was one moment in particular during the amputation that was a bit unsettling, but overall it wasn't something I would get sick watching.

[PakiDan]

I just got my free passes to see a screening next thursday at the Palladium in San Antonio... I can't wait. I hear this movie is incredible!

[Smart Ass]

I went with the GF but we had to leave because she couldn't cut it.

[Fpoonsie]

I read about the fainting at screenings and such. I guess the difference between this and Saw or Hostel is that those movies always feel unrealistic and like live-action cartoons, while this movie feels very real and the emotions are very raw. I know there was one moment in particular during the amputation that was a bit unsettling, but overall it wasn't something I would get sick watching.

Oh, I have no doubt the extreme audience responses have as much to do with the performance as with the visual "effects."

I had wanted to catch Catfish at the Angelika, too. No idea if it's still playing...

[Sisk]

I went with the GF but we had to leave because she couldn't cut it.

:lol

I don't handle the gruesome shit too well.. the cutting arm off scene I'd be pretty disgusted during I wont lie. But I still want to see this movie as I paid a lot of attention to this story when it first came out.

[JMarkJohns]

I really want to see this film. I doubt it comes to Flagstaff, but I'm gonna find it in Phoenix. Hopefully, anyways...

[balli]

Crazy... I guess they filmed almost the entirety of this movie in a makeshift stage/abandoned furniture store like a half a mile from my house. Nobody in the hood had any idea.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/2833/screenshotpcj.png


Danny Boyle remembers the first time rock climber Aron Ralston took him into Utah’s Bluejohn Canyon, where in 2003 Ralston had to cut off his arm to escape being pinned by a boulder.

“[I remember] how unbelievably isolated it was,” Boyle said. “I thought, ‘My God, if you came there on your own and something went wrong — nothing as dramatic as what happened with him, if you twisted an ankle or got bitten — nobody would find you.’ ”

The remoteness of Bluejohn Canyon is a key element of Ralston’s story, told in Boyle’s new movie, “127 Hours” (which opens nationwide on Friday, Nov. 19). That remoteness is also why trying to shoot the movie there was practically impossible.

“Every lighting moment is scripted,” said Suttirat Anne Larlarb, the movie’s production designer and costume designer, who worked with Boyle on his Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire.” “It was part of Danny’s grand plan of [showing] how the days pass and how the [cinematographers] want to manipulate that light. You can’t bring that kind of lighting equipment to show those moments into the real Bluejohn Canyon.”

The production did shoot on location, particularly for the moment when Ralston (played by James Franco) enters and exits the canyon. But to capture most of Ralston’s 127-hour ordeal, Boyle’s crew did something remarkable: They built an exact replica of Bluejohn Canyon in a Salt Lake City warehouse.

Boyle, in an interview during a visit last weekend to Salt Lake City, said when he mentions that it’s a set, “people look at [me] funny. … There’s no difference at all. It’s a brilliant match.”

Building a slot canyon in Sugar House

The production chose to build the set in the old Granite Furniture warehouse in Sugar House. “We were looking for somewhere with a lot of height, a dramatic sense of height,” Larlarb said. The crew cut a hole between the first and second floors and went to work.

The process was “the same technical checklist you have, all the same steps you have to building a structure,” Larlarb said. “You just take those rules and apply them to re-creating a canyon.”

First they drew out the floor plan, then put up plywood supports for the walls. A latex skin is attached to those supports to simulate the canyon walls. Then foam is sprayed in to make the walls firm, and “then you paint it and texture it the way you would inside a house,” Larlarb said.

But slot canyons don’t come with blueprints. The walls don’t meet at right angles, and they don’t come in solid colors.

“We had to really match nature exactly, and that’s really hard to do,” said the film’s art director, Christopher DeMuri.

Larlarb and her team — including DeMuri, construction coordinator Brent Astrope and his brother, head scenic painter Tyler Astrope, who all live and work in Utah — took several tours of the canyon, photographing and measuring every inch of it.

“We set out there on a few expeditions, where we brought very cursory old-school survey things, like a 100-foot measuring tape and a fish-eye camera lens,” Larlarb said. They meticulously shot photos of 30 feet of the canyon corridor, surveyed the canyon floor and measured the height and width of every passage in what Larlarb called “an arduous, sort of hyperdocumentarian ‘CSI’-type thing.”

Casting an 800-pound boulder

They also took castings of some walls and the 800-pound boulder that pinned Ralston.

Larlarb was surprised that the boulder “doesn’t have the visual gravitas that you imagine if you’ve never been there.

“You can wrap your arms around it,” she said. “I think that’s precisely why Aron got in trouble. I think in a flash, when your mind thinks about what you can handle and what you can’t handle, on a cursory glance it looks like something you can probably stop with your hands. You don’t calculate that it weighs over 800 pounds. It misrepresents itself.”

DeMuri said he knew they got the boulder right when Ralston visited the Sugar House set. He looked at the boulder and was surprised that it was a copy. “He said, ‘You see these indentations right here? This is what I chipped away with my multitool.’ Danny looked at me and winked. I knew we got it right.”

That fidelity extended to the costume design, Larlarb said. She tracked down the manufacturer of Ralston’s shoes and even outfitted Franco with the same brand of headlamp.

She made one small change, finding a different Phish T-shirt (Ralston’s favorite band) because the band’s name was too prominent on the one he actually wore during his accident. “If I had used that shirt, we would have read the word ‘Phish’ for 90 minutes, and that would have been incredibly detracting,” Larlarb said. “I went through the Phish back catalog of concert T-shirts, and I found one that was a little more abstract, but in keeping with what he wore.”

Trapped on the set

Working for several weeks on the giant set wasn’t easy. “It was an awkward son of a bitch to work in,” the director said. “We sealed it so that it wasn’t movable. Normally with a set, you build convenience walls that you can float out, so you can get lighting in or equipment. …

“That paid off in the end, I think,” Boyle added. “If you do cheat, you only cheat a tiny bit on the first day. But by the 12th day, you’re cheating quite a lot. I think audiences, without consciously spotting it, can sense it.”

During filming, Franco would sometimes spend a couple of hours in the same position, and Boyle would communicate with him by a speaker installed inside the canyon wall. Between takes, Boyle said, Franco sometimes would pull out his homework — he’s a student at New York University — from a hidden spot behind a false rock.

“You mustn’t give the actor playing the part any advantages or disadvantages, compared to Aron. You must have an exact copy,” Boyle said. “It does give you the freedom, when you get everything exact, he’s only ever going to be able to do what Aron could do.”

Filming in Utah: Redrock in the crew’s blood

The Utah film crew were integral to creating that authenticity. “If I had brought in people from outside of Utah, who didn’t know that landscape, I’m sure the process would have taken three times as long,” Larlarb said. “Either we would have never made our deadline, or we would have made our deadline and the product would have been inferior.”

She particularly credited the Astrope brothers, construction coordinator Brent and head scenic painter Tyler, for bringing their personal experience to the job.

“They’ve been going to Moab for 20 years for recreational reasons,” Larlarb said. “The vocabulary of sandstone and the canyon system and all of that was already in their blood. All the R&D I would normally have to do with quote-unquote ‘the best of L.A. and New York workers,’ I didn’t have to actually do that much spoonfeeding of the visual part of it.”

“It felt insane to do it anywhere else,” said Boyle, who made his first American movie, “A Life Less Ordinary,” in Utah in 1997.

Still, the Utah Film Commission had to persuade Fox Searchlight, the studio that made “127 Hours,” to film the movie in Utah. The state’s 20 percent tax-credit incentive helped seal the deal.

Without the incentive, said Marshall Moore, director of the Utah Film Commission, the production could have opted to film around Moab for a few days — and then film more redrock location work in New Mexico (which has a 25 percent tax break), then build the set in Los Angeles.

“In the business of film, a studio will always tell you, ‘If you get a rebate in Jamaica, can you go and do it there?’,” Boyle said. “I think [the studio] understood with a story like this, which has a resonance and a prior knowledge, you have to do it where it was set.”

The Utah crew members, Boyle said, “really know their stuff. You not only have local knowledge, generally speaking, you also had intimate knowledge of who Aron was, the type of equipment, the type of behavior, and a knowledge of the landscape.”

The 127 hours of the work week

The crew worked day and night to create the Bluejohn set, DeMuri said, adding that a joke on the set was that the title “127 Hours” referred to some crew members’ work weeks.

“When you’re working with someone as driven and as passionate as Danny Boyle, and such a visionary as that, he really was able to bring the best out of everybody,” DeMuri said. “Everybody was giving 110 percent, because they wanted to be part of the creative effort of the show.”

DeMuri, who calls the Utah film crews “every bit as good as anybody in L.A.,” marveled at the production team’s ability to rebuild a southern Utah slot canyon in a Sugar House warehouse.

“You felt like you were in peril,” DeMuri added with a laugh, “and there’s a SmashBurger about 10 steps away from where you’re working.”
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/50649422-81/canyon-larlarb-boyle-utah.html.csp

[MaNuMaNiAc]

Franco is living testament that acting ability isn't necesarily something you're born with but rather something one can cultivate and perfect. I've seen him in some fucking atrocious movies, playing horrible characters, horribly. Yet I've also seen a remarkable evolution to his acting ability.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm planning to. Heard nothing but good things

[Summers]

Oh, wow, that looks cool.

[IronMexican]

I might watch this just for having Funeral in the trailer.

[4down]

huh, I used to live in Sugar house too.

[phyzik]

I was wondering when this movie was going to come out, I thought it was a myth (the movie).

I remember that guy on the news when he took his own arm off to survive.... Powerfull shit...

I will definately see this movie.

[phyzik]

Whats the over/under that they make a movie about the Chilean Miners? :lol

[PakiDan]

I was wondering when this movie was going to come out, I thought it was a myth (the movie).

I remember that guy on the news when he took his own arm off to survive.... Powerfull shit...

I will definately see this movie.

This Friday I believe.

[koriwhat]

...

"fag" is only reserved for you.

[MannyIsGod]

Saw it this afternoon. Very very intense. Not something I'd ever watch again but it was really good.

[Heath Ledger]

how about a spoiler alert dickhead. guess ill save my $10

[MannyIsGod]

Spoiler alert on what? That he cut his own arm off? Did you want a spoiler alert that the ship sinks at the end of Titanic too?

[monosylab1k]

how about a spoiler alert dickhead. guess ill save my $10

spoiler alert on a movie based on a true story?

spoiler alert: your kid is going to be a retard because, well, like father like son.

[koriwhat]

damn fine movie!

[leemajors]

I read about the fainting at screenings and such. I guess the difference between this and Saw or Hostel is that those movies always feel unrealistic and like live-action cartoons, while this movie feels very real and the emotions are very raw. I know there was one moment in particular during the amputation that was a bit unsettling, but overall it wasn't something I would get sick watching.

Saw and Hostel are more softcore torture porn than anything else aren't they?

[Fpoonsie]

Holy shit. James Franco is fucking incredible. It's been awhile since I've seen a natural performance that's this good. Maybe Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson, or Bill Murray in Lost In Translation.

If they don't give him the Oscar, it may be the biggest travesties in the long history of Academy Award travesties.

The movie is great too, I think Boyle over-directed this one a tad, some parts got a little hint of ADD type Tony Scott-itis, but overall it was damn good.


Just finished watching it a few mins ago, and I can't help but concur w/ everything here (sans the Lost in Translation nonsense. I maintain to this day that that movie was terrible).

There were a few scenes where Boyle got a little carried away with his "artistic expression" (while Franco's character was starting to lose it), but nevertheless, this was a fantastic film.

[DesignatedT]

It was good. I personally enjoyed into the wild better then this one though.

[Fpoonsie]

It was good. I personally enjoyed into the wild better then this one though.

Haven't seen that one yet. Haven't really enjoyed Emile (sp?) in a role since The Girl Next Door.

I'm pulling for Franco to win Best Actor, but I'd still prefer The Social Network to snag the big one, my utter disdain for Eisenberg notwithstanding.

[DesignatedT]

Colin Firth already has best actor locked up. It's hard to say he doesn't deserve it also after seeing Kings Speech but I would like Franco to win as well.

[silverblk mystix]

It was good. I personally enjoyed into the wild better then this one though.

I thought I was the only one that liked Into the Wild...

I recommended it to some people and half of them hated it...


I've yet to see 127 hours but it is on my list...

[Fpoonsie]

Colin Firth already has best actor locked up. It's hard to say he doesn't deserve it also after seeing Kings Speech but I would like Franco to win as well.

I'm sure The King's Speech is a fine film, and I have no doubt Colin does an outstanding job, but it simply seems wrapped up alll-too-nicely in Oscar paper. It's like years ago when The English Patient won. [shudder]

[MannyIsGod]

The Kings Speech is overrated, IMO, but I went into it expecting not to like it much so that might be giving my opinion some bias.

[The Reckoning]

127 hours was terrible. it was a movie about some guy squirting his load under a big rock.

[The Reckoning]

imo i think it was called 127 hours because thats how long it felt sitting through the movie

[DPG21920]

Into the Wild was good IMO. It resonated with me. I want to see 127 as well.

[JMarkJohns]

Into The Wild was one of the most important films I've seen. I'm currently writing my thesis on it.

Loved 127 Hours for some of the same reasons.

[leemajors]

Yes, he had to kill himself to realize you can't take Transcendentalists literally.

[Fpoonsie]

imo i think it was called 127 hours because thats how long it felt sitting through the movie

I know it sounds like a cop-out, but I think that was partly what the movie was trying to convey. The amount of time he was there...alone...hopeless...etc.

[lil'mo]

Into The Wild was one of the most important films I've seen. I'm currently writing my thesis on it.

Loved 127 Hours for some of the same reasons.

good movie but ugh, why would you write a thesis on a movie? how unoriginal

[JMarkJohns]

how unoriginal

Says the guy with the tough guy internet schtick.

[CuckingFunt]

Haven't really enjoyed Emile (sp?) in a role since The Girl Next Door.

That's about the only film of his that didn't impress me.

This should be watched by more people:
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2769/3497711020a.jpg

[Sense]

127 hours was terrible. it was a movie about some guy squirting his load under a big rock.

lol are you serious?

God I'd hate to see some of you're favorite movies..




127 hours was a great film... if you haven't watched it you should... but try to avoid watching it when there's idiots in the theaters mocking it... see above.

[BackStabber]

It was good. I personally enjoyed into the wild better then this one though.

Into the Wild is an awesome movie.

[DesignatedT]

Into the Wild is an awesome movie.

:tu

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Everyone seems to be jerking off to this movie but I can't bring myself to see a movie with this premise. I will be squirming wondering why that stupid fuck did not have a cel phone all fuckin movie.


Also, I'm beginning to think James Franco is not a human, but a robot or cyborg of some sort.

[IronMexican]

Everyone seems to be jerking off to this movie but I can't bring myself to see a movie with this premise. I will be squirming wondering why that stupid fuck did not have a cel phone all fuckin movie.


Also, I'm beginning to think James Franco is not a human, but a robot or cyborg of some sort.

I think it happened in the early 2000's. Not everyone had a cell phone like today back then.

[Texas_Ranger]

I think it happened in the early 2000's. Not everyone had a cell phone like today back then.

Yea you're right. It was in April 2003.

I'll watch the movie tomorrow, can't wait to see it.

[JMarkJohns]

Yea you're right. It was in April 2003.

I'll watch the movie tomorrow, can't wait to see it.

Not only was it earlier before the huge cell phone boon, he was stuck in a deep recess in the middle of nowhere.

[Texas_Ranger]

Just watched it and it was very good. 7,8/10.

[Smart Ass]

Franco really went out on a limb with his acting on this one.

[MookieCrew]

Everyone seems to be jerking off to this movie but I can't bring myself to see a movie with this premise.

crofl who out there didn't see det one coming?

next comes mookie complaining that the title of the movie is very misleading because it's only like 90 minutes long, and they should have renamed it There Will Be Less Than 127 Hours.

[The 4cc Dictionary]

Also, I'm beginning to think James Franco is not a human, but a robot or cyborg of some sort.

agreed, scroh, imo

i had to kill james franco because it was a mistake....now it's time to erase that mistake i saaaaiiiiiiiddddd

[ALVAREZ6]

Sorry to hijack, but CROFL CROFL CROFL wtf how did I miss this??? :::

http://i55.tinypic.com/2afn2nr.jpg

[Cant_Be_Faded]

I think it happened in the early 2000's. Not everyone had a cell phone like today back then.

But I heard the real guy tell his story on NPR. He didn't tell anyone where he was going IIRC. It takes a certain level of pompousness to go out into places like that alone, with noone knowing where you are.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Now the dude is rich as hell giving speeches across the world for 25-50K a pop.

[PuttPutt]

But I heard the real guy tell his story on NPR. He didn't tell anyone where he was going IIRC. It takes a certain level of pompousness to go out into places like that alone, with noone knowing where you are.

It's not a matter of being pompous. It's just ignorance & misjudging what could happen.

I travel into the wilderness more often than not (I live at the foot hills of the Cascades), but I am prepared. There was a time that I would go out there by myself & not worry about making sure I had the right provisions or gear. You don't go out there thinking something is going to happen to you. You just think about the adventure you are taking. People of all skill levels get lost all the time. It's just a matter of being prepared (whether your alone or not)

[ALVAREZ6]

It's not a matter of being pompous. It's just ignorance & misjudging what could happen.

I travel into the wilderness more often than not (I live at the foot hills of the Cascades), but I am prepared. There was a time that I would go out there by myself & not worry about making sure I had the right provisions or gear. You don't go out there thinking something is going to happen to you. You just think about the adventure you are taking. People of all skill levels get lost all the time. It's just a matter of being prepared (whether your alone or not)

Hmmm...so you are in the wilderness more often than not?

[PuttPutt]

Hmmm...so you are in the wilderness more often than not?

At least twice a week I'm out there. Either hiking, snowshoeing, or just enjoying the peace of nature.

[ALVAREZ6]

At least twice a week I'm out there. Either hiking, snowshoeing, or just enjoying the peace of nature.

Good for you.


I certainly plan to do the same once there aren't as many other great ways to pass the time as there are in college.

[The Reckoning]

melting snow is probably the best reason not to live up north

[bostonguy]

This movie was superb. Franco did one hell of a job. The amputation scene wasn't that bad except for the nerve scene. The music and the painful facial expressions made it pretty damn realistic.

It even had its funny parts as well. This was a well done film.

[MiamiHeat]

Franco is living testament that acting ability isn't necesarily something you're born with but rather something one can cultivate and perfect. I've seen him in some fucking atrocious movies, playing horrible characters, horribly. Yet I've also seen a remarkable evolution to his acting ability.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm planning to. Heard nothing but good things

It's the role.

Some actors are perfect for particular roles, and yet the same actor cannot give a good performance for a different type of role.

[MiamiHeat]

Now the dude is rich as hell giving speeches across the world for 25-50K a pop.

Normally I would suspect it was intentional, but I don't think he was crazy enough to want to live without his arm.

Although...

live like an average joe schmoe with a 9-5 job and 2 arms, or cushy speaking jobs and be rich with one arm?

[MiamiHeat]

oh, 2 posts and I didn't talk about the movie.

well, someone wrote a script about a dumbfuck who

1) goes into the wilderness alone without telling anyone

2) jumps into fucking holes in canyons recklessly

3) and finally natural selection grabs this fool and pins him down. so he is a crazy fuck and cuts off his own arm because he can't unwedge/crack/break a small boulder with a multi-tool.

and people give a shit about this retard?

people actually PAY this man to speak?

"UH yeah, I had the will to live and cut off my own arm and not give up...." and forget the part that this idiot put himself in that position?

fuck this film and this idiot getting paid to make speeches.

real will to survive are the hard working mothers and people around the globe who are smart enough not to go jumping in holes in canyons, work 2 jobs to support their kids, and still cook and clean for their children and never give up.


this is just hollywood desperately looking for some emotional, tug at your heart strings film.

fuck you guys, im out.

[Lefty's understudy]

That movie really sucked, here's my opinion why:

Considering his career-long interest in man’s alternately harmonious and hostile relationship with his environment, Werner Herzog would have been an ideal choice to helm 127 Hours, the story of climber and canyoneer Aron Ralston, who spent the titular duration at the bottom of Utah’s Blue John canyon, his arm wedged between a boulder and a rock wall. On the other hand, the film’s actual director, Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), proves an awkward fit for such material, engaging in hyper-stylized kineticism in an attempt to refract his tale through the very media-saturated filters that Aron (played by James Franco) himself embraced. Opening with a trifurcated screen drowning in pulsating music and awash in hustle and bustle – crowds clapping, running and praying, as well as fast food signs and Aron’s own constantly moving hands and eyes – Boyle immediately establishes the frantic hubbub that defines Aron’s Gatorade-fueled extreme-sports life. Once out in the vast mountainous unknown, Aron bikes hard and, soon thereafter, flirts hard with two girls (Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn) he encounters, his digital video and still cameras always at the ready, so that even upon wiping out on his bike, he instinctively snaps a self-portrait. It’s a frenzied life played, recorded and replayed at light speed.

This happy-go-lucky fun comes to a grinding halt when Aron slips in a crevasse and an enormous rock lands on his arm, thereby immobilizing him in a remote hidden location. Rather than switching aesthetic gears to concentrate on Aron’s solitude, however, Boyle maintains his stylistic spazziness. Be it through impressionistic flashbacks, rapid-fire montages, or a habitual need to provide innumerable, largely unnecessary angles and perspective on a given image and scene, the director refuses to allow a minute to pass free from intrusive embellishment. As his water supply diminishes and thoughts of amputation become more pressing, Aron’s fear, desperation and loneliness should take center stage, and to his credit, Franco does his best to express his protagonist’s anxiety, fortitude and regret amidst the sound-and-fury barrage perpetrated by Boyle. Such efforts, however, are ultimately overwhelmed by a flurry of cinematographic and soundtrack gestures (non-diegetic sound effects, ‘70s pop songs, smeary lenses and hazy hallucinations). From start to finish, the director proves so unwilling to let a moment breathe with sustained human emotion, or to linger in the terrifying silence and emptiness that surely filled Aron’s days and nights, that the film winds up operating at a palpable remove.

That disinterest in Aron’s quiet isolation becomes even more pronounced once the film begins dramatizing his memories of parents, an ex-girlfriend, and his unborn son, all of which – along with his first-person videotape monologues – convey the man’s self-imposed, pre-accident alienation from those who cared for him. It’s a theme that’s hammered home with thudding bluntness, such that the inevitable triumphant climax finds Aron screaming, with heavy symbolic import, “I need help!” That final note encapsulates 127 Hours, which, blessed with a true story of an adventurer challenging himself – mentally, physically and spiritually – in the unforgiving wilderness, persistently goes for the neat, tidy and obvious even as its scenario practically demands a more dreamlike, introspective treatment. A scene in which the trapped Aron eagerly awaits a brief touch of sunshine gets at man’s loving/violent bond with nature and history. Yet like Aron spying ancient rock-wall drawings, it’s a moment rendered superficial by Boyle’s surrounding look-at-me tomfoolery, as well as a glimpse at the type of pensive, oblique, quasi-mystical film that a less manic, more contemplative filmmaker like Herzog might have crafted from this amazing saga.

[Lefty's understudy]

Here are some more of my personal takes on this subject:

A young adventurer is navigating a crevice between two mountains of rock. He steps on the wrong thing, falls about 20 feet, and ends up with his right arm crushed underneath a boulder. He can't get out. No matter what he does, he is stuck. No one knows where he is, no one can hear him scream - there's probably not a soul around for many miles. All at once, his life expectancy is less than a week. He's going to run out of water and die.

In "127 Hours," director Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire") tells the amazing true story of Aron Ralston, who didn't die but rather lived to write his memoirs ... with his left hand. How he got out is a matter of public record and is something virtually everyone will know going in, but knowing doesn't enhance the experience of the movie. It makes it even more excruciating. "127 Hours," about an unimaginably unbearable experience, is pretty much an unbearable experience of its own. And yet, it must be said, it's exceptionally well made.

Boyle takes a situation that's almost impossible to make cinematic: For about an hour of screen time, maybe more, James Franco as Aron is stuck under a rock. Aron wants to be any place but there, and so do we. Aron can't leave the rock, but we can easily get up and leave the theater. So Boyle employs memory sequences, fantasy sequences, breathtaking images of nature and perhaps a dozen shots so imaginatively conceived and framed that one can't help but feel awe at Boyle's visual mastery.

The problem is that "127 Hours" has the feeling of a film conceived for that very purpose, to be so static and lacking in narrative movement that there's nothing to notice but the director's flair. Boyle more or less keeps the enterprise from sinking, and yet for all his exertions, "127 Hours" is not exactly enjoyable. It's an ordeal for Aron and for the audience, too. Nor is the suffering worth it. The film does not have anything near a psychological or philosophical depth on a par with its visual inspiration.

It's just a story about a bad thing that happened to a happy-go-lucky goofball. He's an idiot when he gets stuck under the rock, but by the time he gets out, he's not an idiot anymore. He's not a hero, either, but he's tough as rock and has the guts of 10 men. This comes through in Franco's performance, but in a muted way, because he's not really Boyle's focus. Boyle's focus is his own virtuosity.

"127 Hours" is sometimes agony to sit through, sometimes dull to sit through, and some shots so gruesome, so gory and horrifying, that many viewers will never see them. They'll avert their eyes. Still, hardly 10 minutes ever go by without Boyle showing us something extraordinary. Sometimes it's a shot of the sun breaking into the crevice and warming the rocks. In another case, it's an extended fantasy sequence, in which cascades of water rescue Aron, and he shows up at an ex-girlfriend's door, begging for help.

Boyle does something remarkable with sound. Two or three times, when Aron experiences blinding, shrieking, inconceivable pain, Boyle shocks the audience with a loud, electric-buzzing sound that, in its harshness and suddenness - in the way it overwhelmingly becomes the only thing in the room - becomes a sonic analogue for pain. It's an impressive effect. When he's in pain, so are you.

So "127 Hours" is the work of a very talented person. But I can't imagine I'd have endured more than 30 minutes of it, were it not all in a day's work.

-- Advisory: This film contains strong language - if a boulder fell on you, you wouldn't just say, "Oh, fiddlesticks!" - and horrible, disgusting, disturbing scenes of gore and terror.

[bostonguy]

oh, 2 posts and I didn't talk about the movie.

well, someone wrote a script about a dumbfuck who

1) goes into the wilderness alone without telling anyone

2) jumps into fucking holes in canyons recklessly

3) and finally natural selection grabs this fool and pins him down. so he is a crazy fuck and cuts off his own arm because he can't unwedge/crack/break a small boulder with a multi-tool.

and people give a shit about this retard?

people actually PAY this man to speak?

"UH yeah, I had the will to live and cut off my own arm and not give up...." and forget the part that this idiot put himself in that position?

fuck this film and this idiot getting paid to make speeches.

real will to survive are the hard working mothers and people around the globe who are smart enough not to go jumping in holes in canyons, work 2 jobs to support their kids, and still cook and clean for their children and never give up.


this is just hollywood desperately looking for some emotional, tug at your heart strings film.

fuck you guys, im out.

:rolleyes:rolleyes

Ummm that boulder was 800 pounds or more. I am pretty sure he did EVERYTHING he could to free his arm. He was stuck there for days. No he isn't a hero, and his stubbornness cost him an arm and almost his life.

How was this not an example of real will to survive? The guy had that boulder pinned to his arm, had little food/water,had to drink his own piss to stay hydrated, and had a weak tool. He was faced with an ultimatum of either stay there and die or amputate his arm and live. Despite being an idiot for putting himself in that situation, what he did to get himself out of it was courageous.

When your life is on the line, instincts take over.

Hate the people who hype him up if it makes you feel better. You can hate his stubbornness as well, but don't act like he didn't try anything and everything he could to get free from that boulder. Don't act like an 800+ pound boulder is easy to chip away with a weak set of multi-tools.

[AnthonyM]

Just watched this movie.

I thought Franco's performance was good. His facial expressions weren't too overdone, but you could almost always tell how he felt or what he was going through.

I didn't mind Boyle's dream scenes, or flashback scenes though since they portrayed what Ralston was thinking while he was trapped. I imagine that's what most people would think about if they were trapped down there for so long. I think he used them too frequently though. There were a few scenes where I thought Franco talking to himself, without any flashbacks, would have sufficed.

But most of that is just being nit-picky. The scene where he cuts off his arm was indeed graphic, but also realistic. I imagine that cutting off your arm would be lots of tugging and pulling at muscles and nerves, and that's what it looked like. Pretty painful too.

I also thought it was just the right length too.

[JoeChalupa]

I'll red box this but since I already know the story and most of those hours he was stuck is it all just about the drama? Was there any sex or violence, apart from what he had to do, or any explosions? How could it be that good?

[Girasuck]

I'll red box this but since I already know the story and most of those hours he was stuck is it all just about the drama? Was there any sex or violence, apart from what he had to do, or any explosions? How could it be that good?

Stick to the dumbed down movies dude.

[Jacob1983]

This movie was excellent. People can hate James Franco all they want but he carried this movie. And the story was good. The guy didn't give up. He could have but he didn't. In the end, he wanted to live so he did whatever it took to live. And the Dido song was good too. That song should have won the Oscar. You can't give the Oscar to a song that's in a Pixar movie.

[Fpoonsie]

People can hate James Franco all they want but he carried this movie.

Well, I sure as shit hope so. He was practically the only one in it.

[JoeChalupa]

Stick to the dumbed down movies dude.

Like I said, I'll watch it and I'm sure it is good. My point was that many don't like the King's Speech because it didn't suit their personal likes in movies. No sex, violence, action, explosions, car chases, etc. Just a good movie. But yeah, I do like dumbed down movies as well as so do many others which is proven by how many like Pineapple Express and others movies for entertainment purposes only. Meh, I know what I like and to hell with the rest.

[monosylab1k]

My point was that many don't like the King's Speech because it didn't suit their personal likes in movies. No sex, violence, action, explosions, car chases, etc.

That has nothing to do with it. It's the fact that it was such blatant Oscar bait. The movie was made for the sole purpose of collecting Academy Awards. There's no other reason for it to even exist.

In basketball terms, The King's Speech is the equivalent of Tim Duncan's 45 degree bank shot. It's solid, it's effective, Spurs fans obviously enjoy seeing it go in the hoop, and it's won championships.........but it's also robotic, passionless, and completely devoid of any style or excitement.

[Jacob1983]

I've never understood why people hate survival stories. Do people not like it when others survive something tragic? I mean what's the deal? Let me guess, the people in Alive were idiots because they got on an airplane that crashed?

[phyzik]

I've never understood why people hate survival stories. Do people not like it when others survive something tragic? I mean what's the deal? Let me guess, the people in Alive were idiots because they got on an airplane that crashed?

Someone with sense! :tu

As a person that posts alot of Trailers on this forum, I have learned that people here will bitch about a movie incessantly, regardless of its merits... All you have to do is look at when I posts the trailers. I dont offer an opinion at all weather I think it looks good or not.

I always find it entertaining that almost every trailer I post is shit on by at least 1 person, and without fail its almost always someone from "the crew" :lmao