127 Hours (Danny Boyle)

[DavidSeven]

Fair enough.

[Bosco B Thug]

I think to myself I can never appreciate another Boyle film just from thinking about Slumdog Millionaire, but then I realize, it's not just Boyle's fault, that story was baffling, complete tripe.

[number8]

So I kinda sorta maybe liked this. Framing this as a survivalist story kills it, because that side of it is pretty boring and predictable and not particularly rendered with any tension by Boyle. The film really takes off in scenes where it reflects on the stages of death. The survival mentality is the "denial" part, but it overwhelms the other, more interesting stages.

The film would be much, MUCH better if it's not based on a true story that we know the outcome of.

[number8]

All it does is remind me of this (significantly better) episode of Homicide.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Ah, crap. It's not the "Sturges Touch." I got that confused with Lubitsch. It was the "Sturges Style" that was mentioned. Well, either way, my point is the same.

[Ezee E]

Ah, crap. It's not the "Sturges Touch." I got that confused with Lubitsch. It was the "Sturges Style" that was mentioned. Well, either way, my point is the same.

Boyle doesn't have the "Sturges Touch?" Got it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Boyle doesn't have the "Sturges Touch?" Got it.

:lol:

Well, I knew I posted that somewhere.

[TGM]

Damn. This movie was tremendous. I was a little wary going in that I'd like it, given the subject manner and all, but it took me by surprise and swept me off my feet. The different visual techniques and split camera stuff worked really well, and the sounds that they used when he was finally releasing himself was gloriously painful to bare witness to. And our main character's complete breakdown was fascinating to watch. This was an outstanding performance by James Franco, it's gonna be a damn shame if he doesn't take the oscar for this.

[Dukefrukem]

watchin allll the oscar noms these past two days. gettin ready for the oscars.

[Henry Gale]

I feel pretty dumb now that I realize I made this the very last Best Picture nominee that I got around to (and one of the last miscellaneous Oscar-nominated movies overall). I basically saw it just to have an opinion on it, but now I'm just completely stunned because it's not only what I feel to be one easily one of the very best films nominated, but now one of my absolute favourite movies of 2010.

The marketing for this was pretty horrible. This is not the movie the trailer makes it out to be whatsoever. The very latest TV spots try to play up the more hopeful side to the story by almost only showing footage from the flashback and swooping landscape bits, but it seems like too little too late. Why did they think it was a good idea to have the trailer simply be what happens in the first 15 minutes and then leave it on the pessimistic note of him stuck under the rock?

Either way, the film it actually happens to be, in my eyes, is as good as anything Boyle's ever done. It's intense, surreal and hilarious when it wants to be, but never frantically or inappropriately so. It always has a very firm grasp with the stylistic choices it's employing, and Franco's game for every moment of it (and it shows in exactly how much he delivers it effectively), and for the most part it's very sure of how those choices pretain to the storytelling tasks at hand.

If it didn't have the stigma of being Ralston's story, therefore having the most prominent and glorified attribute of that story (and the subsequent movie) being that he cuts off his own arm to live, then this would be a much easier film to not only approach, but to subsequently praise and recommend to people as an extremely entertaining and even invigoratingly emotional film.

Its tone and atmosphere are pretty unique and never quite locked into one gear, but the best I could describe it to those who haven't seen it is that it felt like Into The Wild had the subconscious of its subject presented like the dreams in Eternal Sunshine. Added to that there's the way its journey is given its key ticking clock of survival in terms of what gets the plot going and the direction of eventual event it needs to. But above all, it's the element of Ralston's character's baggage, and how his need to sort out the guilt of everything that's come before only complicates his reading of his current situation, and it's those moments that the entire core of the movie's success is built on and, as far as I'm concerned, beautifully delivered from.

A huge surprise for me.

[Morris Schæffer]

I agree with number 8 that this movie would have packed a bigger punch had we not known the outcome in advance, but I found it nevertheless an engaging motion picture. Sure, I don't feel that the movie transcended its one-location premise for I didn't find it overly cathartic by the end, Ralston's predicament just didn't feel as dramatic as for instance in the superior Buried, although I suppose it hardly could given the absolute confinement of the Cortes offering. Franco is good, he keeps our attention throughout, but I wasn't blown away by the performance. Enhanced as it felt by Boyle visual style, I still felt Franco alternated between screaming and looking into a camera although I realize the perf might be deceptively easy. As for Boyle's style, I'm sort of stuck in the middle as to whether it enhances or deflates the experience, but I'm veering towards the former. I wasn't bothered by it, that's for sure. I guess at the end it's about a guy who cuts off his own arm in order to survive and although that is remarkable in itself, it's still about a guy who cuts off his own arm in order to survive. Although I gasped when he spilled his water. Perhaps that is proof that this flick did certainly deliver the goods as far as I'm concerned.

EDIT: And I do want to add that the final moments, with Cinematic Ralston swimming underwater only to emerge and seeing real Ralston + wife sitting on the bench smiling at him one of the finest endings of the year.

[balmakboor]

I enjoyed the heck out of this.

[Derek]

I enjoyed the heck out of this.

Is Danny Boyle creating a niche market for suffering as non-horror pop entertainment? Perhaps he'll take on the global hunger epidemic next!

[StanleyK]

This could have been a good movie if it was about 20-25 minutes long and stripped of all the flashbacks (which were mercifully short, but still unnecessary and annoying) and the emotional epiphany crap. Just a man and a rock; the scenes where Aron is figuring out how to survive, enjoying the little bit of sunlight, cutting off his arm, I enjoyed those. Oh, and if they got a good director instead of this fucking hack Danny Boyle.