127 Hours

Celia Cyanide · Dec 24, 2010

I just saw this today and thought it was incredible! I always liked James Franco, but he exceeded my expectations. I'm also a Danny Boyle fan, so of course I had to see this. If those two had not been involved, I probably never would have gone to see a movie made about this. But it was powerful!

Has anyone else seen it?

HarvesterOfSorrow · Mar 27, 2011

Yes, I have. I own it, actually. It is quite a powerful film and an inspiring film that teaches us that the people that we love is what will get us through even in the most desperate of situations. James Franco is really coming into his own as an actor and he really showed his range in this film.

No matter how many times I've seen the movie, which must be close to ten times-- the end scene (you know the one) always gets me. It is still a little bit of a struggle to watch. That scene is more gruesome than anything in a Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorheese movie. This was real. A real person in a real situation. James Franco should have won an Oscar for his performance of Aron Ralston, but he still gets his much-deserved praise.

Good flick. Anybody who hasn't seen it yet, should go rent it or buy it immediately.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 27, 2011

I am surprised by the lack of replies on this thread. It was a best picture nominee! Did anyone see it? It's magnificent.

ZannaPerry · Mar 28, 2011

This movie made me nervous throughout the whole experience. I think just knowing what would happen. I liked it. Don't get me wrong, but for someone to have actually gone through that is just amazing, or difficult to watch knowing it was based on true events.

katiemac · Mar 28, 2011

Celia Cyanide said:
I am surprised by the lack of replies on this thread. It was a best picture nominee! Did anyone see it? It's magnificent.

This is the only film that was nominated for a major award that I haven't seen yet. It's been on my to-do list for months.

sheadakota · Mar 28, 2011

I just saw this on pay per view. I read the book years ago and was amazed by Aaron Ralston then. The movie was powerful. But the book, for me had more of an impact. (complete with color photos of the blood streaked boulder)

HarvesterOfSorrow · Mar 28, 2011

I would love to see the actual videos that he made down there. However, there is apparently some very personal and private things that he says about his family and about his life. James Franco watched it in preperation for the role . It would be great if the video was made public some day.

Grrarrgh · Mar 29, 2011

We watched it before the Oscars. I loved it. I'm not typically squeamish, but this one got to me a little bit. Maybe because I knew that it was real??? I still shudder when I think of it. I know that you never know how you'll react until you're in a situation, but I honestly can't imagine my drive to survive being strong enough for me to get through that. I don't know what that says about me, and maybe I'm wrong, but that was the first thing I thought when I watched that scene.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 29, 2011

You know what? The cutting off of the arm didn't bother me as much as the splashing in the icky water after he got free! That made me wince!

movieman · Mar 29, 2011

Celia Cyanide said:
I am surprised by the lack of replies on this thread. It was a best picture nominee! Did anyone see it? It's magnificent.

How did it get a best picture nomination?

I managed about thirty minutes before I got bored and picked something else to watch on the plane last week. I didn't think much of the character because he only got into that situation by being reckless, and I didn't really want to spend another hour waiting for him to decide to cut his hand off then roll credits.

The only movie on those flights that I switched off faster was 'The A-Team', which I expected to be really bad anyway.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 29, 2011

movieman said:
I didn't think much of the character because he only got into that situation by being reckless.

Not really, no. He was a very skilled climber. He made a mistake by not telling anyone where he was going, but that's not that different from many of the silly chances we take and mistakes we make every day.

movieman · Mar 29, 2011

Celia Cyanide said:
He made a mistake by not telling anyone where he was going, but that's not that different from many of the silly chances we take and mistakes we make every day.

I don't know about the real person but the character I saw in the movie seemed to have arrogantly overestimated their skill and just got lucky before.

Creeping around in remote canyons by yourself without telling anyone where you're going and not looking where you're going so you fall down and get your hand stuck under a rock just seems like an application for a Darwin Award to me.

I had a lot of sympathy for the real person when I first read about that story, but I had none for the character in the movie because he was just asking to die. My brother was big into climbing when I was a kid so I read a bunch of books by really skilled climbers who'd been climbing mountains all over the world, and they certainly didn't behave the way this character did... and the few people in the books who did behave that way tended not to come back from their climbing trips.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 29, 2011

movieman said:
I had a lot of sympathy for the real person when I first read about that story, but I had none for the character in the movie because he was just asking to die.

The real person did what the character did in the story. Both Aaron Ralston the character and the person admitted his mistakes, and that he had brought this fate on himself, and changed because of it.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 30, 2011

Grrarrgh said:
I know that you never know how you'll react until you're in a situation, but I honestly can't imagine my drive to survive being strong enough for me to get through that. I don't know what that says about me, and maybe I'm wrong, but that was the first thing I thought when I watched that scene.

My first thought was...I don't think I would even know how to do that! He managed to cut all the way through his arm with a REALLY crappy knife, and create a makeshift tournequet to keep from bleeding to death. This was after days without much food or water to the point that he was halucinating.

Manuel Royal · Mar 30, 2011

It's on my Netflix queue (says "Long wait").

Diana Hignutt · Mar 30, 2011

It's definitely on my list. I also love Franco and Boyle...this one...I'm waiting to be in that special mood. I'll move it up.

Eumenides · Mar 31, 2011

It was one of my favourite movies of 2010.

Franco was amazing!

But I loved especially the direction. The use of the split screen at the beginning, the color saturation showing those really red rocks and really blue sky, the camera movements.

The opening sequence was brilliant: the juxtaposition of crowds versus Aaron alone in his apartment; people doing things with two hands, foreshadowing the amputation; the contrast between the colors and sounds of the city versus the peacefulness of the canyon. The opening was just full of visual thematic subtext.

Doyle and his co-writer, Simon Beaufoy, did a great job with the story. I'd have been very happy if they had won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for this.

Manuel Royal · Mar 31, 2011

I'm looking forward to it. I've been in that area (in southern Utah). Amazing country, but very harsh. I definitely wouldn't go hiking and climbing alone without people knowing where I was.

HarvesterOfSorrow · Mar 31, 2011

I enjoyed all of the split-screen shots as well. How this movie did not win Best Editing, I'll never know. The Social Network won Best Editing. I mean, I thought The Social Network was a great movie and David Fincher is a mster of his craft, bit in terms of editing, the editor for 127 Hours deserved that more than any of the other film editors. He really had his work cut out for him with those split-screens, the shots of the water in the bottle being sucked through the straw, the editing during the cutting scene, and so on and so forth. The Social Network didn't have very interactive editing. The suspense, subtext, and action for The Social Network was all in the camera moves, the dialogue, and the music.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 31, 2011

I agree, I thought it should have won for best editing, best adapted screenplay, best sound design, and best song.

The screenplay was incredible. Danny Boyle had to write the first draft because the screenwriter was convinced the story was impossible to film. It does seem unfilmable, and just him being able to make it is so impressive.

And the sound! It was the sound that made it so effective, all of the sounds that expressed the sensationg he was feeling during "that scene." Amazing.

JoNightshade · Mar 31, 2011

Okay maybe I'll put this on my queue... honestly I never checked it out because... seriously, who wants to watch 2 hours of a guy stuck under a boulder? I just didn't see the story potential there.

ETA: Also, James Franco looks just like my cousin. So anything he's in kinda freaks me out.

Celia Cyanide · Mar 31, 2011

JoNightshade said:
Okay maybe I'll put this on my queue... honestly I never checked it out because... seriously, who wants to watch 2 hours of a guy stuck under a boulder? I just didn't see the story potential there.

Truthfully, that's what I would have thought too. I never would have watched it if it hadn't been James Franco and Danny Boyle. But it was incredible. It's the story of a young man who realizes he's been pulling away from humanity and taking the people in his life for granted. He has completely resigned himself to the fact that he is going to die, and then becomes determined to live.

JoNightshade said:
ETA: Also, James Franco looks just like my cousin. So anything he's in kinda freaks me out.

Really? Damn! How old is your cousin?

JoNightshade · Apr 1, 2011

Celia Cyanide said:
Really? Damn! How old is your cousin?

Younger'n me, so BACK OFF!

/maternalcrazies

Eumenides · Apr 1, 2011

Celia Cyanide said:
The screenplay was incredible. Danny Boyle had to write the first draft because the screenwriter was convinced the story was impossible to film. It does seem unfilmable, and just him being able to make it is so impressive.

Ah, say that isn't true. Simon Beaufoy is one of my heroes as far as screenwriting goes: The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire. This lack of audacity sort of diminishes him in my eyes

Celia Cyanide · Apr 1, 2011

Eumenides said:
Ah, say that isn't true. Simon Beaufoy is one of my heroes as far as screenwriting goes: The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire. This lack of audacity sort of diminishes him in my eyes

Yeah, I read an article about the screenplay in a screenwriting magazine. I think he is amazing, too. But when Danny Boyle first approached him, he said no. He insisted the story was unfilmable, and asked Boyle to write the first draft to prove to him that there was a movie in there. The end result is a collaboration between both of them.

127 Hours

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