Self Mutilation Can Be a Good Thing


In 94 minutes, I experienced 127 Hours of Aron Ralston’s life through a camera fixated on James Franco’s face.  Danny Boyle directed this movie that is up for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.  It’s about a man named Aron Ralston who is climbing through a canyon filled landscape and ends up with his arm pinned between a rock and a hard place.

I have to say, James Franco’s performance was amazing.  As much as I like Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network, I feel like Franco did a better job portraying a man in a dire situation.  You felt the pain, the insanity, and the turmoil through what Franco expressed.  This is one of the few films that can actually cause me pain while I watch it, and I respect 127 Hours for that.

Dwayne Johnson also did an excellent job in this film, keeping Aron Ralston’s arm against that canyon wall.  The strength he exerted through the film showed how he has developed as an actor.  I don’t know anybody else who could have played the rock as well as Dwayne Johnson.  Perfect casting choice for the film.

The music was...music to my ears.  Sure, all music is music to your ears, but this was more than just a radio friendly song.  The song played at the beginning of the film caused me to delay watching the rest of the film for about twenty minutes while I attempted to find a way to get that song.  About halfway through the film there was a song that made me feel that I should donate money to a child living in a third world country.  Strangely, neither song took me completely out of the film.  They heightened the emotional level that the film was getting to.

This is definitely one of my favourite films of the year.  The only problem I had was the underuse of Lizzy Caplan.  She brought some presence to the character she played but she didn’t get any lines and was only in the film for twenty three seconds.  On my flickchart, 127 Hours is right below Snatch and right above I Love You Man, in the 246 spot.  My Flickchart still seems to be off.  But that’s how it sits right now.

I completed my goal of watching all of the best picture nominees before the Academy Awards by watching this film.  I have now seen all ten nominees.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Time Watches: March 2019

Image
I’ve been writing these first-time watch posts for a long time. They are a chronicle, month by month, of the movies that are new to me. They could be theatrical releases or they could be older movies that I’m finally getting around to. Either way, they’re fresh to my eyes, never having gone through them before. With that comes pleasant surprise, a great experience, disappointment, or frustration. There could be many more emotions as well. These posts share my emotions from having watched the movies with whoever decides to read them. I fell behind on these posts a long time ago and have been trying to work my way through them to eventually catch up. This post will cover March 2019 and the movies I saw for the first time over the course of that month. Any rewatches will not be a part of this post. If they aren’t first time watches, they don’t count. March was a month full of all kinds of movies. There were good and bad, like usual, and a variety of genres, also like usual. Th...
Read more

Is "Real Steel" Like "Over the Top"?

When I was going through my weekly movie binge a couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon two movies that I had never seen before that tackled a very similar story.   It was an odd thing to have happen because I didn’t know of any similarities between the two movies.   The first was Real Steel, a movie about a man who participates in robot boxing while bonding with the son that he had left years before.   The second was Over the Top, a movie about a man who participates in arm wrestling while bonding with the son that he had left years before.   Similar?   I think so. Let’s begin with Real Steel.   I watched this one because, why the hell not?   I quite enjoyed the movie and by the end I was rooting for Hugh Jackman’s character to help his robot, Atom, to a victory.   The thing to point out about Real Steel is how good the visual effects were.   I wasn’t expecting too much going in, but I thought they masterfully crafted each robot in a way that...
Read more

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 2, Episode 8: The Power Stealer

Image
Last time we sat down with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers , Tommy was going through some serious stuff.   His powers were running low because Lord Zedd was targeting him.   He felt hopeless.   His friends were comforting him.   There was also a Robo Goat trying to take a powerful sword and use it against the Earth.   There were fights all over the place and an emotional hook that was unmatched in any episode that wasn’t in a multi-part arc. This episode, there might be follow-up to the Tommy storyline.   It would be nice to see more of the struggle with his powers.   Right now, that’s the one throughline that has been playing out.   II hope this episode continues to have some sort of meaning to the overall story, instead of being a self-contained and meaningless.   The show needs to grow and evolve, with a storyline that builds to something significant.   Having episodes that keep the story at a standstill is boring.   ...
Read more