127 Hours (5/5 Stars)

A fatal mistake and plenty of time to think about it.

Life moves fast for most of us and it can sometimes be hard to find a decent amount of time for self-reflection. A chance to slow down, take stock of your life, and learn from your mistakes might just be a blessing in disguise. Some people find that a stint in prison is just what they needed. Aron Ralston has just found himself in such a situation as well. He is in the midst of a life-changing experience, if only he can survive it.

I suppose most people walking into the theater will already know the true story of Aron Ralston, an engineer who was hiking in the Arizona desert when a falling boulder pinned his arm against a canyon wall. Unable to lift the boulder and not having told anybody where he was, he was trapped and helpless for 127 hours. And then he decided to cut off his arm and hike back without it. So he did. This is that story.

“127 Hours,” was directed by Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) and stars James Franco in what is basically a one-man show. The story itself is very limited (Franco unable to move for a long time) but the way it is told is fresh and energetic. Danny Boyle does his usual incredibly innovative editing and camera techniques. My favorite sequence is when Boyle starts at Franco and takes the camera on a fast forward pace through the canyon back to his car and zooms in on the full bottle of Gatorade resting very peacefully in the back. It would be a good idea to bring some water to this movie. You will feel thirsty. James Franco does an incredible job as well. You should go to this movie just to see the look on his face the first couple of seconds after the boulder pins his shoulder. It’s all right there. His life is flashing before his eyes. He will probably get nominated for this role. I never saw “Buried” with Ryan Reynolds, but I would think that these two movies ought to be seen together. Then you can debate who gives the better performance. (By the way, James Franco is one of my heroes. The guy already had a successful career but went back to graduate school at Columbia to get a Masters of Fine Arts. Why? For fun. He’s now working on a P.H.D. in English at Yale. What a cool guy.)

At its most basic level, “127 Hours” is a procedural movie. It treats the dilemma of being stuck between a rock and a hard place not as melodrama but as a problem to be solved. It helps that the real Aron Ralston was an engineer because it allowed his character to be very ingenious about his predicament. He constructs a pulley system, he tries his best to get warm at night, he rations his water, and after awhile he starts to wonder what is the best way to go about cutting off his arm. It also helps that he has brought along his video camera because that way he can explain to us exactly what his plans are. At one point he logically states why he knows that he will be dead before anyone finds him and what, from an engineering standpoint, he will need to get the boulder off his arm. At one point I was reminded of that great scene in “Apollo 13,” when the rocket scientists are asked to figure out how to get a square box in a circular cylinder only using socks and other things in the capsule. This movie is exceedingly interesting from an intellectual point of view. If you are an engineer, you probably will love it.

Then there are those scenes where Franco dwells on all the mistakes he’s made. He forgot his Swiss Army Knife, he didn’t return his mom’s phone call, he didn’t tell the guy at his work where he was going. Then he has even more time to think. He regrets a break up with a girl who said she loved him on a magical night. He apologizes to everyone about everything on the video recorder. He hallucinates and sees his family and friends sitting on a couch and staring at him so very far close and yet so very far away. There’s nothing quite like having a near-death experience to really clear the mind.

It’s true that there is a grisly scene where Franco cuts through his arm, and yes it is graphic and painful to watch. But there is a huge difference between watching this and watching something like “Saw,” or other gruesome horror movies. When you watch “Saw” you really don’t want to see limbs getting hacked off and that’s why it should scare you when it happens (or you do and then I suppose you’d like this movie just for that scene). But in this movie, by the time Franco gets around to cutting off his arm, you want him to do it. I know by that point I was like, “Fuck the arm. Get the hell out of there.” I really doubt Ralston misses it as well. He’s probably just happy to be alive. We all should be.

Slumdog Millionaire 11/22/08

This movie's plot is so simple, so likable, so perfect, and so poignant that one wonders why they haven't seen something like it before. A boy from the slums rises through society by his sheer wits to win the woman of his dreams. Awesome right? Who wouldn't want to see the ultimate underdog triumph and get the girl. This movie is like the love child of 'Forrest Gump' and 'Oliver Twist.' An incredibly good person, born in the worst places and faced with the worst people, has amazing experiences, is continually united and separated with the woman he loves until at the end, he triumphs by wits, luck, and destiny to become rich and win her heart. This movie is incredible. One of the best of the year. I loved this film. 
Funny thing is you won't recognize anybody in it. It all takes place in India and is an all Indian cast. In short, it is a Bollywood film. The only person you may be familiar with is the director Danny Boyle (Millions, 28 days later, Trainspotting). But don't worry, they speak English in India and the film contains as much cross over potential as 'Amelie' or 'City of God.' 
The movie has an ingenious structure. A boy goes on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' He has no formal education. Grown up in a slum and orphaned at a young age, nobody expects him to get past the third round. But somehow he keeps getting the questions right. How is he doing it? We are given four possible answers. A. He cheated B. He's lucky C. He's a genius or D. It is written. The police kidnap and interrogate him on suspicion of A. So he tells his story. In flashbacks we see how his many experiences have given him the answers to random questions he really shouldn't know. 
And in those flashbacks we learn of a girl he is in love with. With whom he considers he is destined. Truly she is one of the most beautiful women in the world. They met at a young age after they were both orphaned. They were separated by evil men that preyed on children. As teenagers, he and his brother saved her from these men. The two were together at last, until brother turned on brother and the girl was stolen once again. Through major effort he finds her again, only to be spurned once more. Will true love find a way? We sure hope so. The hero of this story is so likable its almost unfair. 
Between all of this drama is a riveting eye-opening look at India. We are shown poverty that is incredible, places that look unlivable, and a massive society that is going through a turbulent transformation into modernity. What were slums in the early part of the film turn into skyscrapers under construction in the latter part. We, the audience, are getting a glimpse of a part of the world that we have never seen. This movie is as comparable to India as the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics were to China. 
Through all of this we are guided by the truly masterful strokes of a great director: Danny Boyle. This is his masterpiece. His greatest achievement is to show us scary truth that isn't mired in despair. He will give us sites of landfills, truly evil people, shanties, and widespread pollution. But the tone of the movie is exuberant. The atmosphere is fun and jubilant. There is a true joy of performance in every role. The soundtrack mixes between Indian and Pop effortlessly. I loved it when they played an entire montage to 'Paper Planes' by M.I.A. 
I predict with great conviction that this movie will receive nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and possibly much more. It is hard to tell whether the unknown actors will be recognized, probably not I would say. This is Bollywood's breakthrough movie.

Sunshine 08/04/07

Sunshine is one of the those movies that I wish could have given me more. Here it was teetering on the edge of something of a masterpiece. The visuals are magnificent and the characters are colorful and well drawn (and work heroically without makeup). The science is intelligent and correct. 
The big letdown is the bad guy. He's the crazed captain of Icarus I, the first spaceship that didn't make it, a man named Pinpacker I believe. He's covered with sores after being exposed to too much sun and believes that God that doomed mankind by extinguishing the sun so mankind shouldn't try to reignite it. The only problem with this is that Pinpacker is not a real character. The movie provides no explanation on why a captain would go insane and why his crew would not fight back, or how a man with such limited sanity could be put in charge of the most important mission on in the Solar System. It's somewhat unbelievable and it seems to me that he is more a plot device than an actual character. 
The makers of this movie seem to be really searcing for a plot in order to showcase the special effects, not the other way around. Therefore we get the Earth's smartest engineer making a really stupid decision so the movie can jumpstart the domino sequence of disasters. But that's not enough, because the story has written in very smart characters who can solve these huge problems. That's when the psychotic bad guy comes in handy. He makes sure that the glorious disasters keep coming and coming. 
This movie, in the superior way it was made, reminds one more of classic sci-fi movies than those stupid B-movies found late night on the Sci Fi channel. Movies like 2001:A Space Odyssey and the Alien franchise. The details are the same. The characters look smarter than sexy (even the women). They don't wear makeup and speak convincing scientific possibilities. But in A Space Odyssey it was the computer that went mad. In Alien it was a killer extra-terristrial plus an android. The movie Sunshine, unlike those classics, lacks a true villain, and I think it's mostly because the villain, this time, is a human religious fanatic. The computers, androids, and killer aliens were memorable and scary because they used logic, reason, and instinct to go around killing people. They fit into a perfect science fiction mold. Religious fanatics, bless their souls, do not fit comfortably into a science fiction movie. Keep in mind that good science fiction is based on science fact. Logic, reason, and instinct work. God on the other hand is more spiritual than anything. He does not, bless his soul, fit into the perfect science fiction fold. The crazed fanatic doesn't make any sense. It's not logical. 
No offense, but in space, in the far out future, in a solar winter, in a state of the art spaceship, commandeered by a group of specialists and scientists, God simply does not fit in.