Category: Nominees – 2010s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toy Story 3 – 2010

Wow.  For an animated film that supposedly caters to an audience of children, this film has a lot of remarkably adult themes.  It had action, suspense, deep drama, comedy, and moments that literally brought me to tears.  But despite all this, it is still appropriate for kids.  It is amazingly written, wonderfully animated, and voiced by a fantastic cast of actors.

The Toy Story franchise began back in 1995 with its first installment, and everybody loved its unique story and iconic characters.  In fact, it was the film that really put Pixar Animation Studios on the map and launched an empire.  In 1999 Toy Story 2 came out and while people still loved it, it is generally considered to be inferior to its predecessor.  But now we have the third film in the franchise which brought back most of the old beloved characters, and introduced us to a host of new ones.

In the Toy Story world, toys are alive, each with their own personality and their own relationships to each other.  They are animate when no human eye can see them, but inanimate when a living being in in their vicinity.  All toys are like this, though the franchise follows the toys of a young man named Andy.  As the franchise continues to progress, Andy grows up, and like we all do, he begins to leave his childhood toys behind.

Andy’s favorite toy has always been the cowboy, Woody, voiced by Tom Hanks.  But coming in at a close second, is Buzz Lightyear, the galactic space hero, voiced by Tim Allen.  Other toys include the cowgirl Jessie, voiced by Joan Cusack, Don Rickles and Estelle Harris as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Blake Clark as Slinky Dog, Wallace Shawn as Rex, John Ratzenberger as Hamm.  And of course, the film’s main antagonist, Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear, voiced by Ned Beatty.  Other big names like Timothy Dalton, Kristen Schaal, Bonnie Hunt, Whoopi Goldberg, and Laurie Metcalf voiced other toys.

Special props have to be given to Hanks and Allen for the wonderful characters that they bring to life.  Very well done.  And just think, Paul Newman was considered for the role of Woody, and Billy Crystal, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Jim Carrey were all considered for the part of Buzz.  How different would the films have been?

So what was it about the third installment of the franchise that earned it a Best Picture nomination?  And let me say that I believe the nomination was completely deserved.  I think it was two specific things.  First, there was the powerful scene in which the toys almost died.  And second was the end of the movie in which Andy gives his toys to a young child who will love them and take care of them.  My goodness!  Both of those scenes were spectacular.

Let’s take a quick look.  So the story begins as Andy is getting ready to go to college.  His toys think they are getting put in the attic where they will spend the rest of their lives pining for the days when Andy used to play with them, because, after all, a toy is only truly happy when it is being played with.  Instead, they are given to Sunnyside Daycare center. There, they meet Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear.  He is an evil tyrant who rules the toys of Sunnyside with an iron plush paw.

Eventually, Andy’s toys make an exciting escape, but end up in a garbage dump.  While there, they are all trapped on a mountain of garbage as it is being fed into an incinerator.  As the terrified toys stare their own immolation, their own deaths in the face, they realize that there is no escape.  The adventures are all over.  Together they hold each other’s hands and wait to be thrown into the hellish pit of fire.  AND THIS IS A KIDS MOVIE!?!?

Of course they are saved at the last instant, and they make it home just in time to jump into the box slated to go to the attic.  But here is where the movie brought me to tears.  Woody has a burst of inspiration and marks the box, not to be sent to the attic, but to the home of a little girl named Bonnie, who will love the toys and take care of them, giving them all a second life.  The scene in which Andy gives the toys to Bonnie was sweetly and sensitively done.  As he introduces them all to the child, he remembers all the fun he had playing with them when he was young.  And one last time, Andy plays with his toys, giving them the only thing they ever wanted.  The feeling of love and innocence was marvelously portrayed, and Pixar should be proud of the work they did.  In fact, everyone at Pixar should be commended for some pretty phenomenal work, from Lee Unkrich, the director, to the writers, to the animators.  Well done everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Social Network – 2010

This movie was supposed to be based on the true story of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and the legal issues surrounding the popular website, Facebook.  It was pretty good, even though, according to the real players in the drama, it was mostly a fictional story.  I have to mention this right off the bat because in my research I found it interesting to note that Zuckerberg, himself, and Facebook’s co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, both say that about the only thing the movie got right was the clothes that the characters were wearing.  If that were true, it would be sad.  I wasn’t expecting a documentary, but I did expect more than accurate costumes.

Except that in my research, I found there was much more accuracy in the plot than Zuckerberg and Saverin claimed.  The basic plot points were all true.  Character motivations and even personalities were surely fabricated, and events might have been dramatized, but the basic story was pretty accurate.  So what did the movie get right, and what did it get wrong?  In the movie, Zuckerberg was played by Jesse Eisenberg.  He is portrayed as a geek without an ounce of social skill.  He is insensitive and mean to everyone.  He is so socially inept that he has no friends, alienates nearly everyone around him, and can’t keep a girlfriend.  There is nothing I could find to support this as an accurate portrayal.

When his girlfriend breaks up with him for being a complete jerk, he gets drunk and creates a degrading website called Facemash which allows college students to rate the prettiness of girls against each other.  To do this, he hacked into digital profiles from different Harvard campus websites to gain access to photographs of female students.  While he did get drunk and create Facemash, the bit about the breakup with his girlfriend was made up.

By creating Facemash, he offends nearly every girl on the Harvard campus, but his brilliant hacking skills and the popularity of Facemash do not go unnoticed by a couple of his fellow Harvard grad students, the Winklevoss twins, both of whom were played by Armie Hammer.  The twins hire Zuckerberg to create a website that is like Facebook for the Harvard campus.  As Zuckerberg begins to write the code for them, he gets the idea to go bigger and create the beginnings of what we know today as Facebook.  This is all true.

Zuckerberg works on the code for Facebook and neglects his agreement with the Winklevoss twins.  When he needs seed money to create Facebook, he goes to his only friend, Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, who gives him $1,000.  As Facebook went live and began to spread like wildfire, Saverin was named the company’s chief financial officer and business manager.  All True.

As the business grows, more money is needed, and Saverin ponies up with $19,000. But the company is ready to expand beyond the confines of Harvard.  To do this, they approach the creator of the music sharing website, Napster.  His name is Sean Parker, played by Justin Timberlake.  He is the real bad boy of the movie, both figuratively and literally, portrayed as a partier and a drug addict, though he also does what he is hired to do.  More than that, he convinces Zuckerberg to make Facebook a global, multi-billion dollar business.  This is also all true.

Parker convinces Zuckerberg to cruelly cut Saverin out of the Facebook business, screwing him out of millions of dollars.  Saverin sues Zuckerberg for being set-up to sign away his financial holdings in the company.  In the meantime, the Winklevoss twins go out of their way to sue Zuckerberg for stealing their Harvard Connection idea to create Facebook in the first place.  Parker gets arrested for suspected drug possession and is forced to resign as President of Facebook.  All true.

So, I think what Mr. Zuckerberg objects to and claims to be untrue, is the way he was portrayed in the film.  He is not a complete jerk.  But portraying him as one made the movie more dramatic.  After all the legal depositions were done, junior lawyer Marylin Delpy, played by Rashida Jones, says to him, “You’re not an A-HOLE, Mark.  You’re just trying so hard to be.”

But I beg to differ.  The way he was portrayed in the movie, he was absolutely an A-HOLE.  He lied to people, and betrayed his friend.  He was insensitive, condescending, and heartless.  He considered himself intellectually superior to everyone around him and treated them accordingly.  However, this was absolutely not true.  But when you watch this movie, keep in mind… though characters and their motivations are fabricated, most of the plot points are quite accurate.  Don’t the true events portrayed in the film say something about the real people upon which the characters are based?  Think about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kids are All Right – 2010

This was a smaller film with a simpler plot.  No epic grandeur, no suspense or thrills.  Just an easy story with a bit of mild drama, a bit of light comedy, and some fine acting.  There were a couple of big names like Julianne Moore, Anette Bening, and Mark Ruffalo, and a few young newcomers like Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson.

The story was centered around a lesbian relationship, but was not about homosexuality.  Bening and Moore played the moms, Dr. Nicole “Nic” Allgood and Jules Allgood.  Wasikowska and Hutcherson played their two children, Joni and Laser, both products of artificial insemination.  The sperm donor was named Paul Hatfield, played by Ruffalo.  As Joni is turning eighteen and is getting ready to leave for college, fifteen-year-old Laser decides that he wants to know who his biological father is.  Without telling their moms, the two contact Paul and meet him in person.

The awkwardness inherent in the scene is made worse by the fact that Paul seems to be a bit of a loser.  True, he owns and manages a successful restaurant, but he also places little value on formal education, is not married, and frequently has sex with multiple partners.  He is often unshaven and unkempt, and talks with a slight slur in his words, almost as if he is always high on marijuana.

When the moms find out what their kids have done, they invite Paul over for dinner, and hijinks ensue.  At first the results are mildly comical and awkward.  Paul’s carefree attitude grates against Nic’s smart, sharp, aggressive, and very structured personality.  However, it seems to find a kindred spirit in Jules’ loose, hipster, almost scatterbrained, persona.

To make a long story short, Paul becomes friends with the kids, begins an affair with Jules, and throws everyone’s lives into turmoil.  But in the end, Nic finds out about Jules’ infidelity, the kids reject Paul, and after more than a few tears, the family is brought together again when Joni leaves for college.  It is a story about how hard work, sacrifice, and forgiveness are strong tools that are necessary to keep a loving family together.

I found it interesting that the film tried to show how Paul was the main reason the family nearly imploded.  I admit that he was the match that lit the fuse, but the powder keg was already there.  The Allgood family looked fine from the outside, but there were seeds of discontent before Paul arrived.  For one thing, Nic tended to drink too much wine.  Jules felt inadequate to the way Nic supported the entire family financially.  Their squabbling and angry comments to each other seemed to me to be clear evidence of this.  Nic was an overbearing and controlling parent, and Joni, who had always been the perfect daughter, was, like many teenagers, ready to rebel and exert her own independence.  Paul was just the catalyst which brought the family’s underlying problems to the surface.

The entire cast did a fine job, as did the film’s director, Lisa Cholodenko.  Apparently, Cholodenko wrote the screenplay, which was loosely based on her own experiences.  Bening won the Golden Globe award for her performance, and both she and Ruffalo were nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, at the Academy Awards.

And lest I forget, I’d like to mention a few of the supporting cast who deserve to be recognized.  Yaya DaCosta played Tanya, one of Paul’s employees, and also one of his lovers.  Laser’s loser, druggie friend Clay was played by Eddie Hassell.  He played the moron almost too believably.  Then there was Zosia Mamet playing Joni’s sex obsessed friend, Sasha.  And finally, we have Kunai Sharma playing the part of Jai, the boy who has a crush on Joni.

Overall, the movie was just like the kids.  It was alright.  It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad.  So why was it nominated for Best Picture?  It wasn’t the script.  As a comedy, it wasn’t very funny.  As a drama, it wasn’t overly dramatic.  It wasn’t especially insightful or suspenseful.  Really, all it seemed to have going for it was the great acting and a mildly interesting plot.  I’m just not sure why it was considered for the top prize.  It seemed to lack something, but I’m not exactly sure what.

And as a final thought, I noticed that the film seemed to take every opportunity to show the dysfunctional nature of nearly all of the characters, by dropping the “F-You” bomb as much as possible.  I’m surprised that such harsh language was used so casually between family members, friends, and lovers, and also by how often as it was used.  Isn’t that a phrase usually reserved for enemies?  I’m just saying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inception – 2010

Oh my goodness! This movie really messes with your head. It’s an intellectual science fiction thriller, and I’ve always enjoyed intellectual movies, movies that make you think, movies that stick with you after the final credits.  Inception is an exciting study in suspense and dramatic tension.  I loved it!  The film boasted some pretty big names, like Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen page, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine. The actual plot of the film was so complex that I’m not even going to attempt to give a synopsis of it in this review. If you want that, visit Wikipedia.  Instead, I will explore a few of the movie’s themes, and explain what made them so fascinating to me.

The movie dealt with corporate espionage, by kidnapping someone, putting them to sleep and dreams, and then inserting outside agents into those dreams to extract information. Once the process was complete, the victim would never even know that he’d given his secrets away, and imagining the entire experience to be nothing more than a dream. But what made it so complicated, is the concept of the dream within a dream. You see, when a dream was being invaded, the subject would think he was still awake, and everything in it would seem real. But what if, you put that person’s dream self to sleep forcing him to have another dream?  You can see how multiple levels of dreaming are now possible.

And according to the rules of this fictional universe, the more levels of dreaming there, the more time difference there is between the different levels.  For me this was one of the cleverest aspects of the film, because think about it.  If you fall asleep for a few minutes, your dream can feel like it lasted hours, right?  So if you go into a dream within a dream, it would make sense that the deeper dream levels might last months or years compared to the waking world, right?  This time displacement effect plays an important part in the overall plot.

DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a man wrongfully accused of his wife’s murder.  She is played by Cotillard.  Mal had actually committed suicide because she thought she was still in an extended dream, and death would be her only way to wake up.  Because of this he can never go home to see his children in America.

Dom and his specialized team are hired not to extract information from Robert Fischer’s, played by Cillian Murphy, subconscious, but to plant a suggestion into his head.  In order to leave no footprints, and to make the suggestion seem like it came from Robert’s own subconscious, they went deeper. Much deeper. In fact, though they only intended to go three levels deep, they are forced to go four.  The problem with such a dangerous procedure, is that the team invading Robert’s dreams began to lose hold on reality.

What made the movie so fascinating, is that each level of dreaming, was a completely different and distinct reality. You follow the various characters from one dream sequence to another, while others are left behind in different levels of the inception process to dream the next level. Add to that the fact that what happens to someone in one level has an effect on what happens to them on the next level. For example, while in the first level of inception, the characters were sleeping in a van involved in a car chase.  When the van started to roll off the road, the characters in the second level of dreaming experienced weightlessness and a shift in gravity. It was a devilishly tricky concept to grasp, but so well thought out.  It also made for some pretty stunning visual effects with rooms rotating and people trying to function when gravity no longer obeys the laws of physics.  Just amazingly done!

But the end of the film is what really leaves viewers with the most questions.  In order to exonerate himself of his wife’s untimely death, Dom, accompanied by Ariadne, played by Page, must go deep into his own subconscious where he must interact with the memory of Mal to save the man who can clear his name.  I know, it gets pretty confusing.  As a way of determining whether he is in a dream or if he is awake, Dom has a totem.  It is a tiny top which, if he is dreaming will spin without stopping.  If he spins the top and it stops, he knows he is awake.  In the end we see everyone come out of the various levels of dreaming except Dom.  We see him start the top spinning.  But when he sees his children, he walks away and before we see whether the top stops spinning or not, we cut to the credits, leaving the big question: did he ever make it out of the dream, or is he doomed to live in a dream for countless years?  But really, whether he got out is not the point of the ending.  The point is that he walked away from the top.  He no longer cared whether he was in the dream or reality, as long as he was with his children.  Personally, I think he got out.  But that’s just my opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fighter – 2010

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this movie, and overall it wasn’t bad.  I’d say its biggest problem was something that it seems to share with many sports movies.  It was entirely predictable.  I didn’t know the details, but I knew the end before it even began, which is why I usually try to avoid sports movies.  See, sports movies are generally supposed to be inspirational, displaying the triumph of the human spirit, a story that has been told countless times.

He or she is an underdog.  Life has gotten them down, and winning at the sport becomes a metaphor for the athlete triumphing over their personal demons.  They start out in the gutter, try to turn their career around.  They meet someone who they fall in love with.  They have a little success, but also a few set-backs.  Their confidence is shaken, but the love interest inspires them to do something unexpected, giving the athlete what is needed to with the last battle.

The Fighter followed suit, for the most part.  There was very little surprise.  The sport was, of course, boxing, and the film was based on the true story of Micky Ward, Light Welterweight World Champion in 1997.  He was played by Mark Wahlberg who really bulked up for the role.  Micky grew up in Lowell Massachusetts.  His mother, Alice, played by Melissa Leo, is his manager.  She is little better than a piece of chain-smoking white trash.  His older brother, Dicky, is his trainer.  Dicky, played by Christian Bale, also used to be a boxer who’d once had a fight with the famous Sugar Ray Loenard.  His claim to fame isn’t that he won the fight, but that he knocked Sugar Ray down.  Once.  Now, Alice and Dicky are Micky’s greatest liabilities. As a manager, Alice gets him into fights that he cannot win.  As a trainer, Dicky, who is a jittery crack addict, is careless and unreliable.

Then there is the aforementioned love interest, Charlene, played by Amy Adams.  She was portrayed as white trash, but with a mind and a desire to better herself.  She seemed to genuinely love Micky and had his best interest at heart.  When Micky is ready to throw in the towel, she gets him to keep trying.  And I liked the way their relationship was developed.

So if the boxing aspect of the film was predictable, why was it nominated for Best Picture?  It was three things: the perfectly choreographed boxing sequences, the subplot about Dicky’s drug addiction, and the wonderful acting.  Together, they gave the film realism, something serious to focus on other than the predictable boxing, and credibility.  Director, David O. Russell, was inspired by other boxing films like Martin Scorsese’s 1980 Best Picture nominee, Raging Bull, and the 1976 Best Picture winner, Rocky.  Russell, who is a fan of the sport, said that he wanted the boxing matches to be even more realistic than the ones seen in those films, and critics seem to agree that he was successful.

Second, Dicky’s drug addiction was a major sub-plot, and Bale, an actor known for completely immersing himself in his roles, really turned in a perfect performance.  He apparently studied the real Dicky Eklund’s boxing videos and the HBO documentary, High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell, which featured the real Dicky, and which was written into the plot of The Fighter, and copied his mannerisms flawlessly.  This leads me into the third laudable aspect of the film, the acting.  Bale’s performance was so good that he took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.  And he wasn’t the only one.  Melissa Leo also took home the award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Alice.  In addition, Amy Adams was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

Other actors who deserve to be recognized were Jack McGee as George Ward, Micky’s father, and Mickey O’Keefe, a Lowell City Police Sergeant who served as Mickey’s trainer after Mickey turned away from Dicky and Alice.  An interesting note about O’Keefe is that the actor was playing himself.  He had never acted before, but Wahlberg convinced him to take the part, telling him that he could do it because as a police officer, he has to act and think fast on his feet.

And lest I forget, lest anyone forgets, I have to mention something strange.  As I was looking up the cast list on Wikipedia, someone seemed to be left out.  The actor who played Micky’s rival in the ring for the fight that earned him the championship title, is not mentioned.  Even the character’s name was absent from the plot synopsis.  So I looked on IMDB, and almost at the bottom of the expanded cast list, shown only as Neary, is the name of the actor who played the Liverpool-born boxer, Shea Neary.  Sure, Anthony Molinari didn’t have a lot of screen time, but he was an integral part of the film’s climax.  You’d think he would deserve a little credit.  Well, here it is.  Well done, Anthony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Swan – 2010

This was another movie about ballet, following other Best Picture nominees such as 1948’s The Red Shoes, and 1977’s The Turning Point.  What sets this one apart is that it is a psychological horror film.  Most of the camera work is hand-held, making if feel almost like you are a participant in the disturbing story rather than an observer.  The main protagonist is Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman.  She is a ballerina who dances with a prestigious company in New York who is opening their new season with Swan Lake.

When encountering ballet, it seems to me that Swan Lake is widely considered the pinnacle of the craft.  It embodies the art form more completely than any other production.  It is implied that the dancer playing the role of the Swan Queen must have the ability to sacrifice her soul to the part to achieve artistic perfection.  Certainly this is the attitude of Nina when she is cast in the demanding role.

The problem is that she is mentally unbalanced to begin with, and it is implied that it is her obsessive desire for supreme perfection as a dancer, coupled with a healthy dose of bulimia, which is the cause of her emotional and mental instability.  Her compulsive need to achieve this perfection drives her to lose her hold on reality.  She begins to have terrifying hallucinations, bouts of extreme paranoia, and intense waking dreams of a very sexual nature.  Aside from the thrashed feet from the toe dancing and the bulimic vomiting, she also has to deal with a neurotic habit of scratching the back of her shoulder bloody without remembering having done so.

Her mother, Erica, played by Barbara Hershey, is the stereotypical mother of the ballerina.  She could have been a star in her youth, but she gave up her career as a dancer to have her daughter.  So now she pushes her daughter to extremes to reach the heights she never achieved.  The sexual predator disguised as the company’s director, Thomas Leroy, played by Vincent Cassel, forces himself on her, using the excuse that he is trying to get her to let go of her sexual inhibitions in order to truly embody the part of the Swan Queen.

And then there is the rival dancer, Nina’s understudy, Lilly, played by Mila Kunis.  Apparently, Nina has the emotional fragility to play the White Swan, but lacks the innate wildness to play the Black Swan, both of which must be portrayed by the same ballerina.  But Lilly is a free spirit.  She is not as perfect a dancer as Nina, but she has the emotionally uninhibited sexual energy Leroy wants in the persona of the Black Swan.  And lest I forget, Winona Ryder played the part of Beth, the member of the dance company who was getting too old to dance, and after being forced out of the company, threw herself in front of a car.

The climax of the drama wasn’t so much horror as it was suspense.  On opening night, Nina’s paranoid hallucinations become homicidal.  Thinking that Lilly is trying to become her and take her place in the show, she fights with her, breaking a mirror in the process.  She uses a jagged shard of glass to stab the other girl to death and hides her body.  But then we are thrown for a loop when Lilly shows up at her dressing room door to congratulate her on her perfect performance in the first half of the show.

I thought that she had mistaken her mother for Lilly and murdered her instead, but when she checks on the body, there is nothing there.  The mirror is still broken.  It turns out that she stabbed herself, murdering not Lilly or her mother, but the part of her own emotional psyche that was holding her back from performing the part of the Black Swan, thus enabling her to dance the part perfectly.  After performing the second half of the ballet flawlessly, she dies from a real stab wound.  Apparently she danced the part of the Black Swan with a piece of broken glass in her abdomen.  Realistic?  No.  But it made for interesting psychological drama.

I honestly don’t know much about ballet.  I wouldn’t know the difference between good ballet and great ballet.  To me, they both look pretty much the same.  But after watching so many movies that were nominated for Best Picture, I have a pretty good eye for acting, and Portman really delivered.  She takes you on a journey through Nina’s madness.  She has a very expressive face and she did a great job with the complex emotions that the role demanded.  In fact, Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the part, and I daresay she deserved it.

It is interesting to note that in my research, I learned that though both Portman and Kunis spent six months before filming taking ballet classes, and many people believed that the two did their own dancing for the movie, the real dancing was done by dance doubles, Sarah Lane, Maria Riccetto, and Kimberly Prosa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

127 Hours – 2010

I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would.  Why?  Because I have never been a huge fan of James Franco.  I’ll admit I haven’t seen many of his movies, but the ones I have seen didn’t impress me.  He is one of those actors about whom I have always wondered why he has such a successful Hollywood career.  Now, concerning Franco, I have a little inkling as to why.  This film was based on a true story, and I’d say that ninety percent of the film was just one character, Aaron Ralston played by Franco.  He is one of those people who loves hiking, swimming, climbing, biking, and camping, and being outdoors, all things that I am opposed to in my own life.  That was strike two for me.  So right off the bat, I was instinctively uninterested in the film.  But I checked myself and tried my best to get over my personal prejudices and enjoy the drama.

But I found that James Franco and a story about an arrogant thrill seeker seemed to be a perfect match.  Franco played his part perfectly and I was properly impressed.  Not only did he really look the part, but he displayed a dramatic depth that I was not expecting.  You see, as he is hiking alone in the wastelands of Utah, he falls down into a canyon along with a heavy boulder.  His right hand gets crushed and wedged between the falling boulder and the canyon wall.  He is stuck.

At first he is just afraid of the damage done to his limb.  He tries to move the huge rock, but it won’t budge.  As the reality of his situation begins to settle in, he realizes that if he cannot free his hand, he might very well die in the canyon.  Just imagine how terrifying it would be!  And to make matters worse, he realizes that he never told anyone where he was going.  Nobody would even know where to look for him.  What follows is Aaron’s struggle to remain calm, clear headed, and alive.

He goes through a wide range of emotions, which Franco handled well.  Fear, determination, hallucinations, starvation, resignation, regret, and hope, all combined to take Aaron on a journey that tested his ingenuity, his sanity, and survival skills.  He rationed his water and what little food he carried in his backpack.  He had a small handheld video camera which he used to make a video diary of his situation, which eventually turned into a farewell video to his family.  His thoughts strayed from friends he had met, a failed relationship, and even the two hikers he had met the day before his ordeal had begun, Kristi and Megan, played by Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn.  He had a dream about rain water coming down so hard that the canyon flooded, causing the boulder to shift enough to free his hand.

He skirted around the edges of madness until finally accepting his only horrifying chance for survival.  After 127 hours, more than five days, stuck in the tiny little canyon, he did what he had to do.  First, he used the few pieces of equipment he’d been carrying in his backpack to make a tourniquet around his arm.  Next, was able to break the two bones in his arm.  Then, using a dull pocket knife, he slowly cut through the flesh of the arm, finally severing it several inches below the elbow.

I try to imagine myself in his situation, and I don’t know if I could have done what he did.  Could I have endured the pain of breaking my bones and cutting off my hand to survive?  The survival instinct is strong and Aaron did what he had to do.  It made for some good drama.  After he was free, he took a picture of the remains of his hand and arm, then left the canyon to search for water.  With his stump wrapped in a plastic bag, he repels down a sixty-five foot cliff before finding a fetid pool of rain water.  He then strikes out into the desert and finds a group of hikers who are able to give him clean water and call for help.  A helicopter arrives to air-lift him to safety and medical attention.

As I said, I was impressed with Franco’s performance.  According to the real Aaron Ralston, the movie was so accurate and well-executed, he thought he could have been watching a documentary about his terrifying experience.  Just as an interesting note, the real Ralston eventually went back to the canyon.   It took thirteen men, a winch, and a hydraulic jack to move the boulder and free the severed hand.  The limb was then cremated and the ashes were scattered into the canyon where Ralston says they belong.

And in regards to the film, Ralston says that the horrific amputation scene is what most people remember about the movie, and they are missing the point.  He said that everything you see onscreen, the arrogant, selfish guy who goes into that canyon and the grateful man who walks out, having spent days in this beautiful remote place without humans, trying to reach out to other humans in his life via a camcorder, is true.  He says, “It’s not a nightmare at all. It’s perhaps the most beautiful story I’ll get to experience in my life.”  I couldn’t agree more.  And also… always let someone know where you are going.