Review: Danny Boyle's exhilarating "127 Hours"

As hokey as it sounds, "127 Hours" is the kind of movie that makes you (or at least me) think about what constitutes a "perfect day," and for me the day I saw Danny Boyle's fairly amazing new flick was one of them.

For a brief replay, here goes: A rare Friday off beginning with a mile swim (about as close as I'll ever get to the kind of extreme sports Aron Ralston likes), a trip to Atlanta to see "127 Hours" and eat at the Original Pancake House (a Texas crepe - excellent), then home again to watch "Winter's Bone" on the Blue Ray, which on second viewing still stands up as the best movie of 2010.

I tell you all that to tell you this: One of the many charms of Boyle's movie is that we are dropped right into the middle of what we can tell is at least at the beginning Ralston's perfect day, and Boyle dives into it with every trick in his bag (and a few too many, but I'll get into that later.) It's the energy that flows throughout the flick, before, during and after the nightmare we all know is coming, that makes this not just watchable but often a real joy to behold, even when it's only James Franco on screen alone for long stretches.

It's both Franco and Boyle that give this flick, right from the start, the trademark of Boyle's best movies, unvarnished - yet always unsentimental - optimism. Filmed (rather amazingly, given its cohesive feel) by two directors of photography, Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, the Utah landscape Ralston gleefully rides into comes to vibrant and beautiful life, and Franco embraces it with all the goofy energy he can muster.

And just when you're thinking Ralston's ideal day couldn't get any better, he runs into two beautiful young women, played by Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara, who just happen to be lost (yes, if this weren't certainly a true story, it does often seem completely unbelievable), leading to one of the movie's best - and most prescient - scenes: When the three of them do a several hundred foot freefall between two rock walls into a clear blue pool of water. This moment just perfectly captures the mix of fear and exhilaration that drives "127 Hours."

But as sunny and fun as all this is, we know it's all just a 30-minute-or-so setup for what we know is coming (I'm going to have to assume anyone reading already knows), the moment when Ralston, having left his new friends behind, falls into a very narrow valley and gets his arm pinned under a boulder for the titular "127 Hours." Now, I've never seen "Castaway," because I just couldn't bring myself to watch Tom Hanks on screen alone for nearly two hours, so I can't make any comparison, but I can tell you that for several reasons, "127 Hours" doesn't become any less engaging once it's Franco all alone for a very long stretch.

First up is the work of Boyle's two cinematographers, who take us right into the hole with Franco, and with acute use of camera angles, make it feel just as uncomfortable for us as it was for Ralston. And Boyle himself makes a wise choice in not using anything approaching standard flashbacks as Ralston's mind inevitably starts to wander when left to its own devices. Instead, we get several arresting flights of fancy, including a vision of Ralston's future and, best of all, a feel-good montage of soda pop commercials that take his mind away for a little while.

Inevitably I suppose, Boyle does occasionally get bored with this scenario, and lets his hunger for camera tricks get the better of him on a few occasions, particularly with the use of water. Yes, we get it, when water flows it can look really cool on screen, but by the fourth or fifth (or yes, maybe as many as 10th) time, it just gets extremely old.

But what really holds this all together as a cohesive work is Franco himself, and after watching him and thinking about it, I really couldn't think of anyone else who could have pulled this off. I saw an interview with him in which he said Boyle almost didn't hire him because the director thought he was high. That's funny in itself, but it also perfectly captures the mood Ralston is in when this adventure begins.

Once its just him on screen, Franco lets his performance naturally turn more introspective, always leavened with enough humor to make this all go down so well, especially when he interviews himself and lays out exactly why the trip was so ill-fated to begin with. He makes it a coming-of-age tale that's at times very poignant, and unless Colin Firth manages to swipe it away from him, will most likely have co-host Franco (with Anne Hathaway - enough pretty for you?) celebrating on Oscar night.

And, of course, there's one more thing to deal with, and if you don't know what happened to Ralston, please DON'T READ THIS PARAGRAPH. Knowing what Ralston had to do to get out of that hole, I had my sweater in my hands, ready to cover my eyes (and it did at several points - yes, I'm just a big wuss.) Though Boyle certainly could have made it more bloody, he nonetheless makes it very hard to watch as Ralston methodically saws off his own arm with the smallest of pocket knives. Grueling to watch, for sure, but the payoff when Ralston finally works his way out and back to the light of day is more than worth the squirming in your seat.

The bottom line: This isn't Danny Boyle's best movie (for me those are still "Trainspotting' and "Shallow Grave"), but it's one brimming with energy and great storytelling. Highly recommended for a perfect movie day. Peace out.

Tuesday tidbits, a visit from Wallace & Gromit, and why today should be a national holiday

Actually, let's start with the latter, because this is indeed a day so glorious that I should get the day off: After tonight, Jay Leno will no longer be polluting the airwaves at an hour when I'm still awake.

I suppose it's rude to kick a man when he's down, but what he and NBC tried to do to prime time was so atrocious, there's really nothing else to do but celebrate its demise. And though I realize he comes out of it as kind of a winner, since he gets to return to the wounded and almost dead duck that is "The Tonight Show," at least it will be at an hour by which I'm almost always fast asleep.

And though Time magazine actually hailed him as "the future of television" on a serious cover (and I have yet to see any apology for that), this Entertainment Weekly cover sums up the situation much more accurately (and is much, much funnier too), so I'll just let that speak for itself. Enjoy, and even though you surely have to work today, take some solace from the fact that today is V-JL Day (Victory over Jay Leno, of course, and I can take credit for that bit of silliness.)

And what I have after that today is news about three directors I like to varying degrees, in order of just how much I like them, and two videos, one the promised "Wallace & Gromit" bit and the other some madness about Colin Farrell and a mermaid (yes, really.)

First up is Thom McCarthy, who is easily one of my favorite directors working today. He's also an actor, and you may recognize him from his work on "The Wire" and various movies (including somehow, if I'm not mistaken, "2012"!)

As for the movies he's directed himself, there are two that I know of, and I love them both. "The Station Agent" is a sublime little movie, but even better is "The Visitor," easily one of my favorite movies of 2007 and featuring a well-deserved, Oscar-nominated turn by Richard Jenkins (who will somehow now be appearing in the thoroughly unnecessary American remake of "Let the Right One In" - Ack!) If you've never seen this one, I highly recommend it, because you'll find few better stories about immigration in America and the human face of it we so often strive to simply ignore.

And now it seems McCarthy is amping up to direct again, though this time with something completely different and much lighter.

In a tale apparently drawn directly from his own experiences, and in what sounds slightly like a white version of "The Blind Side," McCarthy is now working on a "light-hearted comedy" called "Win Win," which will be "about how a rough-and-tumble runaway changes the lives of a suburban New Jersey family and turns around the luck of a high school wrestling team," according to the always reliable The Playlist. The runaway wasn't McCarthy, but instead one of his childhood friends.

That certainly sounds like it has the potential for mawkishness, but I have full faith in McCarthy, and as someone who at least tried to wrestle in high school, the subject itself intrigues me. Paul Giamatti is apparently on board, presumably as the wrestling coach (perfect), and he and McCarthy are now out scouting unknown actors for the lead role, with an early March start to filming in New York and New Jersey. I can't imagine too many aspiring high school wrestlers read this, but if so, now is your big shot, I guess.

When I saw this next bit about the return of Peter Bogdanovich, I had to visit the IMDB to see when he had last a) made a feature film and b) made one that I've seen. The answers are: a) in 2001, which something called "Cat's Meow" and b) in 1973 and '74 with, respectively, "Paper Moon" and "Daisy Miller."

Even so, when you add to those "The Last Picture Show" and the perfectly silly "Targets," I think you can certainly list Bogdanovich as a great American director, so news of his potential return to the big screen is worth noting.

According to Variety, he's writing and directing an adaption of Kurt Andersen's novel "Turn of the Century," which I can't say I've read. Set in February 2000, it apparently focuses on a Manhattan power couple and their three private school kids. As details go, that sounds pretty far from exciting, but I'm betting Bogdanovich will turn this into something worth watching when filming starts in New York in spring 2011 (though with actual filming that far away, I suppose I should say "if" it starts.)

And finally, in something that's coming together very quickly, it seems that Steven Soderbergh is moving forward with "Contagion," a deadly virus outbreak thriller which is already somehow set to star Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard, even though so far at least there is no studio attached.

When Soderbergh is genuinely engaged and having fun, I do too, which was certainly the case with "The Informant" this year. And if I can digress just a bit, I didn't see "Invictus," but no matter how good Damon may have been in that, there's no way he shouldn't have been nominated instead for his amazing role in "The Informant" at this year's Oscars instead.

Here's hoping "Contagion" turns into a fun ride rather than the star-studded disaster it certainly could very easily become.

OK, it's probably time to start wrapping this up, but there's also a bit of very good casting news out there too. Danny Boyle's next movie, "127 Hours," is already set to star James Franco as Aron Ralston, a mountaineer who was forced to amputate his own arm in order to escape entrapment under a fallen boulder. And now it seems that Amber Tamblyn, who presumably can no longer talk directly with God, has joined the flick as his girlfriend, with the relationship apparently played out in a series of flashbacks in his mind.

I'm not sure how far along this is, but I love me some Danny Boyle, so this is one certainly worth keeping your eyes on.

And now, for the real ending, does anyone remember "The Secret of Roan Inish"? I love that John Sayles movie about selkies, mysterious Irish creatures of myth that can turn from seals into humans. Well, it seems Neil Jordan did too, and now he's made "Ondine," which stars Colin Farrell as an alcoholic Irish fisherman whose life is turned around when he encounters what he thinks is a mermaid (the simply stunningly beautiful Alicja Bachleda, his actual wife.) What will hopefully be a magical fairy tale of sorts has been picked up by Magnolia Pictures, and with Farrell in it, I suppose it might even play wide enough to reach my little corner of the world when it drops June 4 in the U.S. Enjoy the trailer.




And finally, as promised at the outset, there is indeed a visit from Wallace & Gromit today, thanks to a heads up from my fellow cubicle slave Randy Waters. Nick Park is nominated for an Oscar this year in the short film category for "Wallace & Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death," and I'm certainly rooting for him. But here today, all we get is a little snippet of the duo in action, with poor Gromit of course subjected to another of Wallace's disastrous inventions, the "Turbo Diner." Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.