127 Hours
By PETER DEBRUGE
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117...&cs=1&nid=2562
Printable View
127 Hours
By PETER DEBRUGE
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117...&cs=1&nid=2562
Telluride festival ends with sneak preview of "127 Hours", "Black Swan"
English.news.cn 2010-09-07 16:53:10
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle's new drama "127 Hours" and American Darren Aronofsky's psycho-thriller "Black Swan" were screened to rave views as the 37th Telluride Film Festival ended Monday in the ski resort town of Telluride, Colorado.
The two came as surprise "sneak preview" movies after the four-day festival had earlier unveiled the lineup of 24 feature films in its main program, its organizers said.
"127 Hours" features mountain climber Aron Ralston's (James Franco's) remarkable life-saving adventure after a fallen boulder crashes onto his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah.
"Black Swan", a heavily sexualized psycho-thriller about an over-wrought ballerina in New York competing for the leading role in Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake", brought the audience to its feet for a five-minute standing ovation at the premiere.
Both "127 Hours" and "Black Swan" have been considered by many as hopefuls for next year's Academy Awards and thus set the stage for their onslaught on the trophies. Danny Boyle's previous film, "Slumdog Millionaire", went from Telluride to the Oscars last year.
The festival also screened 13 documentaries in the Backlot program and 25 new short films as well as six revivals selected by guest director Michael Ondaatje.
This year, the Silver Medallion went to veteran Italian Tunisian actress Claudia Cardinale, British Academy Award nominee Colin Firth and Australian director Peter Weir, while the special Medallion was given to the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
First held in 1974, the annual Colorado event ranks with much larger festivals such as Venice and Toronto as one of the world's premier international film festivals.
It has been ranked among the top 10 international festivals and among top five U.S.festivals, along with Sundance, Austin Film Fest, AFI Fest and Tribeca.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english201...c_13482924.htm
127 hours is thrilling, life-affirming Survival tale & One of the Best Films of the Year
A.R. Rahman's buoyant and exciting score should undoubtedly bring him another nomination and with all these in the running
TIFF '10 Review: '127 Hours' Is A Thrilling, Life-Affirming Survival Tale & One Of The Best Films Of The Year
Lean, efficient, despairing, thrilling and ultimately life affirming, "127 Hours" might just be the film Danny Boyle has been waiting to make for his entire career. Riding into TIFF on an incredible wave of buzz, Boyle takes the true life story of Aron Ralston's unbelievable and wrenching tale of survival and alchemically turns it into a wide reaching, highly approachable and relentlessly entertaining film.
The premise is simple, and for anyone even remotely following the project, widely known. In 2003 Aron Ralston (James Franco) fell into a crevice while canyoneering in Utah's Blue John Canyon, with his arm trapped under a boulder. He tries desperately to chip away at the rock using a scissor/knife tool he has; creates a pulley system using his ropes to try and lift the boulder off before he faces the hard reality that -- with no one aware of where he is -- he will need to cut his own arm off in order to get out of there and have a chance to save his life. And he does. Yes, it's a one setting story with a "happy" ending most audiences will know upon buying tickets, but Boyle utilizes a number of devices that open up the story narratively and thematically while adding dramatic tension to a situation that is already nerve-wrackingly fraught.
Working with two cinematographers, Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, Boyle spends the opening ten or so pre-title minutes with Ralston running wild through the canyons and vast space of Utah. Joined by two fellow outdoorswomen (Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn who get most of their screentime in this opening segment), they climb, tumble and swim in the remote and utterly gorgeous outdoors. With hands running against canyon walls aged by eons of wind and rain, with no buildings or people for miles and a seemingly endless sky, Boyle gives viewers a chance to be awed and humbled at the beauty and size of the land; we immediately get a sense of what makes canyoneering somewhat of a drug for Ralston and what pushes him to explore it in all its glory.
Among the other tools in Boyle's storytelling arsenal is switching between third and first person point-of-view; we are plunged directly in what Ralston senses and feels. But most effective of all is the video diary that Ralston keeps in preparation for his death. Sensing his predicament, he begins to keep a log of his situation, says goodbye to his parents and siblings and keeps his sanity intact by speaking directly to the camera. And Boyle uses these installments to flashback to memories, moments and even fantasies in Ralston's life. But these are brief. As his health and mental stability diminish, these moments are shortened and quickly cut as we're brought rushing back to the reality of the situation. In one particularly notable sequence, Boyle juggles with a screen split in three with reality, the present and fantasy all overlapping; it's a great feat made even more admirable in that none of this ever feels gimmicky or forced. Credit is surely due to editor Jon Harris who cut and threads this material together with ease, with a pace that, from the first frame, is utterly breathless; the film's 90-odd minutes simply race by.
But don't think for a second that Boyle's flashy style is a mask for the harrowing moment we all know is coming. When the decision arrives for Ralston to break his arm in two places, and then use his dull tiny knife to hack away at muscle, sinew and tendon to sever the lower part off, it is every bit as graphic and stomach-churning as it deserves. With flashes of light, bursts of sound, we palpably feel every snip, cut and snap as Ralston grinds through his arm and when the job is done and he stumbles backward and stares, delirious and desperate, at the truly bizarre sight of a boulder pinning the remaining stump of his arm to the canyon wall, the audience is just as stunned and silent as he is.
At this point the question is not if "127 Hours" will be nominated for an Oscar but how many. Giving easily the best performance of his career, James Franco is a lock for a nomination and easily a favorite to win it all. His transformation from confident charmer in the early frames, to emotions of shock, anger, disbelief and heartbreak that course through him during the hours he spends trapped is remarkable. Franco has never been more alive as an actor than he is here. As we've already made the case, Boyle should be an easy nod for Best Director while we'll wait for the Academy to figure out if both cinematographers can share a nomination. A.R. Rahman's buoyant and exciting score should undoubtedly bring him another nomination and with all these in the running, Best Picture is a no-brainer. Consider one spot already taken with nine more spots to be fought for.
Press and industry screenings at festivals are hard to assess sometimes. Cynicism is often easy and the wear and tear of running around a festival can often make audiences impatient and hard to impress. Our screening faced a nearly two hour delay causing pre-screening grumbling and consternation, but as the credits rolled not only did the film get rare applause (usually the end of a film will find a sea of smartphones being turned on as people quickly head to the exits), there were more than a few eyes being dried. "127 Hours" is poised to be another crowd pleasing hit for Danny Boyle and a film that will be tough to beat this awards season. But besides the accolades from press, and pieces of metal it will collect, director Danny Boyle finds his craft honed to a perfect pitch. Deeply humane, rawly felt and astonishingly executed "127 Hours" is one of the best films of year. [A]
http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2010...thrilling.html
If he gets nominated, then it's his 4th... :-D
Danny Boyle's 127 Hours: An Existential Great Escape
In its new home at the 14-screen Scotiabank Theatre, a couple of miles downtown from the Yorkville movie houses where it spent its first 34 years, the Toronto International Film Festival is experiencing teething pains. Late starts for screenings, technical glitches requiring changes in venue at the last minute, and the usual mob of agitated journalists. But this is a famously good-natured festival, where the locals queue patiently for hours for a movie you couldn't pay them to see any other time of year. And the critics, realizing that they are being paid to see hot-ticket items that folks back in the States won't catch up with for two or three months, stand in line and crab quietly to one other. There's rarely a tiff at TIFF.
Yesterday the press waited for 90 minutes, some for more than two hours, to see one of the two screenings of 127 Hours, Danny Boyle's first film since his Academy Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire, which received its official launch here two years ago. (The last two top-Oscar winners, Slumdog and The Hurt Locker, had their North American premieres on consecutive days at the 2008 TIFF.) The delay stoked not much more than milling and mild grousing — including jokes about how the new movie wouldn't start until 28 days later (another Boyle title) and how they'd give an arm or a leg to see it. The director himself showed up to assuage the crowds before the screening began, saying, "I look forward to reading all your '127' Hours' jokes." We were pacified and charmed. And we knew that our discomfort was nothing compared with the true-life ordeal we were about to witness.
(See TIME'S Fall Entertainment Preview.)
127 Hours, which has its first public showing this evening, is based on Aron Ralston's memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place. In the spring of 2003, while on a solo sojourn onto Utah's Blue John Mountain, Ralston spent five harrowing days alone when he slipped down a crevasse and his right arm got pinned between a chalkstone boulder and a canyon wall. Suspended there, unable to sit or maneuver, with little water and food and no practical hope of rescue, Aron used his hiking and engineering skills, and heroic resources of grit and self-control, to stay alive for a few days. Finally — does this count as a SPOILER ALERT, considering that the event made worldwide news? — he determined that his only means of escape was to amputate his crushed forearm. Now he had to figure out how to do it: his only surgical tool was a soft pen knife.
In cinematic terms, the task facing Boyle and his team — co-writer Simon Beaufoy, cinematographers Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, and James Franco, who plays Aron — was hardly less daunting than Ralston's. Some movies are essentially one-man shows (Spencer Tracy as the lone fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea); other films throw a small group of men into a single cramped space (like the Israeli war drama Lebanon, shown at TIFF last year after winning the top prize at Venice). Billy Wilder's The Spirit of St. Louis spent most of its time with one man (James Stewart) in a small plane, but that was a box of his own choosing. In 127 Hours, Aron is imprisoned in the worst form of solitary confinement: nowhere to move, no one to talk to — except himself, on a phone-cam. How to create visual variety for moviegoers while keeping them focused on the awful job at hand?
(See 10 Questions with Danny Boyle.)
Boyle addresses the matter exactly as you'd expect, in his patented antic-frantic style: speedy-cam tours of the terrain, schizophrenically split screens, Koyaanisqatsi-like sky vistas. The movie slips into flashbacks (of Aron's loving family life), surmises (those two young women he met on the trail — where are they now?) and hallucinations. Aron and the spectator with music. Meanwhile, A.R. Rahman's score and the rock-song interludes work overtime to comfort
There are times when even sympathetic viewers may wish for a steadier, subtler approach, as the great French minimalist Robert Bresson brought to a similar scenario in the 1956 A Man Escapes — which carried its own spoiler alert in its original title: A Condemned Man Escapes from Death. But Boyle, who has provided elevated entertainment in many genres since his 1994 feature film debut Shallow Grave, isn't Bresson and needn't be. This is an existential prison-break movie that cuts deep and, at its earned, ecstatic climax, soars high. (Rahman's closing theme works wonders here; so does a glimpse, just before the closing credits, of the real, smiling Aron Ralston and his wife.)
(See pictures of Danny Boyle.)
The movie finds most of its thrills and drama in Franco's gaunt, expressive face. His Aron shows desperation but no panic; he slices the enormous challenge confronting him into a series of problems to be solved: finding water to sustain him, devising a pulley system to hold him, summoning the guts to get free. It's an eloquent life lesson for all who watch 127 Hours. No matter how many hours some of us waited to get this lesson, it was worth it.
http://www.time.com/time/arts/articl...017703,00.html
Innoru oscar uruthi pola!
Watch the below video link for the standing ovation after the movie "127 hours" is completed at TIFF. You can see the credits rolling after the movie is completed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs-q5...layer_embedded
AFTER 90 MINUTES, BOYLE’S “127 HOURS” HAS TORONTO ROCKING
'A.R. Rahman whose energetic score perfectly captures the protagonist’s spirit'
http://scottfeinberg.com/127ahit
I wish I could just have Rahman work with me - Danny Boyle
'In what may become a long term relationship, Boyle once again hired A R Rahman [ Images ] to compose the soundtrack of his new film. Rahman's music -- often exhilarating and complementing the opening and the ending spirit of the film -- mostly makes use of western instruments and compositions. But we can hear Indian tones in Rahman's quieter compositions. In last year's Couples Retreat, Rahman's music was barely audible. But this time, his soundtrack is very much a character in the film, enhancing the story's emotional depth.
"I wish I could just have Rahman work with me," Boyle later said at an after party organised by the film's producer and distributor Fox Searchlight. "When he goes to Chennai, he gets pulled into so many projects. But he has a studio in London [ Images ] and I got him there for a few weeks to focus on my film."
http://movies.rediff.com/report/2010...anny-boyle.htm
James Franco and Danny Boyle's '127 Hours' gets gasps and a standing ovation in Toronto
http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/09/13/127-hours/
Music and sound effects are key storytelling tools in a typical Danny Boyle film
Music and sound effects are key storytelling tools in a typical Danny Boyle film. 127 Hours ranges from the rock 'n' roll, multi-screened opening set to Chopin's Nocturne No. 2 in E-flat major, weaving through a dreamy memory sequence, to stark silences save for James Franco's tense breaths and boulder-chiselling.
For his latest film, Boyle reunites with his Slumdog collaborator A.R. Rahman, whom he hailed as "absolutely genius."
"It's quite rare to work with someone who musically is that extraordinary, really," the passionate music fan said of the Indian film composer, producer and recording artist.
"It doesn't matter what we all do visually, One thing I've learned in my career is that 70 per cent of a movie is sound," Boyle said. "If you run any of these films without sound, after three or four minutes, forget it. Or if the sound quality is poor, forget it.
"That's one piece of advice I always give to young filmmakers: if you're starting off, save some money for the sound budget at the end and keep it, because it's extraordinary how much it means to people."
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tiff/story/20...onference.html
Standing Ovations and Rave Reviews for 127 HOURS in Toronto
http://content.foxsearchlight.com/inside/node/4537
A fan's note after watching the movie...
Hi All,
Just got back from watching 127 Hours, that was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Wanted to just give my 3 words about it.
First, ITS A MUST WATCH....especially on big screen. The cinematography, the clip shots, and guerilla camera work is just awesome! Brilliant shots of the canyons and raw nature at its best. The camera angles and takes were all uniquely executed.
Second, watch with an empty stomach, cause you will literally be squirming through most of it, especially the climax where I myself was in excruciating pain watching it! James Franco was amazing in his performance, and its no surprise that he will at least get a nomination for the Oscars.
Last but not the least. ARR SIR's score!!...When his name came up in the opening credits...a handful of the audience (including myself) were cheering our loudest!! As for ARR's OST, the best word I can think of is edgy and totally gripping, with many guitar pieces and some unique beats that will keep you on the edge of your seats. What excited me the most was hearing a continuum piece for one of the scenes, which was just awesome, so do look out for that one! AND another blissful surprise was hearing a familiar tune! YES...it was none other than Raavan(an)'s Behne De/Usure Pogudhey, just the beginning bit of the song, but with an added flavour to it. Don't know how he made it work, but it totally WORKED! There were not many songs due to the nature of the movie. Most were small compilations of previous compositions by other artists which played in certain scenes. I was able to glance the credits of one of the songs: 'If I Rise' - Music by AR Rahman. Lyrics by Dido and Rollo, Performed by Dido and A R Rahman.(which was very beautifully rendered) Now, am eager to actually listen to the whole soundtrack once its out!!
Verdict: Do not miss. And best to watch in theatres, with a strong stomach cause its gut wrenching!!
Another fan's thoughts...
WOW jus amazing score by rahman ...cant wait for the soundtrack..rahmans humming in the song with dido is jus out of this world...very good scope for music in the film. Hope rahman gets more of these kind of films in the west..the movie is also very inspirational
Info on a track..
Song Name: "If I rise"
Singers: ARR & Dido
Lyrics: Dido & Rollo.
http://incontention.com/
Just check out the predictions on the right side of the page..
WOOOOOOOOW! :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:Quote:
Originally Posted by ajaybaskar
:bluejump: :bluejump:Quote:
Originally Posted by ajaybaskar
A Review on IMDb
I started loving this film within the first few seconds. 127 Hours begins immediately with the sound of Fresh Blood's "Never Hear Surf Music Again" ("There must be some f*%#ing chemical, chemical in your brain, that makes us different from animals, makes us all the same." etc...) just as featured in the trailer. That not-ripped-off euphoric feeling carried on all the way through the rest of the film.
The film has an energetic start with a split screen showing office-bound commuters/workers going along their daily drudge while our lead, x-treme biker/hiker/climber Aron Ralston (played to perfection by actor James Franco) packs his gear (unfortunately not finding his Swiss Army knife which might have made a lot of difference to him later on) for a trek into Blue John Canyon country in Utah. While on his way he has a brief fun climbing/diving/swimming interlude with two female hikers (played by Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn). He then heads off on his own and at about 20 minutes into the movie takes a tumble with a small boulder that ends up pinning his right arm against the side wall of the thin crevice of a canyon. And that is where we are with him for the next "127 hours" (but only 1 hour of screen time) that it takes him to get loose.
I'm not going to spoil that resolution here, although most will likely hear about it anyway before seeing the movie. An obvious clue that he survives is given by the screen credit early in the film that says it is "based on the book Between A Rock And A Hard Place by Aron Ralston". The guy must of survived if he wrote a book about it right? Well, you can survive in many ways and not all of them leave you whole (both mentally and physically).
Director Danny Boyle brings a lot of the key Oscar-winning players of the Slumdog team back for this new film. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, soundtrack composer A.R.Rahman and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (this time paired with Enrique Chediak) are chief among those. As an added bonus, from the director of the toilet-diving cam in Trainspotting, we now have the "desperately thirsty character saves his own urine so it can be filmed while drunk through a tube"-cam in this movie.
At the Toronto Film Festival's 2nd screening of the film, Boyle was there to take questions from the audience and his enthusiasm and excitement about the film was infectious. Tidbits included his talking about their 6 days of location shooting followed by a sound-stage recreation of the canyon based on 3D scanning imagery. Boyle also praised actor James Franco and emphasized how every time we see him in a new film he is stretching his talents and abilities, unlike many lead actors who are just basically playing themselves in various different situations.
Boyle said that for an audience to watch what would otherwise be deemed "unwatchable" you either had to be making a schlocky/not-to-be-taken-seriously horror movie OR you had to make the audience completely identify with the character to the extent that they would believe that they themselves would have done the exact same thing to save themselves if they had to. Well, Boyle succeeds in making you believe it.
Seen at the Ryerson Theatre, Toronto Sept. 13, 2010. 2nd screening of 3 at TIFF 2010.
http://twitter.com/TIFFReviews
Poll: Best film so far
A)127 Hours
B)Black Swan
C)Cave of Forgotten Dreams
D)King's Speech
E)Never Let Me Go
F)Super
G)Tabloid
Rahman is 'musically just extraordinary', says Danny Boyle
TORONTO: A.R. Rahman is just incomparable as a music composer, says "Slumdog Millionaire" director Danny Boyle, adding that the Indian music maestro has created "deliberatively manipulated moods" for his new film "127 Hours".
Rahman, who won two Academy Awards for doing the soundtrack for "Slumdog Millionaire" in 2008, came in for high praise for his music in Boyle's new film "127 Hours" which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF) currently under way here.
"It is quite rare to watch someone who is so musically just extraordinary really...and he inhabited the world (in '127 Hours') we are trying create silence with...sometimes there is silence, but sometimes it is a kind of ambience silence he created," said Boyle of Rahman.
"And all the time, Rahman created very deliberatively manipulated moods to reflect his characters or pushed in through something."
The British director said soundtrack is the most vital part of a movie. "It doesn't matter what we all do visually. One thing I have learnt in my career is that 70 percent of the movie is sound. Cinematographers will hate it....but it is absolutely true.
"It is an ordinary piece of advice I always give to filmmakers - who are starting off - to save some money for the sound with you. At the end, it is extraordinary how it (sound) means to people."
"127 Hours" is a real-life 127-hour-long nightmare of American accomplished climber Aron Ralston who embarked on a solo adventure in 2003 and ended up trapped inside a deep canyon in Utah state, with his right arm crushed by a boulder.
During his relentless struggle to free his arm from beneath the boulder, he ran out of water and drank his own urine to survive. After failing to cut off the trapped arm and losing all hope of ever getting out alive, he started videotaping his last hours. Finally, he managed to cut off his arm to free himself after five days.
"The Pineapple Express" star James Franco plays the role of Aron Ralston in this compelling film with powerful cinematography and soundtrack.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/6558149.cms
-deleted for repeated posting-
thalaiva,konjam mela parungga! :)
So HAPPY to see all these great reviews!
Can't wait to see the movie and listen to ARRs BGM! :D :D
http://twitchfilm.net/reviews/2010/0...urs-review.php
It turns out that two great things came about from Danny Boyle's previous over-baked and lobotomized fantasy, Slumdog Millionaire. First, the Oscar means he will probably be able to work for the rest of his life is he so chooses, hopping genres with every film like contemporary film chameleons Stephen Soderbergh and Michael Winterbottom. Second, was the collaboration with A.R. Rahman who leads off 127 hours with one of the snappiest pieces of musical introduction to come along since, well, Shallow Grave or Trainspotting. Boyle excels at the meld of the visual and musical rhythm - it screams youth and energy. The music and opening scenes set such an optimistic, bustling tone for a film you probably know by now will go another direction at some point.
There's something about the way Danny Boyle uses popular music in his films that's really exciting for anyone who genuinely cares about the medium.
Plenty of directors are good with a score, and he's no slouch in that department, but the use of songs is a different beast. In both score and songs, Boyle seems to have an inherent ability to understand the moods and emotions music can inspire in people and uses it to augment his storytelling.
It's not blatant or particularly manipulative in any way. He's not some hack choosing to play a song about heartbreak over a scene about heartbreak. What he does digs deeper than the lyrics. He finds that intangible thing so many of us feel when we hear the right kind of tune, and brings it to the big screen.
His latest offering, 127 Hours, is no exception. It's not that the music is doing all of the heavy lifting. The film, bright and filled with the quirky angles and viewpoints we've come to expect from Boyle, is a visual treat.
James Franco is subtle and nuanced as the endangered mountain climber Aron Ralston and manages to carry the bulk of the film by himself quite admirably. And it's unlikely any movie based on Ralston's harrowing adventure, in which he spent almost five days trapped by a boulder on a Utah climb and had to sever his own arm to save his life, would ever have been boring or unemotional. But the use of music takes the experience to a whole different level.
With the sound cranked up in the mix so loud that it reverberates through the body, almost in the same way that sound can be viscerally felt at a concert, viewers don't just intellectually sympathize with Ralston's journey, they can almost feel it themselves. There are a couple of scenes where the sound does border on obvious manipulation, but the triumph of the human experience sounds and feels so good in 127 Hours that its hard to resent Boyle and composer A.R. Rahman too much for tugging at your heartstrings.
And, for the more jaded music fans, there's a joke at Phish's expense. Even if your heart is too cold and black for the rest of the movie, you've got to smile at that.
http://www.chartattack.com/reviews/2...view-127-hours
When is its Release
Nov 5
Hey Ajay, I can't open your video. What is it of?Quote:
Originally Posted by ajaybaskar
(Great signature btw! :D )
127 hrs official trailer... :-)
What is with Boyle and numbers - 28 days later, 28 weeks later, 127 hours :)
28 Weeks later is not Boyle's film :P
But he was the producer of that movie right?Quote:
Originally Posted by littlemaster1982