127 Hours 2010 Danny Boyle

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the polar opposite of Buried.  This film succeeds in every way that Buried fails.  It takes the same basic setup - man trapped alone, trying to find a way out of his increasingly precarious predicament - and does the one thing the makers of Buried couldn't do.  They make it entertaining.

I don't know if I'd ever really want to watch it again, but that doesn't mean it's bad.  It's a fantastically well made film of an intense true story, and for that reason alone, you should watch it.  There wasn't one moment in the entire movie where I was bored, which is strange, because James Franco gets his arm stuck pretty early on in the film.  He doesn't cut it off (it's not a spoiler, c'mon) until pretty late in the film, so there's a long midsection where he goes through the 5 to 7 stages of death ( I can never remember how many there are, besides, I don't go hiking) and has visions of Scooby Doo and whatnot.  He also makes little videos telling everyone how much he loves them, blah, blah, blah.  But it's awesome.

Remember how everyone loved Apollo 13?  "It's so intense!", a friend of mine said.  But why?  If you looked at any account of the Apollo 13 mission, you knew they made it back, so why would the film be tense in any way?  It's gonna work out.  I never liked that movie for that reason.  Ron Howard didn't get me involved in that movie.  Danny Boyle got me involved in this one.  The whole reason anyone goes to see it is to watch him cut off his arm.  That's it.  It's gnarly.  But it takes real skill to keep people involved in a movie where they already know the outcome.  So, kudos to you, Danny Boyle.  Your movie rules.