HOM:

Giving you something to read on the toilet since 2009.

"The mistake lies in seeing debate and discussion as secondary to the recovery of meaning. Rather, we should see them as primary: art and literature do not exist to be understood or appreciated, but to be discussed and argued over, to function as a focus for social dialogue. The discourse of literary or art criticism is not to recover meaning, but to create and contest it. Our primal scene should not be the solitary figure in the dark of the cinema but the group of friends arguing afterwards in the pub."
-Don Fowler (1996) "Even Better Than The Real Thing"

Thursday, December 23, 2010

127 Hours - KDJ


The awaited return of the emotive director of Slumdog Millionaire is just that, a return. The actors are different, the setting is different but the themes are as similar as the camera angles, music, and split screens are.

Those hopeful enough to assume that James Franco (still holding to, in my perspective, his characterization of The Fonz on Freaks and Geeks) would convincingly depict Aron Ralston, the infamous self-amputee-ing, adventurer, will be satisfied. Franco's performance was enjoyable and believable, though I imagine that Ralston runs with a less goofy gait than the predictably less-athletic Franco. After all, Franco publishes short stories he wrote at Columbia and currently studies queer theory at Yale. We can't expect him to compete in triathlons with McConaughey and make out with Sean Penn - that would be too much mixing of art and masculinity.

Franco, though really good in this movie, is held back and over-shadowed by the cluttered split screen flashbacks and sigur ros-esque mash-ups that Boyle is known for. Those hopeful for a true Samuel Beckett experience will be let down. Danny Boyle and Samuel Beaufoy know to well that the Academy needs a good trailer in order to garner any support. Don't get me wrong, I am a sucker for Coldplay genre mash-ups but for this film they come across as reaching and ill-timed. Ralston would make no money in the endeavor yet I think a cooler movie would have been made by Lars Von Trier or another up-and-coming Scandinavian director.

Beaufoy, when he heard that Boyle wanted to make this movie, thought Boyle was crazy - how does one fill up 90 minutes with one guy trapped under a rock? I don't think it too crazy but I'm not sure this movie reached its full potential. Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are showing high enough ratings and it will probably be nominated for some stuff. The disjointed story telling just made engaging Ralston's predicament difficult. In the end, 127 Hours is definitely worth seeing. I just needed a choreographed dance scene to bring me full tilt.


1 comment:

  1. JamesDecember 23, 2010 at 4:41 PM

    How did you fit McConaughey and Queer Theory into the same sentence? Respect.

    And Von Trier? Wo

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