'127 Hours' rests solely on Franco

127 Hours
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Starring: James Franco
Written by: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy (adapted from Aron Ralston's book Between a Rock and a Hard Place)

Pretty much like Tom Hanks' Cast Away, 127 Hours basically features only one actor. And luckily like Tom Hanks, James Franco is able to carry the weight of a one-man show and break free. But while Cast Away tells a universal story of perseverance and the willingness to live, Hours is more about the distance a man will go to survive - a tale so harrowing it would inspire Jigsaw's victims.

It is based on a true story about a free-spirited adventurer Aron Ralston who spent (you guessed it) 127 hours with his arm pitted on a canyon wall by a huge rock. Apart from Franco's terrific performance, the movie also benefits from Danny Boyle's trademark offbeat direction. We can sense from the first scene and the opening credits that this will be a different movie-going experience. His split-screen visual style further gives excitement to a movie mainly set in one location.

While he has shown his comedic and dramatic muscles in The Pineapple Express and Milk, Franco this time gives a performance that testifies his status as an actor whose talents are in need of reckoning. My favorite scene of this movie involves a slightly deranged Ralston, a couple of days into his entrapment, pretending to hold a talk show in front of his video camera about his misadventure; it is a scene both funny and heartbreaking that serves as the base pad for his self-exploration on relationships and life itself. And Franco's performance is spot-on.

I also enjoyed A.R. Rahman's score a lot. It is pretty sublime and can get both saddening and thrilling whenever the film needs it be. And that Oscar-nominated song, If I Rise, let's just say I almost had myself choked up when it was played because the timing and mood were so perfect it duly delivered the whole film's essence.

127 Hours hits the jackpot in showing us the strength of human spirit, if you can stomach its climax. For those of you who don't have clue about what happens in the end, let's just say some people did faint at the cinemas during the scene. For me, to be able to sit through till the end gave me a really unique reward - the epiphany that should we fall into a situation (perhaps remotely) as bad as Ralston's, perhaps we were indeed capable of pulling ourselves up.

My rating: 8/10

The Grid. A place of infinite possibility... Really?

Tron: Legacy
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen
Written by: Brian Klugman, Lee Sternthal

Well yeah, actually. The Grid is a place where we can turn rods into light cycles or small planes (depending on which game we’re playing in), ride those ‘cycles upside down, and perhaps create your own dream girl and take her out to the real world. But damn I wished the filmmakers could have just stuck to that bold statement from the trailers.

Seriously, Tron started out really well. This new digital world has a unique design, walls and floors move sentiently, and the movie doesn’t take long to put its protagonist into the ‘Games’. Games in The Grid exist simply because the whole ‘Tron’ thing is supposed to be an arcade game and also to justify the movie being an action flick. The disc wars and the light cycle matches are utterly cool, but the movie just stops there. The second act is tragically bogged down by Kevin Flynn’s (the great Jeff Bridges) trying to explain to his son Sam (Hedlund) and the audience what has happened in The Grid. Here’s the trouble: a.) the story doesn’t make a lick of sense (ISO, what?), and b.) it is not of our interest at all.

Like I said the action scenes are very exciting, the sets and costumes are fascinating. The CGI is just top-notch and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tron gets a nom for Best Vfx Oscar. My main problem with the visuals is that the 3D effects don’t do much good to me. I had to convince my friends to see it in 3D because I knew it was shot in 3D. While the 3D wasn’t headache-inducing like that of Clash of the Titans’, it just didn’t reach that Avatar-level. The extra-dimensional effects don’t really inject extra excitement.

Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges gets to play 2 characters in this flick. As Clu, he got a digital facelift and apart from that, I found his acting delightful for that part. Clu is definitely more expressive than most inhabitants of the digital world, but up to a certain degree where Bridges creates a deliberate Uncanny Valley with a restrained yet captivating performance. Michael Sheen appears in a maniacal cameo as a mercurial human-program and he really adds some colors to an otherwise boring narrative. And Olivia Wilde doesn’t look bad either in that tight suit.

The biggest strength of Tron: Legacy actually lies in the DJ duo tuning up there in that End of Line Club. The movie soundtrack, composed by the duo Daft Punk, is easily the coolest soundtrack I’ve ever heard, and it’s perhaps the best soundtrack of the year. It’s a manic yet genius blend of orchestral and electronic music.

Joseph Kosinski’s debut film as a director is pretty cool visually, although far from being as revolutionary as the original Tron, and brags a hell of a soundtrack. So do give your brain and eyes a rest when Bridges (with all due respect) starts talking too much.

My rating: 6/10

You've gotta 'Like' this Facebook movie

The Social Network
Directed by: David Fincher
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer
Written by: Aaron Sorkin (adapted from Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires)

Can a movie about the founding of Facebook, a movie that is filled with lawsuits, depositions, and computer geniuses wiring-in, be somehow interesting? Thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s terrific script, The Social Network is not just interesting; it is compelling, at times funny, and full of superb dialogues. Ever since Juno came about, I’ve never seen a better-scripted movie like The Social Network.

I’m going to use so many superlatives in reviewing one of the best movies of the year simply because the film is just wonderful in many ways. For instance, I’d bet my money on Aaron Sorkin to win the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. His lightning-speed script effortlessly touches on many contemporary themes like internet addiction, greed, and our perpetual need to be connected, all the while being intermittently witty and constantly smart. From the very first scene, a scene that instantly shows us Zuckerberg’s personality and motives in this movie, you know that you’re into something great.

The performances in this film are nothing short of fascinating. Justin Timberlake shows off his charms and seductive voice to portray the disarmingly cool Sean Parker, future-Spiderman Andrew Garfield portrays the underappreciated Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, and Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg himself gives a mesmerizing performance. Eisenberg perfectly maintains that stiff and expressionless face of a geeky dork, but with a pair of restless eyes signaling how his sharp mind jumps quickly from one thought to another. He definitely deserves an Oscar Best Actor nom. For the rest the cast, we get to see some computer-generated magic in the Winklevoss twins who are played by two actors (one of them a body double) but acted by one. This actor who plays 2 characters, Armie Hammer, is in for a star-making turn by showing both a passionate performance and an action-hero physique.

The Social Network also boasts one of the best soundtracks of the year, composed by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nail and Atticus Ross. The ambient soundtrack perfectly captures the essence and pace of the film, and unlike many other soundtracks, you can enjoy it as much without watching the accompanying scenes as you would while you’re watching the film.

So much credit has to be given to one of the coolest filmmakers working today, David Fincher. I’ve always been a great fan of his movies, most notably Seven and Fight Club, and I think he has reached a new height with The Social Network. It is a timely, brilliant, and thoroughly engaging piece of masterpiece.

My Rating: 9/10