127 Hours, The Kids are All Right, and Winter's Bone

I've decided to combine these three movies into one post as I have very few thoughts on each of them individually and don't think they'd make interesting reading on their own. So here we go:

127 Hours:

Aron Ralston (James Franco), an adventurous young man who loves time in the canyons and outdoors in Utah, gets his right arm pinned under a big rock that he can't move. He also didn't tell anyone where he was going, so he spends the next 127 hours trapped with no hope of rescue. He finally reaches a breaking point and cuts his own arm off to free himself and survive. The film follows Ralston on his journey while stuck under the rock.

Honestly, I blame me for not enjoying this movie beforehand. I knew he was going to cutoff his arm, and I know how much I don't enjoy seeing graphic medical stuff like this, even though I know it's fake, so I think I psyched myself out. I spent most of the movie waiting for the climactic scene, so I didn't get as emotionally invested in the film as I should have. I bet I would probably enjoy it upon a second viewing.

I will also give James Franco his due, he did a great job carrying this film on his own, since he's the only one on screen for the majority of the movie. He didn't do as good a job of holding a movie individually as Tom Hanks did in Cast Away, but he did a great job and has firmly established himself as a legitimate leading man in Hollywood. He's got an Oscar in his future.

The Kids are All Right (TKAAR):

TKAAR is the story of a lesbian couple, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore), who had 2 children via artificial insemination, Joni and Laser. Laser gets curious about their biological dad, so he and Joni track him down and find Paul (Mark Ruffalo). When Nic and Jules find out that Joni and Laser have contacted Paul, they try to get to know him. Paul upsets the family apple cart in a variety of ways, the biggest by having an affair with Jules. This makes life difficult for everybody, but in the end Nic and Jules find their way back to each other before taking Joni to college.

I didn't really enjoy TKAAR. My biggest issue was that I didn't believe the plot point about Jules and Paul having an affair. I just didn't believe it, and since so much of the plot was dependent on it, it made much of the movie seem false to me. I did think Julianne Moore was wonderful in her role.

I will give TKAAR dap for finally addressing an issue I've had with pretty much every movie ever made. At the end when Jules and Nic take Joni to her residence hall room, it actually looks like a residence hall room!!!! It is not ridiculously large, it doesn't have outrageous furniture or look like it's been designed by an interior decorator. It looks like the right size of a residence hall room and has residence hall furniture. I wish more films did this. I'm just saying.

Winter's Bone (WB):

WB follows Ree, a 17 year old girl whose dad, a meth lab cooker, bonds out of jail, using the house Ree, her mom, and two younger siblings live in as collateral. She has to find him before the bond is defaulted and Ree and her family are kicked out of the house. She then explores the drug underworld of the Ozarks trying to find him, meeting many colorful characters and getting unexpected help along the way.

My biggest problem with this movie? It. Is. Boring. Really. Really. Boring. I didn't at all connect emotionally to this film either. I did however, understand that southern, roughneck mentality that permeates pretty much every character in this film, as I've had many friends that reminded me of some of these characters - whether or not that's a good thing, I haven't decided yet.

I know this was a critical and indie darling; it just never hooked me. And if you can't hook me into a story about drug dealers and crime, what's the point really? (Ironically, I thought the same thing about the TV show Weeds and yet I keep watching. Probably out of habit now more than anything)