I'm Most Excited About...

These are a few films that have been on my radar for some time, and they're the films I'm probably most excited to see. Yes, yes, Green Lantern doesn't make the list, but neither does Nic Cage's upcoming film Drive Angry in which he drives around...angry. Honestly, I can't put Green Lantern on this list because I'm just not sure if it's going to be great, or if it's mostly just going to suck. Because the trailer wasn't so great, and I have a habit of basing assumptions for upcoming movies on their trailers. Also, I want to be incredibly excited for the movie  (I mean Ryan Reynolds? How can that not be awesomely entertaining?) but also it could turn out like Fantastic Four. Or Spiderman 3. Yeah, I saw you cringe just now. Now you understand why I can't be excited for it yet. Moving on.

Some of these films have been released, but I haven't seen them yet, so there. Here's the first film of this series...

 It stars James Franco, and pretty much no one else, and tells the true (not based on a true story, actually true) story of Aron Ralston, a mountain climber and adrenaline junkie, who has become an international symbol for the human will to live. In case you aren't familiar with the story, or somehow forgot it, Ralston was trapped for days without food or water after a solo adventuring trip went bad and he managed to get his arm pinned against a rock wall. Not only had he made the bad decision to go adventuring solo, but he also didn't tell anyone where he was going. Ralston, realizing no one was coming to rescue him and he was going to die, ended up cutting off his own arm. With a dull pocket knife. Upon realizing he was still in the middle of the freaking desert, Ralston rappelled down a cliff (with his bleeding stump of an arm), and started trekking into the desert before he ran into some hikers, who were nice enough to call 911. (But not nice enough to be there a few days ago before he amputated his own arm?

On the plus side, Ralston now has this sweet pickax arm. 

Oops, sorry, I spoiled the movie. But c'mon, it's like Titanic, the point of the movie isn't really the plot anyway. Ralston apparently filmed his last goodbyes to his friends and family, and recorded what was going on while he was trapped. The tapes are so private, and probably so disturbing, that they have never been publicly released, and are kept in a bank vault. For the movie the director and Franco were allowed to see the recordings to get a better understanding of Ralston's state of mind. This isn't a movie you go see for some twist ending, or special effects. It's about a real human experience, it's about a state of mind, it's about an intimate look inside someone's head. (Also it's about a gruesome amputation scene that has caused audience members to vomit, leave, faint, and even have seizures.) The seizing woman was taken to a hospital and claimed the seizure was not caused by the film, although she hadn't had a seizure since she was a child.The retching and fainting audience members, however, apparently came back to watch the rest of the movie, although probably stayed away from the popcorn after that.  Look, that tells me that people are willing to forgo washing that vomit-taste out of their nose and mouth just to see the end of the movie that made them hurl in the first place. Somehow to me that translates to "This movie is amazing". Now isn't that something to be excited about?

Director: Danny Boyle
Length: 94 min
Rated: Rated R for language and some disturbing violent content/bloody images.
See the trailer here.
See the IMDb page here.