I am a movie junkie, you will find me most Tuesdays at the video store picking up the new releases and then going home and getting lost in movie land. I don't get a chance to get to the theater nearly as often as I would like to so I have to wait until they come out on video to enjoy them. When I heard about the movie 127 Hours, I was dying to go see it in the theater but didn't get to it and had to wait for it to be released on video, it came out last Tuesday and I excitedly drove home to watch it. I was already jacked up to see it but with all the buzz from the academy award nominations and so forth I was even more intrigued. I am not an outdoorsman or hiker by any means, the closet I come to hiking is eating trail mix or hiking upstairs for a soda.

127 Hours is the true story of hiker Aron Ralston, who was pinned by a boulder in a narrow rock canyon in Robber's Roost Utah for more than 5 days and ultimately cuts off his arm with a dull knife to free himself. The movie was produced by Danny Boyle who was responsible for Slumdog Millionaire and is based on Aron's autobiography Between a Rock and a Hard Place, which I have been told by my reading friends is an amazing book. The movie starts with Aron, played excellently by James Franco, climbing around the canyons alone enjoying the outdoors, he encounters a couple of young ladies who are lost and leads them to their destination taking shortcuts that he knows. There are some beautiful canyon scenes here as they dive off canyon walls into beautiful blue bodies of water, and work their way around the canyon, soon the girls and Aron part ways and he starts heading his way back home, it is then that he steps on a loose boulder that falls behind him and pins his arm to the canyon wall, I exhaustedly cringed at the sight and was already drained from the intenseness of the movie and then the opening credits started to roll. I was already spent and it was just starting?!? How was I going to watch 127 hours of this pain? It is not just him trapped by a boulder for the duration of the movie, it takes us back to Aron's youth and the circumstances that brought him to this place in life through flashbacks while he is stuck. You see him go through the dehydration, the physical and emotional pain and the most amazing will to live I have ever seen. As the movie reaches it's climax, I was on the couch with my knees in my chest and my toes curled up while peeking at the screen through a couple of barley separated fingers. It may have been the most uncomfortable movie I have ever watched, not only did he have to cut off his arm to free himself but had to break it all the way through to be able to cut through it and then climb out of the canyon with one hand. Unreal! I was blown away at this man and what he did to survive, I would be stationary vulture food if it were me.

This was an amazing movie and you may even loose some weight watching it. I was in a sweaty full body clinch for 90+ minutes and I may have lost 3 1/2 pounds, which I put on again eating trail mix.

Aaron Ralston and wife
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