127 Hours: A Review

"I can be wilder than the wind

190 miles an hour

I'm in a whole other dimension

Dancing doubles on the floor

You think I'm crazy, a little bit hazy

But I'm stone cold sober"

Stone Cold Sober (2009) by Paloma Faith

There are three things you can do. One, if you are unfamiliar with the real-life story of Aron Ralston - the subject of 127 Hours -  I advice you to stop reading right now (don't even read anything anywhere about this movie or watch any trailers), run to your nearest theatre and see this film because you are in the enviable position of still being able to be experience this without any prior conceptions. Two, if you know the gist of what happened to Aron Ralston, you should still go see this film first because I am planning to delve into quite a number of spoiler-ish details, both historical and in the crafting process of this movie. In case you are waiting for my stamp of approval: Yes, 127 Hours is an amazing film. James Franco, who played Aron Ralston, was quite possibly the most likable and heroic leading man to grace the silver screen in 2010, and Danny Boyle performed the nigh impossible task of making Ralston's tale into something cinematic and truly captivating to an everyday audience.

If you've already watched 127 Hours, read right on,

It's not a subtle film.

I decided to catch this film to escape - if only for an hour and a half - the crushing tension of my final medical school exam. I figured that it would be a cathartic experience to watch some fellow getting his arm crushed under a boulder and ultimately having to amputate it with a blunt knife, on his own, all without the mercy of general (or even local) anaesthesia; because my own ordeal can scarcely compare to that. Besides, I could really go for something in the triumph-of-the-human-spirit vein, since my own immediate future is looking so foreboding and bleak (note: at the time of writing, I was still in the middle of my finals). I think this is going to be my go-to mantra every time I find myself in a difficult spot: "At least I don't have to cut my arm off."

Of course, with films of this nature, one naturally wonders about 127 Hours' authenticity. Here's what the real Aron Ralston had to say about it in this excerpt from The Guardian,

Boyle shot 127 Hours at the exact spot where Ralston had the accident but added some fictional scenes, such as when he splashes in a secret pool with the women he meets before the accident (the reality – helping them with a few basic climbs – was much more prosaic). Ralston was uncomfortable with these at first but belatedly understood that such changes enabled the audience to "experience it in a truthful way" and did not undermine the "authenticity" promised by Boyle. "The movie is so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama," he says. "I think it's the best film ever made." He has watched it eight times and cried every time.

I can't talk about 127 Hours without drawing parallels to Buried, another film which featured one actor stuck in one spot for the entirety (or at least the vast majority) of the running time - but in many ways, the two are actually diametrical. Buried is all about the Situation while 127 Hours focuses on the Person, or rather, his Mind. Buried is operates like a mystery which could end any which way while 127 hours is biographical in nature, the ending of which is predestinated common knowledge. Buried is committed to staying strictly in situ and relied on many novel and ingenious contrivances to fold its audience's attention, but 127 Hours made use of every trick in the book to go beyond the premise of one bloke trapped in one place for 90 minutes including using Ralston's thoughts, dreams, flashbacks and hallucinations. The average filmgoer would find it far more palatable, no doubt.

Oops.

127 Hours is not a subtle film. It has a few themes which it pounded home over and over again. They are the dangers of being a loner and over-reliant on oneself, the tenacity of the human spirit to survive at whatever the cost, and don't buy crappy Chinese products. It's the Scrooge story of 2010, kinda like what Up in the Air was for 2009. Aron Ralston is cocksure and armoured with the illusion of youthful invincibility. He decided to go on a weekend canyoneering adventure on his own without telling anyone where he was going. He did not return his sister's and mother's calls. When he was asked by a friend at an outdoor supply store where he was heading out to, he deliberately said he was uncertain when he already had a destination in mind. He's someone who pursues his privacy to his own detriment because when he did not return, no one knew where to look - or if they should be looking at all.

Ouch, cut a bit close to home there.

The film invites the people watching it to imagine themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place (see what I did there?) the way Ralston was and asks if they have the cojones to do the same. Does it require an extraordinary reserve of courage, or merely the will to live which we, as a species, universally share? 127 Hours was rather coy about this but it does portray our protagonist as a resourceful and practical man. One of the first things he did after he was pinned was to lay out everything in his backpack, to see what he could use to free himself. Being an engineer, he devised a makeshift pulley system using carabiners, harnesses and climbing ropes to try and hoist the rock - an endeavour which we knew was doomed to failure. I don't know what I would do in his place, but I suspect I would pretty much go through the same stages he did. And I suspect that I'd cut my own arm off too.

Ralston also compulsively documented everything he did with his hand-held camcorder and digital camera, and two of my favourite scenes in this film revolved around these devices. This first was his mock radio interview with himself where he lampooned his predicament - ripping brutally into the personality flaws which got him stuck there. It was a hilarious sequence in which shit got real very quickly. When you're on your own for 127 hours, there's really no where to look but inwards.

My second favourite scene was right after he freed himself. As he was walking away from his prison, he turned back to snap a picture of his dismembered limb. That's precisely what I would have done.

Hey, don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same.

I read once that a movie is one-third moving pictures and two-thirds sound. I wonder - would the amputation scene be half as disquieting without that chilling, unmistakable sound of snapping bone? We were treated to it twice because he had to to torque his ulna and radius separately to break them both. After that, he started work with a blade less than an inch long; slowing slicing through the skin, muscles, tendons... till he touched a nerve (literally) and the most distressing, otherworldly noise exploded from the film. If you ever banged your elbow and felt that unholy pain shoot down your arm, you'd feel Ralston because having to slice a nerve must feel a million times worse. Of course, that was just one nerve (the superficial branch of the radial nerve, if I remember correctly). He still had the deep branch of the same nerve, the median nerve and the ulnar nerve (the so-called "funny bone") to contend with, but the film mercifully glossed over those. I heard there were people who fainted watching that admittedly very demanding scene. A. R. Rahman, who collaborated with Danny Boyle on Slumdog Millionaire, wrote an amazing, riff-ey and visceral piece for that entire sequence, and it's one of my favourite tracks of the movie year.

Did I mention that this film looks spectacular?

If 127 Hours aimed to give us a taste, just a little while, of what Aron Ralston endured throughout his ordeal, I'd declare it a runaway success. There's a strong, almost fetishistic fixation on water with multiple shots of it traveling through the inside of a drinking tube and sluicing about in a tumbler. I felt parched just watching Ralston eke out his pitiful ration.

Overall, it may sound like a rather harrowing movie experience but it is really quite enjoyable. Honest. Humourous bits are abundant, even if they are of the gallows variety, and there are many engaging meditations on the nature of humanity which just about anyone can identify with. The weakest part has got to be the end when it overdid the cloy - which nauseated me more than when Ralston drank his own thick, yellow piss. Yes, Ralston continued to be a bad-ass sans right hand. Yes, he went on to get married and had a kid. Yes, he appreciated his family and friends more. Ugh. Like I said, the film's many things but subtle isn't one of them.

Glad to be fully-limbed,

k0k s3n w4i

The End of School

"I got through it, I feel fine

I went to school and did my time

In a sense I'm out, in a sense I'm free

To be what I wanna be

You gotta stick together

With who you are and who you know

You gotta remember

Where you've been

And where you wanna go"

Doing Time (1996) by MxPx

I woke up this morning and saw that I had written the following post (while being under the influence) which I had left unpublished before going to bed,

I'm a little tipsy right now but my plan was to drink myself into a coma. I had to leave the club early - Jo had one too many tequila shots (four or five!). I found her on the dance floor, clinging to Sanjeev and dancing over a puddle of her own puke before passing out. I wish I'm having that much fun. I couldn't because Shaki leant over and shouted something in my ear through the bedlam and all of a sudden, I was drinking to drown a sorrow instead of drinking in jubilation.

I probably shouldn't be blogging right now. I'll probably say things I will regret.

Hours ago, the verdict broke. Facebook was suffused with gratitude dedicated to God; a person I used to know but apparently many still do. The curmudgeonly atheist in me wanted to point out that God had nothing to do with it. The Christian God, the Muslim God, the Hindu and Taoist gods - do they all exist simultaneously? Because prayers to each and every last one of them seemed to have been answered (and ignored) alike. Indiscriminately, whimsically, randomly.

Everyone is brimming with the pride and joy of achievement; publicly prefixing their names with the honorific "Dr" and announcing to anyone who would listen that our batch of students, against all odds, had attained one of the best result statistics in recent years. So many masturbatory pats on one's own back. So many pompous declarations that we made history, quote-unquote. There's so much self-congratulation going on that you'd think it's the Academy Awards night. Maybe we had something to prove. Maybe is was because we had been vilified too often for being the worst collection of fuck-ups the university ever enrolled, as they so often told us. I begrudge no one their finest hour, but I want to make it clear that I do not share my colleagues inflated appraisal of our worth. Incidentally, I also hold the word 'history' to a higher, more dignified standard.

For many, it is the culmination of a dream come true. They were idealistic, aspiring children with this one goal in life - to be a doctor - and I can only imagine the sense of fulfillment they experience living up to it. I envy them. I feel only relief, because my dreams lie not in medicine. I set out to get through medical school using the minimum number of semesters possible and my mission was accomplished - however undeserving this victory may be. I was as burned out as a candle in a house fire. I gave up. Halfway through my final assessment, I did pretty much everything to sabotage my own chances. I started escaping to the cinema daily to have some time alone in the dark where I can cease to exist, if only momentarily. I spent the nights before every big hurdle thinking up excuses I could make for failing instead of getting the sleep I desperately needed. My biological clock was dialed about a quarter of a day into the past, and in the mornings when I was required to perform, I was performing on a brain which kept moaning, 'What gives? We should be in bed now!' In those moments when I felt the loss of control most acutely, I saw the appeal of prayers, of asking for divine intercession - but I had long since outgrown my childlike habit of speaking to my omnipotent imaginary best friend. How does one whisper into the aether and ask for wishes to come true, and not feel stupid or insane? So, I continued my unbelieving, blaspheming ways. Turns out, it makes not one horsefeather of difference whether you beg meekly at God's feet or call him a celestial sheep-fucker.

I am a doctor now, apparently. Whoop dee doo. Don't congratulate me because I have not done anything of note or worthy of praise. I have not done anything that I am proud of.

Oh wow. That has got to be one of the bitterest, most depressing pieces of writing ever penned in relation to finishing med school. There's should be a breathalyser test instead of password clearance for access to my PC - I believe I wouldn't have written it sober. And the song lyrics I chose yesterday night to head this post was Eleni Mandell's Forget Me,

"Forget me you're on your way
We don't have to stay in touch
We may remember someday
Til' then it doesn't matter that much"

Now, I'm sure everyone would prefer the MxPx song I quoted on finishing school instead. This is not something I say often because it's hard to say, but it's true. The best thing I got out of med school is not my knowledge, my degree, the title I get to put in front of my name or the letters I get to stick behind it. The best thing I got out of med school are my friends who stuck by me in spite of the mess of a person I am. It must not have been easy.

To quote a different part of the same Eleni Mandell song,

"I promise I'll never forget you."

Unchanged,

k0k s3n w4i

We are Going to Have a Dance with Dragons

"If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look him into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die."

Eddard Stark in A Game of Thrones (1996)

I wrote a post 3 years ago declaring that the A Song of Ice and Fire series of high fantasy novels to be my favourite books of all time. 3 years later and after reading more books than I care to count, they still remain the most cherished tomes in my little personal library. The newest published volume debuted in 2005, and fans the world over have been waiting patiently, irascibly and hopelessly since for the next installment; the unattainable, fabled 5th book. That's six long and lean years. I am slightly luckier than most in that I've only been weathering a famine half as long, but believe me, it had been hard on me too. It had also been equally hard (if not harder) on every single person I personally converted to these amazing books, and most of them curse me regularly for getting them addicted to a drug they have no way of procuring the fix for without first discovering the secret of time travel.

Anyway, if I sound obsessed - I totally am. A Song of Ice and Fire is about as close to a religion to me as anything will ever be.

2011 will be the year we will read A Dance with Dragons.

Today, I am beside myself with silly joy because our faith in Ol' Tardy George will finally see vindication. Winter is coming, and it's close. On March 3, 2011, this update appeared on George R. R. Martin's site,

No. Sorry. Not done yet.

I'm close, though. Watch this space. When the book is done, you will read it here.

Meanwhile... there is news. Big news. The end is in sight, at long long last, and we're close enough so that my editors and publishers at Bantam Spectra have set an actual publication date.

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS will be in your favorite bookstore on

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2011

Yes, I know. You've all seen publication dates before: dates in 2007, 2008, 2009. None of those were ever hard dates, however. Most of them... well, call it wishful thinking, boundless optimism, cockeyed dreams, honest mistakes, whatever you like.

This date is different. This date is real.

Barring tsunamis, general strikes, world wars, or asteroid strikes, you will have the novel in your hands on July 12. I hope you like it.

(For what it's worth, the book's a monster. Think A STORM OF SWORDS.)

The dragons are coming. Prepare to dance.

And hey... thanks for waiting.

We now have an etched-in-stone date to look forward to. It almost feel like it's George's birthday present to me this year; the big day being a mere 48 hours before the 25th anniversary of my birth. I'm so keyed up right now that I simply can't bring myself to sleep even a wink. I hope I'm not setting myself up for a massive letdown in any way because I don't think I can take any more blows. My expectations of how incredibly the story's going to unfold in A Dance with Dragons is almost a tragedy begging to happen.

But considering that six years went into crafting it, I'm certain it's going to be a fuckin' masterpiece.

In related news, the first official full trailer of HBO's television series adapted from the first book, A Game of Thrones, was released about the same time as George's announcement,

Tits!

It's too early to speculate on its eventual quality and fidelity, but the bloke playing Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen) looks like he's going to do his paper counterpart justice. Also, I have always imagined Liam Neeson as Eddard Stark both in voice and stature, but the fact that they managed to persuade freaking Sean "Boromir" Bean to take up the mantle of the Warden of the North is bloody impressive. And Peter Dinklage will be our Tyrion: everyone's favourite Lannister!

Okay, I'm not really sure if I like Tyrion or his brother, the Kingslayer, more. Jaime came a long, long way since he, um, chucked something out of a very high window in Winterfell.

P.S. Sansa is my favourite Stark. I will duel anyone who dares to dispute my choice. I will also punch any wiseguy piping in to tell me that his favourite Stark is Tony.

Will waltz with wyrms,

k0k s3n w4i

The Fighter: A Review

"I started a joke

Which started the whole world crying"
But I didn't see

That the joke was on me

Oh no

I started to cry

Which started a whole world laughing

Oh, if I'd only seen

That the joke was on me"

I Started a Joke (1968) by the Bee Gees

Spoiler free.

Previously, I named Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan as my favourite film of 2010, but that was before I've seen David O. Russell's The Fighter, a biopic about professional boxer Micky Ward which ironically, had Aronofsky attached to direct in the beginning. I have zero interest in sports, much less the sport of boxing, and I lived through life with a blind spot on all things athletic. In fact, I had never even heard of Micky Ward until he was introduced to me in the physical form of Mark Wahlberg in this film. I had no idea how famous he was or whether he was any good as a pugilist. Hell, I had no idea if his story is a tale of triumph or defeat.

In short, I was uniquely positioned to see everything unfold before me untainted by preconceptions or expectations - a mindset which I seldom experience these days in cinemas because I have a habit of obsessively following most films' production from pitch to picture. Another boxing film? Not very high on my to-do list, I'm afraid.

That's Christian Bale on the left, y'know, in case you don't recognise the guy.

As it turned out, The Fighter is not really about boxing. It is a drama about a family so dysfunctional that some of its members actually scared me. How true is it to the real story of Micky Ward? I don't know but I felt that that's immaterial. Christian Bale played Dicky Eklund, Micky's washed out, self-deluded to grandiosity crackhead of a brother and by now, you should know that Bale went on to win this year's Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He deserved every inch of that little gold statuette and frankly, I believe he gave one of the most incredible performances I have ever seen in my entire life. I did not have a favourite actor. I do now.

This is really more of a film about Dicky than it is about Micky - or maybe it just seemed that way because Bale stole every scene he was in. He was charismatic and wretched, goofy yet reprehensible; a broken man fighting the shackles of cocaine to do right by his little brother who loves and worships him more than anyone else. After all, Dicky did once upon a time knocked Sugar Ray Leonard down. Allegedly.

I think it's better shown than told, so just look at the frightening transformation he underwent. Yes, this is the Batman himself,

I knew Bale is an amazing method actor, but it's been so long since the last time he was really good in anything.

Melissa Leo who played Alice, the chain-smoking matriarchal mother and manager of Micky and Dicky, supposedly disappeared into her character as well, but never having seen any of her films, I simply couldn't tell. But I was informed that the Best Supporting Actress Oscar she won was rightfully awarded. Amy Adams (whom I adore) was also nominated for the same award for her performance as Micky's sexy barmaid girlfriend but at least in her case, I could tell she was great. Mark Wahlberg too was convincing in his rather understated protagonist role as Micky who was constantly overshadowed by his older brother, but he was - if you would pardon the boxing vernacular - completely out of his weight class. Don't get me wrong, it's not that he acted poorly at all (he too gave one of his best in a long while), but, but... Christian Freaking Bale!

Boxing is not terribly exciting to watch, moreso for me, but The Fighter proves that so long as you care about the characters involved, you'd wince when they are punched, gasp when they are floored and cheer when they get up to give all they got. Outside or inside the ring. Watching this film was a thoroughly emotional journey for me. I lost count of just how many times I had bona fide tears streaming down my face in a lot of Dicky's scenes. It was lucky that no one saw me - there were only two other blokes in my afternoon 2:50 showing and I'm willing to bet money that they were weeping like housewives too. What happened on screen were all genuine and I shan't believe anyone who says otherwise. Bale made it all real without making it maudlin. It's moments like those he brought to this film that made me fell in love with cinema in the first place. I felt how forcefully he struggled against the worst side of himself. I felt his deepest shames, his anger and most of all, his overwhelming love of and bursting pride in his little kid brother. Oh damn, I felt teary just thinking about those parts. Someone please pass me a tampon, pronto.

On the technical side, the film was partially set within a framing device of a documentary HBO was supposedly making about Dicky's comeback into the world of boxing, a comeback which the whole town of Lowell kept hearing about from he and his mom. Interviews with the brothers bookended the film. The boxing scenes were shot to look like old, grainy, yellowed television footage of contemporary boxing matches using actual equipments from the time - an interesting creative choice. O. Russell even reused the original commentary from Micky Ward's matches and had O'Keefe, a real figure in his life to appear as himself. Then, within the credits, we were treated to a short clip of the real Dicky and Micky, and it's unsettling to realise how closely Bale nailed his speech pattern and mannerisms.

The Fighter is one of those rare films I love which I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone at all. It's not everyday a smartly-scripted, well-directed and phenomenally acted film can possess such a mainstream appeal. What would you do if your family's holding you back from ever achieving your full potential? Where does family love ends and emotional blackmail begins? And what would having a troupe of blonde troglodytes with 80's hair as your sisters do to your psyche growing up?

This is probably going to be one of my all-time favourite films. For the record, I still think Black Swan should have bagged Best Picture, but I am certainly far fonder of The Fighter.

P.S. I'm definitely going to see it again. Anyone up for it?

Jumped aboard the Welsh wagon,

k0k s3n w4i

Medical Lessons from The Mechanic

"Best jobs are the ones that nobody knows that you were even there."

Jason Statham as Arthur Bishop

in The Mechanic (2011)

Believe it or not, movies aren't the best sources of medical facts. Occasionally, they get it spot on; the most commendable example in recent memory being 127 Hours. More often than not, they make truly laughable mistakes - and being a medical student who also loves films, I've long learnt to just block out the inaccuracies when I encounter them. That's how I cope.

Then, there are movies like The Mechanic which goes above and beyond the call of duty to get shit wrong.

Jason Statham is Arthur Bishop, a "mechanic" or contract killer who took on an apprentice called Steven McKenna (played really well by Ben Foster, by the way). On one of their jobs, they had to kill a grossly obese cult leader, Vaughn, and make it look like an accident. This being a film about the thinking man's assassins, Statham's protégé suggested that they would inject their target with adrenaline in order to precipitate a heart attack. Statham astutely pointed out that that is an unreliable way to kill a guy. Then, in a moment of a-ha brilliance, Steven said that when the paramedics try to revive him, they will unknowingly administer epinephrine - which according to Steven is toxic after cross-reacting with adrenaline.

Mistake? Adrenaline and epinephrine are just different names for the same drug.

Statham and Foster, just making shit up as they go along.

Overlooking their hilarious misunderstanding of drug names, I agree that too much adrenaline slash epinephrine can totally kill someone through an "overdose" so to speak - but here's the snag in their plan. They wanted to use adrenaline to get their victim's heart pumping so vigorously that he'll get a myocardial infarction (or heart attack, in everyday parlance) - and it'll probably work because Vaughn looks like a coronary case waiting to happen anyway - but epinephrine isn't used to treat heart attacks; especially not if the EMTs find the guy in tachyarrhythmia.

Then it gets worse. Oh yes. Just when the duo was about to carry out their "cunning plan", Vaughn started tripping balls from intravenous ketamine, a dissociative anaesthetic. On the streets, it's called "Special K". This supposedly put a crimp in their murderous intent because according to the pair, ketamine nullifies the effects of adrenaline. Not true. That's just some high grade bullshit pulled right out of a bull's ass.

What annoys me most is that the film tried so hard to portray Statham and Foster's characters as resourceful, erudite killers of men - all while at the same time, the most asinine nonsense imaginable drip from their lips. Now, I consider the ceiling of my suspension of disbelief to be pretty high, but The Mechanic shattered it through the roof.

Aside from all that, it was an okay action flick. That's pretty much the kindest thing I can say about it.

Minor spoiler: They ended up shoving a scope down Vaughn's throat to asphyxiate him while covering his nose and mouth with their hands. I thought that was kind of redundant because having their hands clapped over all his airways would have suffocated him just fine.

The Medic,

k0k s3n w4i