The Oscar Pass...and Why I Passed on Taking It

Some years ago I came up with the idea of an "Oscar Pass" - a "Skip this Film" card. Oscar Passes could be used once per year. The films I Passed on were overdone ("Munich"), contained a star I avoided ("Master and Commander"), or played too far away to see at the time ("Secrets and Lies").

This year, I was going to Pass on Danny Boyle's "127 Hours". Given the subject matter, and my current circumstances, the very LAST thing I wanted to watch was a film extolling The Survival Instinct. I think I already have that concept down.

But as the Oscars got closer, I decided I would try it. Boyle is, after all, a great director, and any film with his name had to be deeper than a two-sentence plot synopsis would indicate. And James Franco is nothing if not interesting. So I left this year's Oscar Pass in a drawer.

I'm glad I did. This isn't an easy film to watch. Being a horror veteran, it takes a lot to gross me out or make me squeamish. This film, however, had me turning my head several times, and way before the "money shot".

I can't image this was an easy film to make. The film literally and figuratively rests on the limbs of Franco. Normally with true stories, knowing the outcome makes the film boring or anticlimactic. In this case, knowing the final outcome was the only way I got through it. Franco gives a powerhouse performance, no doubt. It's too bad that it's an "In Any Other Year..." performance. But I have a feeling he'll eventually get his.

Combine the lead performance, the introduction of a video camera as a character/catalyst, and the tight framing, and you almost develop a sense of claustrophobia. I was expecting to go through the film thinking the main character was an idiot and rooting against him, as I have so many times before. I don't know if it's my age, my situation, or the fact that I actually "get it", but I was in tears by the closing credits.

I had a conversation with my other half shortly after the film ended. I said I couldn't believe after everything the main character went through, he still decided to continue climbing. He maintained that climbing is apparently part of who he is, and that he wasn't going to let fear beat him. If he never went back into a canyon, then he had been defeated. But he made a concession so that he wouldn't be in the same situation again. To me, that's the definition of growth - realizing you could be in the same situation, but taking an alternate action to make sure the outcome differs.

Perhaps Aron wasn't the only one who learned something from his predicament - which is why they make films about true stories like this in the first place.