127 HOURS

Last night I watched this movie for the second time, this time sharing it with my sister, daughter and son who had not seen the movie before.  I love survival stories and this is a good one.  It's the true story about a man, Aron Ralston, who goes hiking in the remote Blue John Canyon in Utah alone.  He gets his arm trapped between a cliff and a boulder and remains trapped there for 127 hours (about 5 days).  He ends up having to amputate his own arm to get free (warning, the amputation part is tough to watch).  I did research this online after watching it to see how true to facts it is and it was very true.  In fact, they actually left out some good parts!  They did a good job in this movie of putting you there with him and the actor James Franco did an excellent job too.  Actual video recordings, done by Aron while trapped there, are posted on you tube along with a Dateline NBC interview by Tom Brokaw called Desperate Days In Blue Canyon where the real Aron returns to the spot he almost died in.  They went back and retrieved the arm and it took 13 men, a wench and a hydrolic jack to move the boulder.  He was never going to move that rock!  He does talk of the life change that occurred to him through this tragedy, going from being careless with other people's hearts to loving more deeply.  He still climbs mountains though, even with one arm!  What a guy!