Nature's the bad guy in these movies

A man's arm is pinned down. No one can hear his cries. To escape, he must cut it off. "Saw 3D"? No, the true-life "127 Hours," opening Friday and starring James Franco as Aron Ralston, the American mountain climber forced to amputate his lower right arm to extricate himself from a fallen boulder.

We've had tales of real-life and fictional survival against all odds since biblical times. In naturalistic movies - as opposed to sci-fi/fantasy and supernatural horror - there are generally three types of survival themes. The first pits one or two lone humans against nature: "127 Hours"; every version of "Robinson Crusoe," from the 1902 Méliès silent short to now; Tom Hanks' "Cast Away" (2000); fact-based "Open Water" (2003); and such films as "The Edge" (1997), with two men and a bear; and "Gerry" (2002), with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as two men lost in a desert.

Then you have a group fighting nature for survival: the docudrama "Alive" (1993), based on the nonfiction book about a rugby team that turned to cannibalism after their plane crashed in the Andes; and Werner Herzog's classic "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972), in which would-be conquistadors are lost in an unforgiving jungle.

Finally, there's survival in the wilderness against other humans - hunting you. The gold standard is "Deliverance" (1972), but you'll also find homages to the famous short story "The Most Dangerous Game," such as "Surviving the Game" (1994).

And you thought "Survivor" was something new.