Up in the Air

Damien
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Post by Damien »

Bog wrote:and I'll agonize over next year when George Clooney is going to be acclaimed for his next film starring George Clooney as George Clooney...clearly the new formula to get him a boatload of Oscar noms.
Sigh, you sound like all those people who used to say "Cary Grant is just playing himself" or "Robert Mitchum is always Robert Mitchum," and yet time has shown us these are two of the greatest actors we have on film.

Go enjoy your Paul Muni and Geoffrey Rush vehicles. :p
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Damien
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Post by Damien »

Saw today.

A very intelligent, very knowing movie. Jason Reitman's no visual stylist but he is an accomplished craftsperson, and in the tradition of Leo McCarey, Ernst Lubitsch, Blake Edwards and Frank Borzage, he truly understands human nature and is able to make character quirks not seem like screenwriters’ contrivances but believable and fully human. The three main characters border on being conventional types, but Reitman, along with the sharp dialogue and nuanced performances make them feel like anything but prototypes.

Reitman's especially effective at conveying atmosphere, both through setting and characterization. The way Clooney's unassumingly lackluster sisters are presented -- not with cruelty or condescension or pandering but a simple honest acknowledgement of how what seems dreary lives are not so for the people living those lives -- are all we need to know about why he would pretty much cut off not only family ties but real contact with other people.

My favorite parts of the film were those in which Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick were together – the contrasting perceptions of perceptions and desires at different life stages are among my favorite movie moments this past year. Clooney is pitch perfect, and Kendrick took made a self-confident naïf seem like a fresh new conceit. But I loved Farmiga best. She had such subtle facial expressions to indicate a self-aware amusement at what was going on around her, along with such a hard-edged warmth as to be a superbly-realized multi-faceted character despite the limitations of the role.

Okay, what I didn’t like. The movie is ultimately very sentimental, and that flies in the face of all that went before. The last part of the movie softens up Clooney’s character in a movie-expected but off-putting way, and then the film tries to get hard-edged cred again with what transpires. So I suppose one could say it leaves you ultimately unsatisfied. But so much that went before is so good, that it’s still ok.

7/10
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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Post by Big Magilla »

Reitman explains the ending (from Hollywood Elsewhere):

In Contention's Kris Tapley spoke to Up In The Air director Jason Reitman earlier today about a suspicion voiced in a 1.3.10 HE story ("Bingham vs. Cancer") that Reitman might have shot the film with an undercurrent of fatality in mind. Here's how Reitman responded:

"You find out at the end of [Walter Kirn's] book that Ryan Bingham is dying of terminal disease and that he's going to the Mayo Clinic. That's something I never really wanted to include in the movie. I never shot a scene that suggested that the character was dying. For me, at the end of the movie, he's making a choice about where he wants to go for the rest of his life, and he certainly does have a rest of his life.

"The 'do you want the can, sir?' scene came out of a real moment in which I was on a plane and I overheard a flight attendant ask someone, 'Do you want the can, sir?' and I literally did a double take, then I realized what she was saying.

"It's inclusion had to do with two things. One, I thought it would be a cute nod to the people who've read the book, and two, more importantly, it kind of speaks to the idea of how Bingham collects things and the way we obsess over travel in the sense that it's a disease, being that addicted to traveling and the obsessiveness over miles or any kind of fruitless collection is like having a disease."
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Post by Joey »

Sonic Youth wrote:I'm really hoping you're all collectively full of it. Because if "Up In the Air" - which I'm seeing tomorrow - isn't winning Best Picture, that means "Avatar" is. (What, you really think "Hurt Locker" has a chance?)
This is probably (and sadly) true. Unless you believe Tom O'Neil in which case "Inglorious Basterds" is winning and this is just the boost it needs.
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Post by Sabin »

Best to the wife. Stay in touch.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

I'm really hoping you're all collectively full of it. Because if "Up In the Air" - which I'm seeing tomorrow - isn't winning Best Picture, that means "Avatar" is. (What, you really think "Hurt Locker" has a chance?) And "Avatar" will be the most appalling Best Picture winner since "A Beautiful Mind" eight years ago. I was so sickened by the prospects of "A Beautiful Mind" winning, that I didn't even watch the Academy Awards broadcast that year. I may consider skipping it again.

I understand how tired we are of the safe and middlebrow films often taking Best Picture. But, among other things, "middlebrow" means compromise, and for once a compromise sounds like a fair deal. If UITA is the only thing standing in the way of Avatar's Best Picture Oscar, I'm more than happy to settle.
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Post by Big Magilla »

barrybrooks8 wrote:-The wedding and everything about it was very contrived...I'm surprised Alex didn't catch the bouquet.
I'm probably misremembering but I thought she did, or almost did.

And we DO miss you, Barry.
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Post by barrybrooks8 »

Hi everyone...checking in here...I'm sure you've missed me. HA!


I saw Up in the Air today...just a few comments about it...



SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!























I didn't like it too much...



A few reasons:

-The firing scenes were ALL THE SAME! None of them deviated from the "Fuck you-why are you doing this to me-what about my family" routine.
-When Ryan goes to Alex's house, there was no surprise as to what was going to happen.
-The wedding and everything about it was very contrived...I'm surprised Alex didn't catch the bouquet.



I know that's not much to say but I don't have too much time to be very eloquent. I'm not too excited about the Oscars this year. Even with 10 Best Picture nominees, it still feels a bit boring. I also wasn't that thrilled with The Hurt Locker. Oh well, I'll still do a prediction list when the time comes.
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Post by Sabin »

Here's what I wrote. Although I now no longer think it will win Best Picture because it's become much less than I thought it would.

(Posted in New Reviews:

The reason that I think Up in the Air is going to win Best Picture is because Slumdog Millionaire last year, it has become more than the movie that it is. Very much so. It's worth noting that Jason Reitman opted for pathos instead of using those laid off as a source of humor. This was a good call, but one that could have just as easily been re-shot had he seen the error of his ways later. Along the way, he was reformed, so to speak. The online snark du jour re: Up in the Air is that it is its own Up in the Air. As Ryan Bingham learns (inevitably) to yearn for something shared in life, Jason Reitman fails to allow his characters to share honest moments on-screen. As with Thank You for Smoking, he cuts on the punchline. I found that film only occasionally enjoyable and Juno much of the same. If Juno is all Diablo Cody, then like Thank You for Smoking this is all Reitman. All his films refuse easy sentimentality, but someone needs to tell him that it doesn't make you Billy Wilder.

This is Jason Reitman's best script. It covers a swath of area in Ryan Bingham's life that is the rare balance of textbook, mechanical, and prodigious. The writer in me views this script like Vera Farmiga eyes up his miles. Reitman isn't just filming his script. He has sequences in mind, montages, jump-cuts. He's a strong "sequencian" but really all he's doing is finding ways around digging into the heart. This is a shame because there is a pulsing heart to dig into. Even though I don't think Clooney is ever going to do anything as vibrant as Jack Foley again, he's great in Up in the Air. Anyone else is inconceivable. I deeply enjoy what he exemplifies on-screen so already I'm mostly on board. Give him wonderful Vera Farmiga (relaxed for a change!) to spar with, and I'm halfway feeling that great Out of Sight-buzz. She makes his inevitable yearning for something else seem real. The buzz is around Kendrick but Vera Farmiga does for Clooney what Minnie Driver did for John Cusack: she makes the yearning seem worthwhile.

Anna Kendrick walks a tightrope in this film and she makes it look pretty easy. It's like the racing cursor in her mind is inexorably tied to how much her hair is pulled back. Her teary breakdown, her obstinate glares, her drunken abandon, they all work, but I don't think anybody involved is interested in looking past her facade too deeply. All her cards are basically on the table very quickly. There are no to-be-cherished moments between Clooney and Kendrick, and then all too quickly their game is over. I feel like the film is missing a beat or two more with Kendrick before she's shuffled off. I loved Kendrick in Rocket Science so for me this character felt a little bit like retread. Because she is counterbalance to Clooney, we're going to impulsively root against her ever so slightly, but her arc doesn't extend as far as I would like.

I'm struggling here. It's fine. It's all a little too calculated, which probably works better for Juno because that whole thing is so generic and yet unformed that a performance-capable technician really is for the best. But here, I would've appreciated something that took a little while to smell the roses. It zooms along a little too efficiently for my tastes. And for something so relevant, there's remarkably little too say. Ten years after American Beauty, Lester Burnham is fired by this guy. I like this guy more.)
"How's the despair?"
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Post by Bog »

Sabin wrote:I like Up in the Air. And I absolutely get what the big deal is
Haha...noted. Wanted to give you credit as the founder, I'll take it from there then...

I'll sit and wait for Vera Farmiga to be given more prominent roles and continue to dazzle...and I'll agonize over next year when George Clooney is going to be acclaimed for his next film starring George Clooney as George Clooney...clearly the new formula to get him a boatload of Oscar noms.
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Post by ITALIANO »

flipp525 wrote:I'm entertaining three rather lucrative job offers at the moment
:D
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Post by Sabin »

I'd be glad to be the ringleader of Sabin's WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? camp. I may even have to relent that Slumdog Millionaire was more deserving than this will be when it sweeps up several more awards and becomes the juggernaut here after the Globes.

I like Up in the Air. And I absolutely get what the big deal is for middlebrow critics. Just like Sideways. If there's a film that's a little emotionally distance, liberal with a coat of world-weary, and with a sharp-yet-academic screenplay, critics will line right on up. Up in the Air is all of these things. We don't get enough of them, and when we do an avalanche of hype buries them. I absolutely get what the big deal is. How often do critics get the opportunity to champion a movie that champions them? Once a year or so. :p

I think Slumdog is far more disingenuous than Up in the Air. As its been said by more than a few people, Up in the Air is its own Up in the Air. The way that Clooney soothes J.K. Simmons, the film does at the end with these real life testimonies by showing that they will move forward because they have families and that's more important than financial success. I know how this might sound but...isn't that kinda true? I mean, Up in the Air DOES shy away from the ugliness of this recession, but isn't the central message at heart more valid than not? Having something interpersonal is far more important than whatever the fuck Ryan Bingham is doing? Up in the Air is a Jason Reitman movie so he's far more concerned with the slickness of the first half or so so it doesn't really take the time to delve into it, but I really don't have a problem with what it's saying. It does not fetishize like Slumdog Millionaire does, and it's lacking an illy set-up ersatz love story and one-dimensional characters.

Slumdog connected because its far easier for a music video to more slickly emotional than the kind of sappy-cynical screenplay that Up in the Air is. Because I'm an adult, I prefer Up in the Air to Avatar. Barring some pleasant left field surprise, I'm resigned to rooting for The Hurt Locker while mumbling about Fantastic Mr. Fox, Tokyo Sonata, In the Loop, The Brothers Bloom, Summer Hours, and Humpday under my breath. My last real hope for this Oscar season is that A Serious Man makes some kind of comeback.
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Post by Big Magilla »

A lot of the pre-release hype hinted that the film was "about" people losing their jobs and that the film would connect with audiences for that reason.

The truth is that the people in the film who lose their jobs are basically plot devices. The central characters have very little empathy for them and none for the masses of people who've lost their jobs in this economy. It is, after all, taken from a 2001 novel in which downsizing was frequent but not to the point where whole corporations were going out of business as they have been for the last two or three years. At this point, there are few people who think they are immune from layoffs.

While it's true that the director mixes real life people who've lost their jobs with actors playing similar parts, it only underscores the hollowness of the conceit, coming across a bit as opportunism.

What the film is really about is the spiritual rebirth of an errant soul. However, had it been sold that way, I suspect even fewer people would be flocking to see it when they can watch the fauna in Avatar or Guy Ritchie's desecration of the heretofore sacred myth of Sherlock Holmes.
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Post by Bog »

I'd be glad to be the ringleader of Sabin's WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? camp. I may even have to relent that Slumdog Millionaire was more deserving than this will be when it sweeps up several more awards and becomes the juggernaut here after the Globes.

At best this is a decent little film seemingly made for a soft February release...at worst it is a dull, overbearing not funny enough not sad enough Jekyll Hyde film that doesn't even connect its plot pieces in a sensical manner.

I cannot even decide if I care anymore...I know Eric et al. had completely given up on credibility with Oscars following the Crash announcement. I had hoped it was a blip but following Slumdog last year and most likely this now how can one feel the Oscars give a damn about subjectivity and just pick the hot film sight unseen in this 24 hour media cycle that exists today. I don't know what the best picture is and like most my personal opinion rarely even registers with voters....but it is not this film.
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Post by rain Bard »

Big Magilla wrote:
flipp525 wrote:Farmiga has a very natural style of acting. I look forward to her getting more visibility in the industry after this film.
In the meantime you can catch up with two of her even better performances in last year's Nothing But the Truth and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas or re-watch her in The Departed.
She also does a terrific acting job in an even more deeply flawed indie called Never Forever.

The secrets her character keeps are the kind that generally would be make her the central character of a film told from her perspective, a la Catch Me If You Can. Turning that around and making it a "gotcha" moment was interesting and successful, I thought. (though if she'd acted slightly differently in the aftermath of the revelation it might have gone down more smoothly as a plot device)

I wasn't bothered so much by plot in Up In The Air as I was by superficiality of theme. It bends over backwards to make the solution to economic crisis seem like hunkering down with family; there's little to no anger at the system to be found in the film, once you accept the premise itself.
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