Come Anticipate Up in the Air: Jason Reitman, George Clooney, sad songs

http://www.theupintheairmovie.com/

Personal note, a friend of mine, without a record or anything, has a big song in the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgAVxYS7c2M

Just remembered that I started the "come anticipate Leatherheads" thread, and that didn't turn out so well.

this movie is some BS imo

dont think im seeing anything involving jason reitman anymore

got burned by jennifer's body eh

I really liked it!

Jeffrey Wells loved UitA, so it's suspect.

I esp. really liked the use of actual recently-fired people, who actually take up a pretty significant chunk of screentime. I expect most haters are probably thinking along these lines:

The jet-set dislocation of a moneyed frequent flyer is the presiding metaphor, as a Golden Club prick (George Clooney) who makes his living firing people and delivering relationship-whittling motivational speeches is made to face his own emotional isolation. Clooney's early scenes with Vera Farmiga promise sexy, satirical amorality, but it soon becomes clear that the actor's attempts to suggest emptiness behind handsomeness are really an excuse for narcissistic cuteness, just as Reitman's use of the crumbling economy is quickly exposed as white noise for yet another tale of an aging bachelor's redemption. (from the Slant blog.)

the interviews were a totally shameless attempt to give weight and significance to something totally facile imo

why not just show clips of interviews with holocaust survivors while you're at it

the clips are a direct result of the job that most of the principal characters perform, and also further underline that clooney's "burn everything" mythos is bs by pointing out that losing everything blows.

but anyway the movie basically lives or dies on yr ability to not to claw clooney's character's eyes out.

Jeffrey Wells loved UitA, so it's suspect.

― A Patch on Blazing Saddles (Dr Morbius), Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Morbius OTM. Did Wells complain about anybody's weight in his review?

oh vera my vera

the clips are a direct result of the job that most of the principal characters perform, and also further underline that clooney's "burn everything" mythos is bs by pointing out that losing everything blows.

but anyway the movie basically lives or dies on yr ability to not to claw clooney's character's eyes out.

― Simon H., Monday, September 21, 2009 2:42 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i like clooney and thought he was fine here. he's not my problem with the movie really.

Anna Kendrick is in this! She was one of the only people who could act in Twilight, I hope she has the chops for this.

she was good.

I was wondering where I'd seen her before.

he used my friends and sometimes-bandmates music in the trailer for this (and potentially four other songs in the movie)

actually, I have discovered they have two songs on the soundtrack as well (http://www.myspace.com/charlesatlasnyc).

Don't worry about the hyped Recession Relevance angle -- it's another dramedy about how willfully single people are subhuman. Marriage Is All You Need.

the interviews were a totally shameless attempt to give weight and significance to something totally facile imo

totes magotes

Hoberman also on target on this fraud:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-12-01/film/up-in-the-air-sux-but-jason-reitman-says-u-will-b-ok-l8r

Seeing this tomorrow. Can't wait to love it.

im glad we're on the same page with this BS morbs :D

nice try, Eric, but I wdn't bet on it.

Farmiga & Clooney had nice sex-comedy chemistry, too bad this wasn't the right movie. The best line in it is "Well, I don't."

You caught me. I was being facetious. I'll settle for it being less excruciating than that Kimya Dawson shit in Juno.

i love you dr. morbius!

it isn't entirely un-amusing - the first 30 mins is pretty fun - but it is basically "away we go" with more airports.

Don't worry about the hyped Recession Relevance angle -- it's another dramedy about how willfully single people are subhuman. Marriage Is All You Need.

The really insidious thing about this movie is that the first bit and the second bit are not at all treated as separate strands of thought. In fact, it's the latter that is being used to absolve the movie of responsibility about the former.

Ideologically, very much hated this movie. But it's also way more cunning than I'd have expected given it's basically Thank You for Smoking 2.

Eric, why did I think we'd find common ground on this?

fortunately, this was my first (and I hope last) Jason Reitman film. It's not even as socially canny as Legal Eagles (which I believe is the only IVAN Reitman film I like).

Saw a quote from J.R. along lines of "oh I became a husband and father while developing this" blah blah fuck you.

blah blah fuck you

good review of any Jason Reitman flick imo

eazy is your friend the one reitman talks about giving him a song on cassette tape in his fresh air interview?

It's the guy who did this song -- I think the cassette one is a different one, in the closing credits.

Eric, why did I think we'd find common ground on this?

I am anti- this movie, after all. I just give it credit for being a slick fraud.

I think I really fucking hate this guy

I mean I wasn't gonna see this anyway but the political subtext of his previous two really bothered me (not to mention their smarmy, unearned "feelgood" undertones) and this sounds no different. plus I am tired of Clooney's schtick.

btw the indie music soundtrack to this movie is pretty bad and not even really appropriate to what's going on on the screen.

this is really that bad ?

It's surfacy and kinda diverting; what's underneath is contemptible.

I was very confused by the Fresh Air interview with Reitman when he said he was people kept telling him that after being laid off, they felt they lacked purpose in life. Call me shallow, but my complaint with unemployment isn't that I'm bored or directionless, it's just that I'm broke. That's all, really. That's the only reason I even remotely WANT a job. I fucking hate jobs.

Anyway, if the movie has undertones of equating unemployment with being single, and that both conditions mean you lack purpose, then I don't think I have any interest.

No, it's Clooney's hardcore solitary bachelorhood that the film uses to encourage the audience to judge him badly (not so much the fact that he flies around the country terminating people).

i thought this was aight. not a bad performance in the whole thing, anna kendrick esp. terrific. really bad music tho.

No, it's Clooney's hardcore solitary bachelorhood that the film uses to encourage the audience to judge him badly (not so much the fact that he flies around the country terminating people).

― Feingold/Kaptur 2012 (Dr Morbius), Saturday, December 12, 2009 8:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya the movie never really addresses that his job is ruining people's lives, it even sort of puts him on a pedestal for doing it with some charm

and ya the music honked

and how bad was the scene where ** SPOILER **

he goes to vera farmiga's house? it was tipped like a mile away. and then when he goes away all sadface and you hear her off-camera hubby go "who's that" and she's all "just SOMEONE WHO'S LOST"

argh

Definitely want to see this. Have to wait till next month before it's released here though.

I don't think I've seen this Anna Kendrick before, but at best she should be categorized as best supporting perky chipmunk.

SPOILER

"just SOMEONE WHO'S LOST"

Should've had AUTHOR'S MESSAGE blinking at bottom of screen.

well, the tip is when she's telling Natalie that "selling" is not "losing." I ctually didn't anticipate that twist because at the time I thought it was beyond stupid that they'd suggest those two characters could be a couple.

^oops, "seTTLing"

about how willfully single people are subhuman. Marriage Is All You Need.

I don't think this is entirely fair - Clooney's main trespass in the movie is cutting his family out, not his singlehood.

also not 1/100th the smarminess of Away We Go in effect IMO.

argh I hate that I am siding with the lame critics on this one

this fucking movie.

Joyce Maynard, I guess.

The dog days of August . . . All summer long, thirteen-year-old Henry kept hoping that something different would happen, but it never did.

Then, just as the Labor Day weekend gets under way, in the Pricemart where Henry′s mother, Adele, on one of her rare forays out of the house and into the wider world has taken him to buy pants for school, a bleeding man approaches Henry and asks for help.

Frank is a man with a secret, and a man on the run. Adele is a wounded soul whose dreams of family life and romantic dancing died years ago, even before her husband left her and their son. And Henry is a "loser" and a loner, a boy on the cusp of manhood who, over the next five days, will learn some of life′s most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball, the secret to perfect peach pie, and the importance of placing others--especially those you love--above yourself.

what is crypto-conservative about up in the air again?

or juno?

im kind of sick of the idea that if character can have an abortion in a movie and yet doesnt, that makes it conservative. or the idea that family life can be like, good for a person. calling that shit "conservative" just seems like liberal hyper-sensitivity to me.

i mean i can obviously see how those ideas could fit into a conservative program, but they're not conservative on their own.

totally. i'm cool with abortions killing babies, but abortions killing films is where i draw the line.

Agreed s1ocki.

i saw this last night.

what exactly was the message of his backpack lecture? why would people pay to hear it?
how did he know vera's home address? i guess we assume he did some creepin on google or something?
how did he know where to mail anna kendrick's recommendation?
how is it remotely realistic that a dude with his schedule would fly one airline?
why did they decide to gank sam eliot's big lebowski scene and do it worse?

i mean i'm with yall on some of the contemptible messaging in this film but DAMN it's appalling that writing this lazy rarely gets called out like it should.

^ real talk

what exactly was the message of his backpack lecture? why would people pay to hear it?

this one really bugged me, think i mentioned it upthread.

Those are great points! I never figured out the point of those lectures either.

iirc we only ever saw his opening bit and never saw where he was going with it, ie nowhere

"yall need a good backpack"

i didn't pay that close attention, and it's been a while, but wasn't the lecture meant to be a business-world-self-help version of his business-world-accumulated wisdom about living without attachments, traveling lightly, whatever? every extra person or thing you're attached to weighs you down because it's like you're carrying it around, best limit yourself to no more than fits in a backpack (conveniently on-stage as prop)?

but who cares about that, people in this thread are not putting enough stress on more important things, like staring at vera farmiga.

....But it wasn't her ass!

that truly is a downer

if Juno was conservative, what does that make Knocked Up? blee.

....But it wasn't her ass!

magic of film.

Love this thread.

Hate this thread.

Revived because while rewatching a bit at my parents' house earlier it reminded me why I like hotel bars more than most people.

Practically forgot I saw this until I watched 50/50 and remembered how painful it is watching Anna Kendrick on screen.

i love dr morbs in this thread so much

I wonder if there should be an anticipation thread for that new Cody/Reitman joint...ya know, for the discussion (i.e. lolz).

Revived because while rewatching a bit at my parents' house earlier it reminded me why I like hotel bars more than most people.

― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 23, 2011 11:09 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i kicked it in a hotel bar the other day; hotel bars rule

Young Adult is really a pretty loathsome movie

I hope the Fannies made a shit-ton of money off of it tho

nah -- Charlize Theron was terrific.

As for The Other Movie, watching it again a few months ago reenforced the absurdity of the Farmiga plot thread. Why on earth is she written as someone who might spend her life with Clooney. If she's supposed to be a same-time-next-year lay why the fuck would she consent to spend a weekend with Clooney's family? It makes the "surprise" at the end of the movie even more preposterous and loathsome.

my issues are more with the overall construction of the movie - the story arc, the setting, the rote staging ("insert scene where main character stares meaningfully at the detritus of their life while innocuous indie-film-score music plays" etc), the predictable ending, the lack of actual jokes

xp

what about Young Adult

lol

Slipping back to the original topic. Clooney and Vera Farmiga somehow or other made Up in the Air watchable. They didn't make it sensible, because that would have been impossible, but their being onscreen for roughly 98% of the time kept me from turning it off. This is a mystery about movie stars; they have the power to cloud your mind - but in a good way.

I really like this movie.

Encrypto conservative

Why does he need to learn the same lesson like five times in a row again and again near the end of the movie

I liked the Elliot Smith song, but having an entire film of saddos doing solo indie folk just mushed it all together. Why did we need to hear that sort of song when it switches back to hand-held again when they're breaking into the school other than "oh is this supposed to be an indie movie or something"?

So, they stayed long enough at the closed school to see everything and get into all the locked internal doors and then the basketball team shows up to find two adult strangers just sitting on the bleachers?

Your (ten?) million-miles status has nothing to do with the number of frequent flyers miles you have to spend, which he was never going to use anyway, so by doing the obvious thing that the film sets up for him to do by giving a trip to his sister he's sacrificing absolutely nothing, tho it was a nice gesture.

I travel way too much and was able to recognize at least the DFW airport from the overhead shot, and where they'd filmed bits inside DTW.

The speechifying bits were just when things started getting worse and worse so that we knew what was going to happen when he gets to her place.

I took the "what's in your backpack" to be a riff on "what color is your parachute," which makes far more sense since he's a guy who fires people.

Sam Elliot's cameo really was straight out of Big Lebowski. Also, commercial pilots don't get that old, since they retire or wash out medically long before then, right?

anyone seen his new film Men, Women & Children? it's had a right kicking and the trailer has no dialogue which seemed suspect from the get go.
but i was still intrigued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5aKdBxlmIc

it was savagely reviewed, even by reitman standards

labor day was not really good, but not entirely awful

didnt realize it was based on a joyce manard novel and if she was the pie maker consultant in residence as this photo seems 2 suggest, she made a good contribution. never really considered i wanted josh brolin to purposefully teach me how to bake a peach pie but the heart wants what it wants i guess

http://static.rogerebert.com/uploads/blog_post/primary_image/interviews/joyce-maynard-on-labor-day/primary_MaynardBrolinWinslet.jpg

*maynard

Dennis Haysbert as Secretluvur

I was trying to think of something that you could plausibly blame for everything that's rotten about the world right now, and I immediately thought of this.

Not true--but I did watch it last night for the first time since the first time. Same reaction: not bad. I really liked Clooney's sister (the one divorcing, not the one getting married). And now I know Anna Kendrick better: liked her. I wish they'd dropped all the backpack speeches. I felt sad for Young MC.

okay so I've been to a bunch of tech conferences, not ONE was anything like it was in this movie. that's a peeve of mine, when a movie has the obligatory BIG PARTY scene and it's over-the-top and lavish instead of Miller on tap and maybe a store-bought cake. suddenly they're on a giant cruise? and then the boat breaks down? what was the point of that? this party must have cost $500 a head (plus or minus Young MC's fee) and they don't even check IDs?

other than that I thought this was okay. first half was pretty fun, second half pretty much blew. I thought the twist with Vera Farmiga was telegraphed a mile away. like everything in the movie. "who wouldn't want a picture in front of this....historical airport!?!?" Danny McBride getting cold feet for basically no reason ("but I'm gonna die someday!") was just the dumbest thing. Ditto for Clooney turning all saddo despite spending half the film talking about how much he loves not being tied down. The backpack thing was pretty dumb too. Felt like the film was just stumbling around in search of meaning but couldn't really find anything to say but "shucks, why wouldn't you want a family?"

I guess it was decent

Jason Reitman gives Alexander Payne a run for his money these days as one of the worst directors around

men, women and children was a ten years too late in its exploration of teens into sex and the controlling parents that love them.

Some of his earlier movies are fine but at best (young adult) he makes b movie schlock that wouldn’t be out of place on a hallmark film of the week

I remember watching this movie and liking it but literally nothing in frogbs's summary rings a bell w me so I guess it didn't make much of an impression, e.g. from the discussion here it sounds like there was a backpack in it which i don't remember at all

i did not like this at all

i felt bad for young mc

I felt mad for Young MC.

This film calls to mind a discussion we had on the board a month or so back about film's being forgotten once their Oscar runs are finished, sort of like the awards-bait version of "Forgotbusters." This is a prime candidate: I doubt I've thought of it once since seeing it (forgot about Young MC until just now!) and this is the first time I've seen anyone bring it up in years.

yea sorry

it was on Netflix and we were just like, "I heard that was good"

I actually liked it up until the bit where the cardboard cutout came in and it was pretty obvious this couple was gonna be framed as the polar opposite of Clooney's life and wind up teaching him an unexpected lesson or two

reitman's got a new movie with charlize theron - i'll watch it just for her. tbh his movies are comfortable pap for the most part

Unless there’s a big name attached (Spielberg, Clooney), I don’t know if political films ever make money any more. (Meaning films about actual politicians, or famous political stories attached to them.) Maybe that’s always been the case, I don’t know. I’m not even sure if The Post or The Ides of March did especially well. Everybody knows everything by now, and nobody needs a movie to pull back the curtain on anything.

I thought The Front Runner was okay. The book was better, not surprisingly--Matt Bai’s central argument, that Gary Hart’s ’88 implosion was qualitatively something new, was framed persuasively. The film catches some of that, most effectively when J.K. Simmons’s campaign manager pleads with Hugh Jackman as Hart to address the runaway story, and Hart--beyond the fact that he’d simply rather not respond--seems to genuinely believe that it’s a non-story not worth addressing, one that will run its course in a day. Reitman tries hard for fly-on-the-wall war-room atmospherics, to the point that sometimes you’re left watching the camera glide past people sitting in a room mumbling, and the film stops dead. Jackman’s pretty good, though they let Hart off easy--I remember him as much more hapless and empty than the seriousness he’s given here. There’s a good moment where, after exploding at a staff member for prying into his private life, the same question comes at him during a key press conference, and he turns diffident and evasive; it’s like a rough draft of Michael Dukakis’s robotic capital punishment answer at the debate a few months later. The film tries to be fair to Donna Rice but completely bypasses any and all interaction between her and Hart--a big mistake, I’d say (legalities, I suppose).

I always mention how much feel for period these kinds of films have. I know that that kind of thing can get really clunky and intrusive if you overdo it, but I think there ought to be some attempt to place the events in a historical moment. Except for a brief television clip of Jim and Tammy Bakker (which was not unrelated to Hart’s story) and glimpses of some really large cell phones, The Front Runner doesn’t even try.