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

Yes, it tries to do to things at once--is that the objection, or is it that you just don't like where it arrives on one of them?

and indeed, it's just kind of cosily 'wouldn't it be better if there were fewer unemployed'. no doi. and just uses those vox pops for vague authenticity.

"Two."

If 10% of the country is out of work, and you make a film that deals with people being out of work, how is that gimmicky? I mean, couldn't it also be called "topical"?

i did say timely. but if you completely fail to do anything with it other than take up minutes and draw the most facile on the nose comparisons with the other half of the film, yes, it's a gimmick.

are you saying they should have put an economy half in the other 2010 best film nominees to make them timely? would that have made them better films?

my problem (i) is a question of competence. this is a badly put together story because the halves are not connected in terms of plot or theme. like this film could have been a bit better if they'd just gotten rid of the economy red herring. my problem (ii) in re: the way the moral of the story (which I don't have a problem with per se) is arrived at and expressed is a question of jason reitman being a bad person and people who like his films being bad people too.

Again, it's not Welfare. I don't think it pretends to be, although everyone here seems to think it does. This reminds me so much of some of the Obama carping on other threads.

if you're going to make a movie during a period of huge unemployment with a main character somebody who fires people for a living, you have to go a little more blackly comic than this movie feared to tread.

if precious was going round sacking people, would that have been a better film? because when you sack people you feel sad and lonely? and when you get beaten up and raped at home you feel sad and lonely? so they're connected, right? and sacking people is timely.

I think there's a very definite attempt to connect the halves together. You may think it's clumsy or even wildly off the mark, but that is there.

Bell's gone, back to work. More on this later.

there's a certain heaviness and darkness to the subject built-in, and if you're not prepared to grapple with that on at least some level—even a very subtle one—you're swinging above your weight.

xxp yes, ok, we agree. they attempt to connect them. i'm not denying that. i'm just saying they utterly fail, like they would have done if they'd tried it in avatar or hurt locker or precious. this may have something to do with jason reitman being a bad person.

like that scene when a woman commits suicide off-screen so that anna kendrick can learn that... i dunno... it's ok to be the trigger for a desperate person's suicide

like that shit is just CLUELESS

I didn't hate this film as much as some people on this thread but it definitely irritated me. most I can say for it was that it looked nice, all shiny and slick.

however, clemenza liked this and hated Inland Empire so ummmm

like that shit is just CLUELESS

Clueless was better than this movie tho

clemenza wouldn't even be in the godfather 2 because he thought he was a huge star and could make crazy demands so i wouldnt really trust anything he says tbh

I know the movie's old news, but I truly don't get the more-loathsome-than-Jerry-Springer-crossed-with-Satan vitriol here. I hardly ever feel that way about any film any more, and generally try to reserve it for truly juvenile idiocy like, oh, Inland Empire.

I agree with this completely.

Loathing for this film probably stems from its smug sense of self-importance.

Also, speaking of timely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-LhEHGRH_g

David M: thanks for the support. My standard joke when someone takes my side as really mean and evil people pounce on me from all sides on this board: your complimentary set of steak knives is in the mail.

like that scene when a woman commits suicide off-screen so that anna kendrick can learn that... i dunno... it's ok to be the trigger for a desperate person's suicide

Anna Kendrick didn't trigger anything; the woman committed suicide because she was fired, not because of the way the news was delivered. There's the suggestion that she and Clooney were negligent in not reporting the woman's bridge threat--I was confused as to whether Clooney, when questioned later, forgot about the woman or whether he was lying--but not preventing something and triggering something are not the same thing. Having said that, how do you conclude that Kendrick learns that "it's ok to be the trigger for a desperate person's suicide"? She leaves the firm, obviously because it upset her. If you want to say the woman's suicide is a rather clunky plot device meant to hammer home a point that had already been made--getting fired is devastating--I might agree with you; saying that Kendrick reacted cavalierly to her suicide just seems factually wrong to me.

"Smug sense of self-importance"? As opposed to what--giant bunny rabbits spun forth from (cue solemn voiceover) the mind of David Lynch?

I'd never seen a film about a man who fires people for a living. I liked that. I've seen The Hurt Locker 40 times: in 1986 it was called Platoon, in 1980 it was called The Big Red One, in 1956 it was called something else. Some were a little better than others, some were a lot better. But I generally prefer seeing things I haven't seen before. (The relationship part of the film, yes, I'd seen that before.)

I'm not convincing anyone here, so how about we leave it at this: it's a film that tries to say something about the here and now, and tries to say something about relationships, and tries to tie the two together. I think it does a pretty good job, everyone else--except for the piercingly honest and shrewdly insightful David M--thinks it fails miserably. But the notion that someone liking something that you've convinced yourself that you've seen through amounts to being "fooled"--well, it wouldn't be a bad idea to retire that.

i can't believe u still think u like it

giant bunny rabbits spun forth from (cue solemn voiceover) the mind of David Lynch?....But I generally prefer seeing things I haven't seen before.

curious what other films featuring giant bunny rabbits, identity-switching, killer prostitutes, and demonic eastern european circus families you've seen before

I mean, like this movie all you want but let's not pretend it's groundbreaking or novel in any way. It's standard "asshole learns important lesson about life" feelgood bullshit, Hollywood cranks these out on the regular FYI

clemenza, I'm sorry for insulting you. Not my intention.

But I can't credit a movie for its intentions either.

I'll stand corrected that I hadn't seen Inland Empire before (wish I could go back in time and return with a slightly amended version of that sentence). I'll stand by the statement that I've never seen a film about a guy who fires people for a living. If you know of any other films covering similar territory, I'd be interested in knowing which ones.

"FYI"--there you go again. I know what Hollywood cranks out; I've been watching Hollywood films since the mid-'60s. "Asshole learns important lesson about life" covers a wide spectrum of films, from great to inconsequential. That is not a damning assessment in and of itself. And I'd hardly call the ending of Up in the Air "feelgood," no more than I'd say that of the blank expressions worn by Hoffman and Ross at the end of The Graduate. Make of it as you will, but he didn't end up with the girl.

the fact that he "fires people for a living" is really a pretty minor aspect of the film - it's simply stuck in there to serve as evidence of Clooney being a heartless, alienated bastard. the "asshole learns an important lesson about life" subgenre requires that the protagonist be something of a dick for a living - a corporate lawyer, a corrupt politician, etc. This film isn't really concerned about Clooney's job, it's just window dressing.

Wall Street is a better example of a film that is both a) yr standard "asshole learns an important lesson" morality story and b) actually concerned with the milieu/politics/economics the story is set in

otm. it's not unusual to place a human drama in a professional context and not fail structurally.

jerry maguire is an example of a film which (i) integrates the guy's job into the drama without simply having one half of the film about a profession because it was a timely gimmick, and the other half about a completely separate aspect of his life (ii) does not deal with the "family = good" thing in quite the same loathsome/i hate my audience/i am going blow their minds with a reactionary reverse way. and i don't even like jerry maguire that much. up in the air is worse than paedophiles.

― caek, Friday, September 17, 2010 6:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

boom.

It's not about the concept (a man fires people), it's about the execution. And what lessons does he learn regarding that job? That people need to be fired face to face, because it's a personal thing and it requires a deft touch. At the end it's not his job that makes him sad, it's his loneliness.

also the directing ranges from blandly inept to outright offensive.

didn't reitman even admit in interviews that the whole firing/economic context thing was an afterthought added in pre-production?

no, that's in the book. it was the bookending 'authentic' interviews that he added at the last minute because of the recession. one of the reasons why it felt shoehorned.

I like Wall Street a bunch, but I actually think it's much more transparent when it comes to telegraphing its message than Up in the Air. The path of Charlie Sheen's redemption couldn't be any clearer or more predictable from point A to B to C to D. With Clooney, I'll go back to what I said earlier: he's got a loathsome job, but he's not loathsome himself in terms of how he tries to conduct himself. His intervention with the would-be chef, yeah, too much; much better is his belief that at the very least his company ought to be flying in to speak to these people face-to-face, not doing so via a computer screen. I know Stone's father worked on Wall Street, but beyond that, I'm not sure why you're ascribing sincere concern to Stone but not Reitman.

ah yeah, that sounds right. i blame the "film of two halves" problems on the book/premise then. all the other problems i blame on reitman. xp

clemenza, I don't really think that the character or the film views his job as loathsome. it tries too, briefly, but the way it resolves suggests otherwise. The real key to the job for the Clooney character, at its core, is he has to be there, face-to-face, to do what he can to comfort people at the beginning of their difficult life. They have families to take care of, but they have families to go to. He comforts people but nobody comforts him.

I should add, just to say, I think that the performances are good-to-excellent across the board. My problem is that the film feels like it is SAYING. SOMETHING. IMPORTANT. but really it isn't at all. If it didn't, and weren't so poorly directed (which of course is a big part of that IMPORTANT) thing, it might have been alright. But it's hardly new territory, and it doesn't find anything at all new to do with the material, and it certainly doesn't do anything at all interesting with what it IS doing.

I'd rather watch Vera Farmiga than Daryl Hannah's work in Wall Street, but it puzzled me what this would-be glittering Hawks-type rom-com was doing in the middle of a typical Oscar prestige picture.

He comforts people but nobody comforts him.

I'll have to give that some thought. If that is what's going on, well, I can live with that. But I do think the fact that the script (or book) makes Clooney mouth all these empty and wildly inappropriate platitudes as he breaks the news is strong indication that the makers consider it essentially a loathsome job.

Wall Street got Oscar attention because Stone had won awards the previous year with Platoon, but otherwise it would have been ignored like Salvador. Which is to say -- it's a juicy, trashy fun.

except it's used for 3 things in the film. 1.) zach galifanakis 'lols' 2.) depressed woman who winds up killing herself and 3.) for him to inspire somebody to be a chef and show his younger protege that there's something important about their job.

Charlie Sheen crying and handcuffed is more emotionally effecting than Clooney watching his sister married to the tune of bog-standard indie guitar plucking

Hmmm. No.

I want to agree with you, but Sheen is such a moist towel. Timothy Hutton woulda been better casting, or -- God help me -- Tom Cruise.

it's juicy, trashy fun

Alice Cooper in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the new-wave pedigree of Queen's The Game, and the importance of RBIs--for the fourth time on this board, you folks have worn me out. It's Friday night, and the TV calls--so let me duck out on a statement I agree with 100%.

I want to agree with you, but Sheen is such a moist towel. Timothy Hutton woulda been better casting, or -- God help me -- Tom Cruise.

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 17, 2010 11:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

should have started that sentence with an "even"

gah, cutting off. I should have started that sentence with an "even"

i can't imagine what might incline one to defend, much less champion, this film, clemenza. the one bright spark in it (clooney as a romantic lead) was given very little screen time, and what we got instead was shallow, silly, borderline offensive mush. everything was spelled out in such ridiculously bold and simplistic capital letters. he loves hotels and corporate spaces. his apartment is absurdly spartan. he keeps his family at arm's length and cares about no one. he is empty inside. I GET IT. though terrified of intimacy, he craves it. he is a child evading the familial responsibilities that "naturally" accompany adulthood. responsibilities and emotional connections that he secretly craves. I GET IT.

and it's easy to refudiate any movie by describing it in those sneering terms, but i never believed anything about this movie. i never believed in clooney's ryan bingham. he seemed far too neatly circumscribed, too socially graceful for the shrivelled life he'd chosen. i never believed that his nihilistic motivational speech could appeal to anyone. i never believed in his chipper/naive new assistant. as charming as anna kendrick may have been, the character remained a shallow, tiresome cliche. there were moments of honesty and insight (mostly in the family dynamics, e.g., his sister's reaction when ryan offers to give her away), and again, i loved the flirtation/seduction scenes between ryan and alex. but the rest was as relentlessly empty as ryan's object-lesson life.

boo

^ would rewrite

I suppose I should be grateful for a concession or two there--vomit and pedophilia now have moments of honesty and insight to keep them company. I swear I've never seen such mortification heaped upon such a relatively genial film.

I noticed tonight that the pull-quote on the DVD box is from Tom Carson (hopefully not taken out of context). Carson's beautiful Leave Home essay is probably my favorite piece in Stranded. He's someone whose writing I really used to value--I want to hunt down his review and see if we were both duped by the same things.