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

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.