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

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.

i heard he did that blurb as a joke

Had to scroll up and read my own comments to remember whether I liked this movie. Turns out I did!

I went back and read your post, Guayaquil--I could have done without Yosemite Sam Elliot's moustache, otherwise agree with it all. Broken Flowers, yes. Bill Murray has to be completely numb in Broken Flowers, of course, because it's a Jim Jarmusch film. (I love Stranger Than Paradise. Sixth time around, as someone above might say, I GET IT.) Your comment also led me to Morbius's "moral stench." In all this back-and-forth the past two days, I've had this nagging sense that something's missing, a mysterious void...now I know what it is.

i heard he did that blurb as a joke

Joke, right? I can't tell anymore. I found the original review--there's a link way upthread--and apparently the film's sledgehammer messages didn't land on Carson, either:

Not until it dawns on the audience that Ryan's budding second thoughts about his life choices don't necessarily mean he'll be redeemed--he's still got to reshape his world to suit his new priorities, and the world may or may not feel like obliging...

Disappointed to find out he doesn't like American Beauty, though, which I love. But let's not open that door.

wise decision

you fucking people

It sucks to be right.

rmde if yall didn't think there was an implicit judgement on what clooney did for a living, if you didn't see the self loathing in his deliberate alienation from human contact, if you saw some kind of pat moral lesson in the ending

aw man what happened to rmde.gif

can't remember if I did or not...it wasn't really good enough to stick in my mind for more than 2 days...
xp

aw man what happened to rmde.gif

It was swallowed by our hate for this film.

lol

just watched this tonight obv and i didn't love it or anything but the river of bile in this thread is astounding

i saw an incredibly condescending & conventional film written by jason reitman

was flipping channels recently and resaw the part where Vera Farmiga tells himself to "be an adult" about her double life. Having him be clueless about her having a family was hands down the stupidest thing in the movie. How could they have spent so many nights together without her ever calling her little kids? They went to a damn wedding together!

Not to mention she's clearly made to look like she's angling into his personal life. Such a weird "twist" to throw in.

it's an awful awful movie and reitman is an awful awful filmmaker and human being.

j0rdan otm go watch michael clayton (yeah the end is dum but it's 10x anything up in the air could hope to be)

i saw an incredibly condescending & conventional film written by jason reitman

― truly blunted rhyme fiend (J0rdan S.),

otm, but you forgot lazy

Not to mention repulsive, vomit, and pedophilia--don't forgot those!

nah, didn't forget em, movie didn't elicit any such strong emotions tbh.

It could've been worse: Reitman says if Clooney hadn't worked out, he wanted Steve Martin in the role to make another Lost in Translation. And even worse than that, someone could get the idea from that and cast Clooney and Danny McBride in a Planes, Trains and Automobiles remake.

All that said, I liked About Schmidt better.

Clooney and Danny McBride in a Planes, Trains and Automobiles remake.

would watch

I've seen this twice now and really enjoyed it both times. I wouldn't say it was amazing but I found Clooney's character compellingly conflicted. The talking heads were a little shoehorned but the top-down city/landscape establishing shots were beautiful. It was just a nice bit of morally conflicted, not-actually-happy-ending fluff.