Up in the Air Dec 25th

[tommyboy81]

Got a chance to see this movie last night at my Film Festival. It was our Director's Choice which means nobody knows what it is until show time. Alot of people were thinking it was going to be the movie Nine but it wasn't. The movie turned out to be really good. It's a Comedy/Drama with some Romantic Comedy mixed in. I really don't want to give nothing away but I'll put up the link to the movie site. If you're a George Clooney fan you will really like this.



http://www.theupintheairmovie.com/

Dir: Jason Reitman. US. 2009. 108 mins.


A smart and poignant romantic comedy, Up In The Air has a lot on its mind, and although the film doesn’t perfectly execute all of its ambitions, it’s one of those rare mainstream Hollywood pictures that addresses contemporary issues gracefully. Anchored by a strong performance from George Clooney, director Jason Reitman’s most mature film balances laughs and pathos with its story of downsized workers and love’s redemptive power.

Clooney’s performance as a man who isn’t interested in dull domesticity is flawless
Opening domestically November 13, Up In The Air will have several marketable factors, including positive reviews, Clooney’s marquee value and Reitman’s cache as the Oscar-nominated director of Juno. In addition, Up In The Air’s examination of the current economic downturn and its resulting job losses, gives the film a topicality which might strike a chord with sympathetic audiences.

Ryan (Clooney) is constantly flying across the United States, visiting different companies which have hired him to fire their employees. An avowed loner who’s not interested in settling down, Ryan loves the nomadic nature of his work. But chaos threatens when he falls for Alex (Vera Farmiga), a beautiful fellow frequent-flyer, and, at the same time, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), an aggressive young go-getter at his company, convinces management that jobs like Ryan’s could be much more cost-effective done via teleconferencing rather than in person.

Up In The Airrepresents a merging of the best qualities of Reitman’s previous two films, combining the skewed look at the modern workplace of Thank You For Smoking and the sentimental romance of Juno. But at the same time, this new film is a sizable artistic progression for the young director, doing away with Thank You’s glib cynicism and Juno’s gimmicky hipness.

Working from Walter Kirn’s novel, Reitman and co-screenwriter Sheldon Turner juggle several narrative ideas. On one level, the film is a wised-up romance concerning two grownups whose jobs isolate them from normal life but also join them together in a special way. But Up In The Air also tackles the sober reality of America’s shrinking economy and the lives ruined by widespread corporate layoffs. Reitman has mixed drama and humour in his earlier work, but he’s never achieved such a tricky balance as he does here, keeping Ryan and Alex’s relationship buoyant and sophisticated while eliciting real emotion from scenes of workers learning that they’ve been terminated.

While those two plot strands are superbly handled, Up In The Air has less success with a storyline in which Ryan shows Natalie the ropes of life on the road, conveniently creating opportunities for her to confront him about his refusal to form meaningful human connections. Additionally, a late twist involving Ryan attending a family wedding seems designed only to teach him the importance of marriage and home.

Despite these drawbacks, Clooney’s performance as a man who isn’t interested in dull domesticity is flawless. His rapport with Farmiga is sweet and sexy, allowing for no cutesy digressions – these feel like adults with real mileage on their clocks. And Kendrick doesn’t overplay Natalie’s precocious ambition or insecurity, although ultimately the character does seem more like a device to provoke Ryan’s questioning of his priorities.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...a%3DN%26um%3D1

[Show spoiler]Wish we saw Twilight New Moon

[anomynous]

During March/April when this was shooting, this was THE story in St. Louis...........


Still haven't seen a trailer or anything yet

[vegeta88]

Cool that you got that experience. The first "trailer" didn't really interest me but the more recent one makes it look pretty good.

[tommyboy81]

Didn't know much about the movie. People were guessing what it was. The main ones that kept getting brougt up even before the festival was

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Road**
Brothers
Nine**
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, (the Heath Ledger movie)
Up in the Air

The ones in bold would have been good also.

[mikejet]

Going to watch this tonight with the wife. Gonna be a good date night.

[tommyboy81]

I hope the people who have seen this liked it.

[masoud90]

Saw it a couple weeks ago at a press viewing. Very very good.

[GoYanks]

Excellent story, acting, and writing. Recommend to all if you enjoy well-written movies.

[tommyboy81]

the lack of commercials and the way the commercials are doesn't do the movie any justice.

[Mike53421]

Perhaps it's working in an office or the fact in two years I've gone through layoffs at different companies (still employed), but this movie was both really good and really sad. I was kinda bummed driving home.

Highly recommend though!

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Mike53421

Perhaps it's working in an office or the fact in two years I've gone through layoffs at different companies (still employed), but this movie was both really good and really sad. I was kinda bummed driving home.

Highly recommend though!

I know what you mean. I loved the film, but it could strike a nerve with certain viewers. I thought they handled the subject matter (termination engineers) pretty well though. An ugly sad reality.