Up In The Air

Cartel de Up in the air
Originally uploaded by Naír la jefa

I watched Up In The Air with very different eyes than most of the audience. I watched it with the eyes of someone who lost their job in 2009. Due to this, the events of the film affected me in a very different way, ways I didn’t expect at all.

I cried.

I am not someone that cries at movies, and I in no way want you to think that because I cried that I did not enjoy Up In The Air or think it was a great movie. It was perfection, beautiful, magical perfection on screen. Since leaving this film I get choked up every time I think about it. I think the fact that this movie has moved me so deeply is a testament to its skill and impact; this is not just a great film, an award worthy film – it’s art.

Great art is meant to make you think, but even more it’s meant to stir up emotions in you, emotions that are unique to you whether that be passion, joy or in my case a year of pent up anxiety, stress, grief & confusion. In the end a catharsis should be achieved somehow Up In The Air stirred up all of those emotions I’ve been denying and perhaps even began my catharsis.

I sincerely love Up In The Air on it’s merits as a funny, touching, engaging film and I think this is a film that will be enjoyed by those who haven’t lost their jobs this year. However, I already think this film is going to become a part of my makeup as an artist because Reitman and co. managed to tell the story of the last year of my life, even as I am still processing the year that was.

I thank Jason Reitman for that on a level I’m not sure he can understand as I am a complete stranger to him.

Director: Jason Reitman
Writers: Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner
Ryan Bingham: George Clooney
Alex: Vera Farmiga
Natalie: Anna Kendrick
Craig Gregory: Jason Bateman
Kara Bingham: Amy Morton
Julie Bingham: Melanie Lynskey
Bob: JK Simmons
Jim Miller: Danny McBride

Ryan: Never get behind old people. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left. Bingo, Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and they have a thing for slip on shoes. Gotta love 'em.
Natalie: That's racist.
Ryan: I'm like my mother, I stereotype. It's faster.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr Fox
Originally uploaded by ablogvoyage

Mr. Fox is an expert bird thief and loves it, until the day Mrs. Fox tells him that they are expecint a child and makes him promise to get an honest job. Mr. Fox does and begins writing a column for his local paper but pines for the job he was good at; in an effort to better his family’s life he buys a local tree and they move in – into the shadow of Boggis, Bunce & Bean, three of the meanest farmers in the land. When Mr. Fox decides to take up his bird thief ways again he unwittingly brings disaster onto all of the animals in his community.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a brilliant little movie; somehow, Wes Anderson did manage to turn a children’s story into a family film with his own personal flair. But this film has Wes Anderson stamped all over it, from the way the characters deliver their lines, to the quirky costumes they wear and the way they get stuck in situations of their own making. Don’t let the claymation stop you – this is a Wes Anderson film.

The one thing I have to mention about The Fantastic Mr. Fox is something that’s been festering for awhile. I keep overhearing people talking about how they don’t know why such a big deal is being made over the animation technology in this movie because the same thing was done in movies like Over the Hedge. I love Over the Hedge, have seen it many times and that’s why I know that’s a computer animated film. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is stop motion – totally different technology & completely different visual style to it. These were actual little models of the characters that were moved and photographed one frame at a time, not drawn inside a computer. If you really can’t see that it’s time to get your eyes checked.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that this film will be nominated for Best Animated Film at the Academy Awards this year. I do think it deserves the nomination, but I’m not sure it will win. The stiff competition for this film comes from Up, another brilliant family film that also deals with responsibility & family. It will be interesting to see who wins.

Director: Wes Anderson
Writers: Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach
Mr. Fox: George Clooney
Mrs. Fox: Meryl Streep
Ash: Jason Schwartzman
Badger: Bill Murray
Kristofferson: Eric Chase Anderson
Bean: Michael Gambon
Rat: Willem Dafoe
Coach Skip: Owen Wilson

Mr. Fox: Who am I, Kylie?
Kylie: Who how? What now?
Mr. Fox: Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I'm saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I? And how can a fox ever be happy without, you'll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?
Kylie: I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds illegal.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Bob Wilton is a small time journalist whose wife has just left him. Distraught he goes to Iraq at the start of the Gulf War hoping to get permission to cover the war; however, what he finds is much better – Lyn Cassady, who claims to be a former member of the Army’s psychic spy unit and on a mission to find his former commanding officer Bill Django. Together Lyn & Bob journey across the Iraq desert and encounter civilians, terrorists and independent contractors as Bob slowly draws from Lyn what the unit he belonged to was like.

What drew me to The Men Who Stare at Goats was the quirky concept and the cast. The cast delivers, the concept stops just short of doing so.

This film is helmed by remarkable actors: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges & Kevin Spacey. These are leading men that will be looked back at one day as the standout, true movie stars of our generation. They are as talented as they are charismatic and having them all on screen together is an amazing thing. None of these actors can do any wrong on their own, so put them all together and you have acting gold.

The downside to The Men Who Stare at Goats was that it’s a genuinely quirky film, which I am normally fine with but I couldn’t help but feel that director Grant Heslov was trying to emulate the style of something like Burn After Reading and he missed. This genuinely felt like a Coen brother’s film that was lacking the spirit and presence of the Coen brothers. As I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats and I wondered what the film would have been like if they were helming it, something I am sure was aided not just by the quirky concept but the fact that the film is starring one of their leading men – George Clooney.

What genuinely kept me laughing the entire film was all of the references to the psychic spies as Jedi warriors. This is funny on a geek level alone, but it’s made absolutely hysterical by the fact that Ewan McGregor played Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels – I am 100% sure this was brought up many times on set.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is an entertaining movie. It’s only issue is that for those of us out there that have a bit of a broader understanding of the genre we know what the film could be instead of what it is. It’s definitely worth watching, it’s just not necessarily a movie you will want to watch over and over again. If you’re really looking for a quirky spy film I would recommend Burn After Reading, you’ll even get George Clooney in that one and Brad Pitt in perhaps his most memorable role ever.

Director: Grant Heslov
Writer: Peter Straughan
Lyn Cassady: George Clooney
Bob Wilton: Ewan McGregor
Bill Django: Jeff Bridges
Larry Hooper: Kevin Spacey
Brigader General Hopgood: Stephen Lang
Todd Nixon: Robert Patrick
Gus Lacey: Stephen Root

Bob Wilton: So what do you use to remote view?
Lyn Cassady: I drink. And I find classic rock helps.
Bob Wilton: Any music in particular?
Lyn Cassady: Boston. Boston usually works.

Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading Movie Photos (26)
Originally uploaded by divxplanet

Burn After Reading is the latest in the long line or quirky and original films made by the Coen brothers, and hot off their Oscar win for No Country for Old Men. To call Burn After Reading a spy movie does not properly define it, but to call the film simply a comedy undersells it. Like most of the Coen brothers movies there is no simple way to categorize Burn After Reading.

The film begins with Osbourne, a CIA analyst who is told he is being demoted and therefore quits, his wife Katie reacts adversely to this news and chalks up another reason for divorce. Meanwhile, Harry is a ladies’ man who hides his many girlfriends from his wife, and is a paranoid US Marshall who thinks he is being watched. In another section of Washington D.C. Linda and Chad work at Hard Bodies gym; Linda is obsessed with changing her life by getting plastic surgery to change her body, and Chad is blissfully Chad. At the gym one day Chad & Linda stumble on a CD of Osbourne’s memoirs and financial info and make the mistaken assumption that it is “secret intelligence shit” and decide to offer it up to Osbourne thinking that they will get a good Samaritan reward. However, this backfires and they instead try blackmailing Osbourne which is where the plot gets even more complex than it already was.

Hands down the best thing about this movie is Chad played by Brad Pitt. He steals the show. Chad is just so blissfully Chad that is almost beyond description, he exists in his own world. I really can’t describe him to justice – just go see the movie.

However, some of the best lines in the film are given to a more minor character, the CIA supervisor played by JK Simmons. At at least two points in the movie Osbourne’s former boss must go to the supervisor to report on the oddities they’ve noticed since Osbourne quit – namely that Linda and Chad contacted Osbourne and then went to the Russian embassy. No one at the CIA can figure out what is going on or how this random group of people is involved and JK is the voice of that confusion.

If some of the Coen’s audience is new and jumped into their movies at No Country for Old Men they will be surprised by Burn After Reading, this movie is the old school, traditional Coen’s where the Oscar winning film is the mature side of the Coen’s. However, no matter how different their films may be they are all worth watching.

Director’s & Writer’s: Joel & Ethan Coen
Harry: George Clooney
Linda: Frances McDormand
Chad: Brad Pitt
Osbourne: John Malkovitch
Katie: Tilda Swinton
CIA Supervisor: JK Simmons

CIA Superior: What did we learn?
CIA Officer: Uh...
CIA Superior: Not to do it again. I don't know what the fuck it is we *did*, but...

Leatherheads

Leatherheads, 2008
Originally uploaded by Maulleigh

Since leaving ER George Clooney has spent an extraordinary amount of time working with Steven Soderbergh and Joel & Ethan Coen. These directors helped him not only ease from TV stardom to the filmic legend that he is now, but by working with these (and other) phenomenal filmmakers has turned George Clooney into a powerful director in his own right.

Clooney’s latest directorial turn is the throwback film Leatherheads which paints the picture of pre-NFL football where the men played for the love of the game and the majority of games ended in brawls between teams. As the trailer states: the game of professional football has come of age.

There are three primary stories the film tries to tell. The foremost is that of the love triangle between Clooney, Zellwegger, and Krasinski, and the rivalry that forms between the men based on football and their affection for Zellwegger. Also, there is Krasinski’s character who is the glorified college football star and former war hero whom all of America adores. This of course makes him the perfect target for Zellwegger’s ambitious journalist who is assigned the roll of dissecting his too perfect story. On top of all this is the complicated web of making the game of football into a professional (and legitimate) sport.

Leatherheads is a good movie, but it is not a great one. The problem is that this film tires to tackle too much and as such it suffers from pacing issues; it cannot decide exactly what to focus on and somehow manages to focus on nothing as much as it needs to.

However, this does not keep the film from being devoid of entertainment. The single most riveting thing about this movie (aside from the superb direction) is the witty banter and chemistry between Zellwegger and Clooney. Not since Carey Grant and Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story has dialogue been so sharp witted or enjoyable. The actors obviously enjoy the coupling and the dialogue flows like the perfect screwball comedies of the Hollywood golden age.

In the end Leatherheads deserved another trip to the writers room before landing on the big screen, but that doesn’t keep the tale from being one of the most enjoyable romantic, comedic romps in a long time.


Director: George Clooney
Writer: Duncan Brantley & Rick Reilly
Dodge: George Clooney
Lexie: Renee Zellwegger
Carter: John Krasinski