Pose Reviews A Movie. #6: Up In The Air (2009)

As a self-proclaimed technophobe, I can't tell you how happy this movie made me.

It's really nice to see a film that not only isn't shown in IMAX 3-D, but also has a powerful message about the poisonous effect that modern technology can have on interpersonal relationships.

The premise of Jason Reitman's third feature centres around Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a man whose compulsive craving for efficiency, coupled with his smooth-talking demeanor, make him undebatably adept at his chosen profession. Which, incidentally, is breaking the harsh news to complete strangers that they've been fired.

It's a fascinating look at what must be an extremely difficult job. Not only is Bingham entrusted with the task of perpetually ruining people's lives (or, at best, ruining their days), his work as a consultant also requires him to travel constantly across the United States. By plane. Yes, yes, hence the title, Up In The Air.

BUT, enter a tech-savvy young whippersnapper by the name of Anna Kendrick (played by the appropriately named Natalie Keener) who decides to turn Bingham's world upside-down...by keeping him on it.

Kendrick's plan is to have the "fire-ers" do their dirty work via video conference--a move that completely removes the already shaky human element from their work. And this is what I found to be the most fascinating aspect of the movie.

Sure, there's a lot of facets to Up In The Air. The film puts a human face on corporate downsizing and the current economic downturn, it spends some time developing Bingham's love of detachment and solitude, and of course, he manages to meet a girl.

But that's all just "movie stuff."

My favourite part of Up In The Air is its explicit warning about the impending demise of person-to-person communication, and the importance of its survival.

Could you imagine getting a pink slip from Max Headroom? Or being dumped via text message? Or "attending" the funeral of a loved one by watching it on YouTube?

It's scary, but at the rate that technology is swallowing our perceptions and interactions, these kinds of phenomena might not be that far off. It's just nice to know that one of Canada's leading filmmakers seems to be as concerned about them as I am.

Anyway, the underlying theme of technophobia is just icing on this particular cinematic cake; the take-home doggy bag from a delightful movie-going experience. Overall, it's a well-written, well-shot film about connection and disconnection, which couldn't be more relevant in the fast-paced climate of our North-American lives.

And hey, you might even enjoy it without reading SO far into it!

Chris 2010 Viewings #6: Spy Kids 3 - Game Over

I saw this movie before I even had a kid. In theatres! This is one of the more peculiar things I can think of in my movie-going life. The first two Spy Kids pictures have a certain charm but this one is beneath contempt.

Apparently most of the cast from the first two were disinclined to appear so most of the movie is a solo adventure for the youngest of the Spy Kids. He is sent into a Virtual Reality Video Game in order to defeat its creator, the Toymaker, played with an extra helping of ham by Sylvester Stallone. The reason? If the game actually goes online, all of the kids who play it will be - I'm hazy on this part because I wasn't much interested - trapped in the game or brainwashed or something. So basically it's Halloween III territory, with 3D glasses instead of masks.

So Spy Kid engages in unengaging CGI hijinks, occasionally helped out by wheelchair-bound grandpa Ricardo Montalban, who takes advantage of his time in the game to be transformed into a giant robotic badass. Eventually they leave the game and 90% of the cast from the earlier films shows up for a short afternoon's work fighting a giant CGI robot monkey. Then the Toymaker and Mr. Roarke kiss and make up and everyone says "to family" and the audience says "No more Spy Kids motion pictures please" to which Robert Rodriguez said "OK then, here is a movie I call Shark Boy and Lava Girl" and everyone says "Oh for God's sake" until Shark Boy hits puberty and becomes the Twilight werewolf boy and girls swoon and I am no happier.

It is not any more enjoyable in 3-D.

Wendy's Films of 2010 #6: Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

Now this is a romantic comedy I can get behind! Good music, great casting, and humour broad enough for a wider audience, but specific enough to be appreciated on a more personal level. When the film opened with Geoffrey Rush driving down a sunny street lined with palm trees and singing Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer, it was love at first sight. I always love George Clooney's wry tone and handsome visage, not to mention the beautiful and sarcastic Catherine Zeta-Jones, and here their chemistry adds a nice touch to the Coen's "romantic comedy with bite," as the tagline puts it. If you're in the mood for something light but still well-crafted, check this one out.

Maggie's Films of 2010, Jan 5 Cont'd:

#8. Up in the Air

This was clearly not a Gen-X buy, because George Clooney's most recent piece, about a professional firer whose light baggage lifestyle comes under threat by an attempt to revolutionize his industry, is presently vying with Blue Cat People and Chipmunks II: The Quickening in theatres. But amid such fun, flighty rides, which invariably make up the bulk of Christmas cinematic fare, Up in the Air is strong, classic Clooney. There is no easy ending here. This piece directly tackles an atmosphere of helplessness propagated by the Great Recession. Even love, romantic and familial alike, is fragile, fleeting, hard. Sad but poignant, you know in a heartbeat this movie marks the onset of Oscar season -- that last-minute rush to the box office to stay on the fore of judges' minds. Well, let's just say that despite being classic Clooney, this film still manages to forward a few ideas that are distinct and thought-provoking, and which further even the overarching character of Clooney himself. Considering the timeliness of its subject material, there's little doubt this film will be in the running for a few choice awards; and further, that it deserves to be.

#9. The Libertine

This film was a bit of a welcome-back treat for my housemate, while also still being part-Happy-Birthday-to-me (in my head, birthdays should be lived for a week, not a day). In it, Johnny Depp plays John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester and author to some of the raunchiest verse in the English language. As all "based on a true story" pieces, The Libertine takes some, shall we say, liberties with Wilmot's life and concretely attributed works, but the general tone remains true enough to the spirit of a man who indulged many of the vices that flourished under the reign of King Charles II (played here by John Malkovich), ultimately dying at 33 of a spate of venereal diseases after a life lived rigourously satirizing the excesses of his Age. The Libertine also tackles Wilmot's love affair with Elizabeth Barry, a famous woman of the era's stage played by the equally striking Samantha Morton (Synecdoche, New York), and briefly nods to his secret life as Doctor Bendo.

But for all this film's pretense of severe debauchery, in so delicately skirting the graver implications of these aspects of Wilmot's life, it ultimately toes a trite, pat Hollywood line in the end. From whence do Wilmot's fatal venereal diseases spring, if a) viewers are to accept that Depp's Wilmot couldn't get aroused by prostitutes or his wife early in the film, b) he became aroused by Elizabeth Barry, and c) Barry left him? That's typical Hollywood for you: making a character known for numerous affairs incapable, for the purposes of its film, of maintaining sexual relationships with more than one woman at a time -- and yet still magicking venereal diseases that affect him but not any of the partners we do see on screen. Thus for all the film presents Wilmot as a character to be despised, it still tries to redeem or temper him in far too many ways. Johnny Depp's vivacious command of the role ultimately saves this film -- but just barely.