‘Up in the Air’ is a very hard film to explain.  Something about a guy who goes around collecting frequent flyer miles and has no personal relationships.  In writing this review I was hoping to shed some new light on the plot that would make readers jump into theaters on November 25th however I can’t really. The fact is ‘Up in the Air’ just very hard to summarize (well summarize and make it sound cool) without spoiling most of the movie. Just know that I liked this movie.

George Clooney is Ryan Bingham a corporate downsizing expert who travels the country doing a job some employers are too afraid to do: downsize. Sometimes employees cry, other times they use a string of colorful but not to original words, and occasionally they turn violent. These are a few reasons a company might hire a consultant like Ryan Bigham to do their dirty work. This job allows Bingham to remain in motion at all times making very few personal connections. In a hotel bar Bingham meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), he takes her to his room and then they part ways agreeing to meet again should their layovers ever cross ways. Bingham goes back to his corporate office for an important meeting, his boss Craig (Jason Bateman) informs him that the new hotshot Natalie (Anna Kendrick) has come up with a way to lay people off over the internet essentially making him obsolete. This greatly jeopardizes Bingham’s constant on the move lifestyle and his goal of obtaining ten million frequent flyer miles.

The film is not really about a guy trying to get ten million frequent flyer miles, it’s about the way different types of people interact with each other. Their are about six ‘main’ characters and each approach life and relationships in a very different way. So that’s really what ‘Up in the Air’ is a character study of six people, each trying to be happy and looking in different places.

‘Up in the Air’ is a well crafted character expose. The photography is not flashy but their are a lot of interesting visuals, as well as a brilliant title sequence by Shadow Play Studios (they also did ‘Thank you for Smoking’ and ‘Juno’).

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written by Travis \\ tags: 'Up in the Air', Anna Kendrick, George Clooney, Jason Bateman, Vera Farmiga

Last night I finally got around to seeing Tony Gilroy’s (writer of the Bourne movies) directorial debut; Michael Clayton, and man it was a good film.  If you’re up on the movies you know that Michael Clayton has been out since October, and is coming to DVD, Blu-Ray and HDDVD (But who uses HDDVD?) in about 15 days.  Since it’s been out for a while I will not be doing a formal review but I will say that it is strongly constructed thriller from first time Director Tony Gilroy.  It seems a lot of people passed this film over in it’s first run so Warner Bros. rereleased it just recently after it received 7 Oscar nominations.   If you have not yet seen it I recommend it, but you may want to leave the kids at home it’s got some strong language. 

I was pleasantly suppressed to see that it was playing in my local theater, we don’t get a lot of films like this around here (one of the advantages of moving to Toronto, (see post below)). Kudos to my local theater for also finally deciding to play No Country For Old Men.

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written by Travis \\ tags: George Clooney, Michael Clayton, Sydney Pollack, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Tony Gilroy, Travis's Review