Up in the Air: A First-Class Journey of Self-Discovery
No man since Cary Grant has looked better in a suit than George Clooney, and if you outfitted Cary with a BlackBerry and a laptop and gave him elite flying status, he could be the devilish playboy Clooney portrays with consummate ease in Up in the Air, a timely and astute comedy.
When Clooney isn’t dashing around the Middle East chastising America (in Three Kings, Syriana, The Men Who Stare at Goats, etc.) he can be one of the screen’s most charming rogues, and he works that act to perfection as Ryan Bingham, a corporate layoff artist tasked with jetting from city to city to inform office workers that they’re being sacked. The worse the economy gets, the better things look for Ryan. His boss (Jason Bateman) tells him that the car industry is about to get hit with massive layoffs. Yippee!
As a side gig, Ryan is a motivational speaker who gets invited to still more cities and conferences to deliver his standard spiel about how everyone is saddled with a “backpack” full of responsibilities and commitments. Ryan tells rapt audiences how they must unload their burdens, jettison the excess weight, be free. What can be so important as to be worth holding on to? Not pictures, he tells people. They’re for people who can’t remember anything. Pop a ginkgo tablet and burn ’em, he advises.
Ryan doesn’t just live out of a suitcase; he lives out of a rollerboard. (Checked-through luggage, he says, costs you 35 minutes per trip.) He spends only a few days a year at his Omaha home. It looks exactly like a hotel room, and that’s the way he likes it.
But change is in the wind; his boss introduces Ryan to a young superstar (Anna Kendrick) in the layoff industry who matches Ryan’s expertise in cutting payroll but with an alarming new twist: Natalie Keener fires people using video conferencing. The company is going to be reengineered as a tele-firing firm, which means Ryan, who has the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old, receives that sentence dreaded by every actual 12-year-old: He is grounded. That seems to doom the exciting little no-strings affair he has begun up with a fellow road warrior (Vera Farmiga), who is as uninterested as he is in a long-term attachment. Each gets turned on in a very funny scene in which they show off the VIP status cards they have been given by every airline, hotel, and car rental agency in the country.
Saw the premier Tuesday night in Dallas. The movie was great. Very refreshing.
Since George is one of the jerks in Hollywood who hates America, I tend to hate his movies.
Besides why give him the millions to fly around the world and diss us regular people?
I, for one, won’t be seeing this.
Looney will never pocket 1c of my money. He might suffer nasal problems if we ever meet.
Recent Hollywood Movies
’2012′ Left wing anti Capitalist Black loving PROPAGANDA
‘Avatar’ Left wing anti Capitalist PROPAGANDA
American TV left wing anti White, Black loving, Affirmative Action PROPAGANDA
etc etc etc etc,
This was a classic line from an episode ‘REAPER’ I watched on TV last night. The DEVIL to his son ‘ You want to see REAL EVIL in action then you have to see Corporate America’
Now thats what I call PROPAGANDA.
Pragmatist: Well, the Devil says it, the supreme force of all evil, so do you really think it is being said as motto we are obliged to believe? I really don’t think so…
I listened to an interview with the director on NPR (please forgive me but it helps to know what the enemy is doing and thinking). While the book is somewhat dated, 2001, I can identify with the character. My occupation requires me to travel for a living. I either stay in a hotel 365 days a year or get an apartment in the area where I am working. Normally I am on a plane at least once a week. I did purchase the book, at Wal-Mart, but I doubt if I will see the film until it hits the Wal-Mart $5 discount bin, maybe not then, or makes its way to free cable. I have seen some Clooney films but I don’t believe I have actually paid $ unless you include headcount on free hotel cable. He seems to be a good actor but his politics offends me. I should also note that the film director had to go to the Clooney HOME in ITALY to pitch his movie.
I guess George doesn’t live HERE anymore.
Wal-Mart? Isn’t that the communist Chinese-run store?
#7 Botan: what does his politics have to do with his movie? all of you muslim and black hating people your views or skewed and it is so far up your a** it has not seen day light in ten years!!!!
Pragmatist: can you then please recomend a right wing movie that you like?
BTW: I am a gay black muslim man… what are my status here?
mr: your status in any muslim country is dead, appreciate the good old USA.
When we find someone who hates the US and belittles its values, we are loath to spend our money supporting such person. Not hard to understand at all.