Up in the Air
My family spent the better part of 2009 unemployed, and while we were lucky enough to land on our feet, we have several very dear friends we still hurt for, who might want to wait a little while before seeing Up in the Air. This ain’t no Juno, despite the presence of both Jason Bateman and JK Simmons.
I’m pretty sure my husband and all of those friends would have preferred to be fired in person by George Clooney — handsome, likable, compassionate — than with a phonecall or an e-mail. Some of the inherent discomfort in Up in the Air revolves around how emerging technology allows us to disconnect from uncomfortable situations, when it’s convenient. Firing someone. Breaking up with someone. Quitting your job. It’s so much easier to send an electronic message, isn’t it? But we lose part of our humanity in the mix, an argument that is successfully presented here.
Director Jason Reitman interviewed scores of recently-fired people to get their actual, unscripted reactions. At one point, Clooney’s character says something to the effect of, “We have no idea how they feel, and no matter how we feel for them it’s nothing compared to what they feel.” Reitman held true to that and showed emotional maturity by allowing the dislodged workers to speak for themselves. Doing so was smart on two levels because it elevated the emotions, and presumably also helped some out-of-work people with extra cash. The song during the credits, “Up in the Air,” was written by a random person who had just been fired, and sent the tune to Reitman “in case he wanted to use it.” The recording quality is bad, yes…but…everything this musician has to say about being unemployed captures it pretty perfectly, and I really hope the song gets some kind of recognition because it gives voice to what so many of us have gone through and are still going through. I am obligated to do a shout-out to our family friend Danny Glicker, costumer extraordinaire, who was nominated for an Oscar last year for his work in Milk…keep it rockin’, Danny!
Clooney is effective here. He is getting much critical acclaim, but I must disagree when it comes to Oscar discussions. A Best Actor Oscar traditionally should be reserved for the actor who pushes his personal boundaries with a courageous performance (as Clooney did when he won his Best Support for Syriana). There is an extent to which I don’t think this role was a big stretch for Clooney, Hollywood’s most famous bachelor who goes from home to home, movie to movie, all over the world. I don’t think of Clooney as disconnected from people in real life, but I also can’t say the role of Ryan Bingham is so out of the box for Clooney that it warrants him an Oscar in the same way Forrest Whitaker got his Oscar for The Last King of Scotland, Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, etc. In a sense this is Clooney, playing the less-famous version of his real self.
There has also been much said about the two women in this film, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Unfortunately, at Golden Globes time, they are nominated against each other and for that reason may split the vote and both go home empty-handed. That is a shame. Farmiga is the perfect foil for Clooney, and Kendrick is annoying (which may have been the point, but…dang…she is REALLY annoying). Farmiga stands out, because she is tasked with a major plot reveal and hits exactly the right note with it.
Up in the Air is an uncomfortable film at the end of a terrible year. It is not a bad film, but neither is it great. Major awards it wins will be solely based on its timing, which was spot on in terms of capturing the national mood, and on the fact that it was a weak year for movies because of the economic downturn. This would not win Best Picture in any other circumstance. Every year, I go to as many nominated movies as I can, trying to guess which ones will come out on top. For the past three years, all of which I’ve outguessed Roger Ebert and in one case, won a national guessing contest in USA Today, I had an immediate gut reaction after I saw the Best Picture, and had no doubt I had just seen the Best Picture. That hasn’t happened yet, this season. You could say it’s still up in the air.
Avatar (or, Dances With The Blue Man Group)
Everything you hear about the visually stunning nature of Avatar is true. Everything you hear about Avatar‘s storyline being completely cliche, and a shameless re-tread of Dances With Wolves, is also true. I would even go a bit further and say that my family and I also picked out certain elements of Harry Potter, Braveheart, Star Wars, and The Matrix. Even the beautiful neon creatures created to populate the planet of Pandora, owe something to fabric designer Laurel Birch. (Go to eQuilter.com, search Laurel Birch, and you’ll understand.)
I counted Sam Worthington’s accent slipping from gruff American back into his native Australian (cue Ferris Bueller school secretary voice) NINE TIMES in the first twenty minutes. That’s even worse than Mel Gibson in the first Lethal Weapon movie. I quickly realized that if I kept count I’d drive myself crazy, and that Worthington’s American accent is Worthingless. That Cameron insisted the character must be American was in error. Would any part of the story, or the story’s outcome, have been different had the character been Australian? No.
The marine colonel is an over-the-top stereotype. How much more effective it might have been, had Cameron chosen to put any kind of twist on that character or his outcome. Female characters showing any strength get killed, except the main character’s squeeze. That people 150 years in the future still smoke, and still have military equipment with clunky-looking controls, confused me. That foreshadowing is used in a way that assumes the audience is stupid, and that new age concepts are compared to technology, disappointed me. That the film gets preachy about materialism but has inspired a full commercial franchise including action figures, fast food toys and a video game, downright disgusted me (just as Wall-E did).
2009, overall, was a weak year for movies. Several really good films (like The Maiden Heist) never went into full release and several planned films were discontinued, as the entertainment industry was hardly immune to financial hardship. In an otherwise weak year, Avatar will stand out in terms of its box-office returns and may get a Best Picture nomination because AMPAS chose to expand the field to 10 nominees and include more populist choices, and, because this was a movie with excellent special effects. Avatar will be well-justified in winning any technical award it is nominated for, but, I can’t vouch for anything else and I am frustrated by the amount of “critical acclaim” going on here. Perhaps James Cameron should have stuck with marine documentaries, which are at least worth seeing at full price. My recommendation is to either pay matinee price to see Avatar while wearing earplugs along with your 3D glasses, or else, send your avatar to the theater.
Sherlock Holmes (or…No Shit, Sherlock!)
Until today I had never seen a Guy Ritchie movie I actually liked. My easiest and most comfortable manner of reviewing Sherlock Holmes is to compare and contrast it to Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, which as many of you know is an all-time favorite of mine.
Both Sherlock and Pirates have plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Both films have bromances and at least one ballsy, gun-toting chick. Both are developed from pre-existing material (Sherlock, faithfully developed from the Arthur Conan Doyle novels and Pirates from the Disney theme park ride) and are period pieces to the detail. Both scores are awesome and stick with you afterward, but then both were written by Hans Zimmer, go figure. Both heroes have substance abuse issues and a cute “straight man” to curb their antics; both heroes also use quick thinking and humor (with a few guns, blades and explosives) to get themselves out of various conundrums. Both films shamelessly set up a sequel, and in both cases, I didn’t mind, largely because both movies boast favorite actors of mine (Downey and Depp, natch) in delicious states of dress and undress, sometimes wet, and with awesome hair. And both were the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a really long time.
While I don’t think Holmes will be a serious contender for any acting awards, I do believe it may play into some technical awards (though in many cases will lose to Avatar). That it will be nominated for a costumes Oscar, and possibly art direction, I do not doubt.
On to the differences. Besides Sherlock having a bulldog and Pirates having a monkey, there are a few. While both films do have one villain clearly defined and one in the periphery, allowing the opportunity for further episodes, only Sherlock Holmes resolves things with any finality. In fact, one of my pet peeves about action/adventure movies happens when the bad guy has an unsatisfying come-uppance at the end, an unfitting death or something unFaustian. The ending of Lord Blackwood was so well done I believe I actually said “Awesome!” out loud, before realizing I’d done it out loud and sank back into my seat. Also, Holmes goes a lot further than the first of the Pirates films did to create a sense of period with more than costumes and vehicles. The smoky days of London in the Industrial Revolution are tangible and palpable, and I half expected Sweeney Todd to pop out of a doorway. While both films’ plots toy with elements of the supernatural, only Holmes finally dispels myths using science.
Pirates was superior in that Captain Jack Sparrow was a truly unique movie character we hadn’t seen before, and because he was so over-the-top, we can’t think of Downey’s interpretation as occupying the same space, even though technically speaking, it should. I can see more kids going to see Pirates and then wanting to dress up as a pirate than I can imagine those same kids seeing Sherlock Holmes and then coming home, donning a deerstalker tweed hat, and creeping around with a magnifying glass (though, to be fair, not even Downey does that).
Sherlock Holmes is a new take on an old theme, and a fun one at that…but I fear that the excitement of following clues and solving mysteries with logic may no longer be its own thrill in a world of fight scenes and special effects. I look forward to seeing where the franchise goes.
HeidiWrites 