What I’ve Been Watching – Cinema

Up in the Air
Directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking, Juno), Up In The Air stars George Clooney as a man who’s job it is to fire people. Companies hire him to tell people they’re no longer doing. This suits him down to the ground, (or should that be up in the air?…) since flying from city to city in America means he has no time to make any human connections. Clooney prides himself on having no baggage to weigh him down.

Up in the Air is primarily an examination of the need for human relationships: Is it possible to live a fulfilled life alone? Through Clooney’s relationship with a young college graduate who threatens to change his unique lifestyle, it also examines how our expectations for life change as we grow older. What is it that will sustain us? What is it that we will strive for?

Through a great script, and great performances from its leads, I felt as though Up in the Air was a complete success. Balancing depth and humour in a way I’ve now come to expect from Reitman’s movies. The lead character was surprisingly unique. He had a point-of-view few can relate to, without being a complete jackass, or being in apparent need of a radical life change.

Spoilers for the ending of the movie
Critics like Mark Kermode have critised the movie’s ending for succumbing to what he sees as the character ‘learning a lesson’ and ‘undergoing a life change’. I, however, believe it was in-keeping with the first two thirds of the movie, where we’re lead to believe neither he nor his new girlfriend always had this lifestyle. To me, the ending gave a lot more depth to the character, forcing me to think what past events led him to being the person we meet at the start of the movie. If one sees the film like that, it leaves the events of the last fifteen minutes a lot more open to interpretation, since Clooney’s experience may not lead to any radical changes in his life, but merely be a confirmation of what he believed all along.

Brothers
Brothers is a remake of a Danish film. It stars Tobey Maguire as a man married to Natalie Portman, who’s about to go serve his country in Afghanistan. His brother, Jake Gyllenhall, has just been released from prison, and is aiming to rebuild his life now he’s free.

The movie gives us an examination of their relationship, and how the expectations on both of them have influenced who they are. We also see the importance of having somewhere they belong, as tragedy strikes in the first third of the movie.

It’s difficult to go into very much more detail about the plot, or even its themes without spoiling the movie. Some critics have said the original movie was better. I haven’t seen the Danish version, however, since I feel the story was the weakest part of the movie, I find this hard to believe. In fact, it would have been nice to see a different film with the same characters/relationships/dialogue without the type of story Michael Bay would have been proud of.

I’d still recommend the movie, since its well-formed characters did give me a way-in to the sentiment of the film. Like Gone Baby Gone it’s a movie which succeeds despite its ill-conceived plot twists, but rather because of the underlying truth to the emotion they’re experiencing.

Precious
My father often recounts the time when our Youth Fellowship was taken to an evening event one Sunday for all the Presbyterian churches in the area. At the event, a bunch of 12-18 year olds were shown some fairly harrowing clips from Schindler’s List: the scene where the bodies are piled on top of one another and burnt, with vast clouds of smoke consuming a vast area surrounding it. Afterwards, a minister from another church spoke about hell: and how that’s what it was like. Of course, no one remembers what he said because the images were too powerful, and instead the only thing on our minds was the nature of suffering, and how anyone could be so cruel.

Films often carry images/scenes/dialogue that become ingrained in your consciousness for various reasons. The problem I had with Precious, is that I got the impression there was a message I was supposed to pick up about never giving up; the importance of education; and the importance of having people to support you. Although these messages came through on the periphery, the main feeling I had was one of despair and sympathy for the main character, and everything she’s had to put up with. Precious may want to be a meaningful human drama, but in my opinion, it ended up being more like a horror movie: it’s most harrowing scenes being ingrained in my mind.

It’s failure in impacting me, isn’t because of a lack of effort by the director, but rather a lack of understanding of what audiences will make of what they’re being shown. Schindler’s List works because its message fits its images: no society should ever let anything like the holocaust happen. Precious doesn’t seem to be questioning the role of society, but rather the individuals responsible for the acts of brutality. It asks us to celebrate someone who didn’t give up despite having every reason to do so. The problem is I don’t feel much like celebrating.

Top 5 Most Anticipated Movies of 2010

Another day, another top five. This time it’s about movies not yet released. This list, unlike the others, is very much my inner fanboy coming out to play. I have no idea what the quality of these movies will be, but I do know the excitement I feel when thinking about their release.

5. Inception
This film is directed by Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight, Prestige, Memento) so it makes the list for that reason alone. The plot isn’t that clear as yet, but its tagline: “Your Mind is the Scene of the Crime” implies this will be a psychological thriller where it’s not always clear what reality is. It also makes me think Nolan will also exploring the true intent of his characters’ actions: the strongest theme in his work to date.
I’ll let you try and make sense of the trailer:

4. Kick Ass
Directed by Matthew Vaughn, who worked with Guy Ritchie on Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels then Snatch before going on to direct Layer Cake and the excellent Stardust by himself. Kick-Ass concerns a group of have-a-go-superheroes without any actual superpowers. Among them is the incredibly violent Hit-Girl: played by twelve-year old Chloe Moretz. I think you get a good sense of the mix of violence and humour from the pre-watershed trailer:

As well as the 18-rated post-watershed trailer which introduces you to Hit-Girl, and as such contains very strong language, so NSFW:

3. Up in The Air
I spoke last week about my love for the trailer of this movie. Having listened to the film’s director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking, Juno) talk about this project, as well as film critics in America, I can’t wait to see it. George Clooney plays a character who’s job it is to fire people. He spends most of his life in hotel rooms and airports doing his best to make connections, so long as they aren’t human. Zing! – One day I will write trailer monologues:

In a world of connections, Ryan is doing his make to make some – cut to him making a flight – and avoid others – cut to him making excuse after leaving a woman in a hotel room.

Thankfully they didn’t hire me to do the trailer, and made this wonderful one instead:

2. Toy Story 3
I’ve heard Toy Story 1 & 2 described as “The Godfather” of animated movies: an amazing first feature followed by an even better sequel. Here’s hoping the third one doesn’t turn out to be like the ill-judged Godfather Part 3 then. The film opens with Andy going off to college, so the toys are taken to a day-care centre. Once there, the unbridled chaos of dozens of little toddlers leads them to plot their escape. Pixar’s last three movies have all been in my top five of their respective years. They’ve succeeded, because unlike the Shreks of the animated world, they realise that making adult-friendly films goes beyond making smutty jokes that go over kids heads (Do you think he’s maybe compensating for something?). It’s about story. Here’s the trailer:

1. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
Scott Pilgrim is based on a comic book series by Bryan Lee O’Malley and directed by Edgar Wright (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz). It tells the story of 23-year-old Scott Pilgrim who’s in the post-uni, pre-work stage of life. His life changes when he meets Ramona Flowers, literally the girl of his dreams. Mixing action, music and pop-culture references, this is one of my favourite comics ever. I’m super-excited about seeing the film, which stars Michael Cera as the lead, and also includes a grown-up Kieran Culkin as his totally platonic gay-bedmate.
There’s no trailer for the movie yet, so you’ll have to make do with Edgar Wright’s description of the film, interspersed with sword-fighting from the cast:

Favourite Trailer of the Year: Up In The Air

Yesterday I promised to do a write-up on Paul Thomas Anderson.  However, since I’ve got a flight to catch today I’ll be unable to do the blog entry justice in the time available.
Instead, in keeping with my theme of “Top Fives of the Year” I’m giving you my number one trailer from last year: “Up In The Air”

There’s a number of reasons this trailer works. However, the reason it’s my favourite is thatit works as a piece of entertainment in its own right. The monologue doesn’t actually need a movie to exist: it works on its own terms. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the movie, but regardless of its quality this trailer should be appreciated as a two-minute piece of art.