What's In Your Backpack?

The much-hyped Up In The Air lives up to its billing and is worthy of its spot in its two-horse race against Avatar as the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar (although I'd probably give it to Inglourious Basterds). Jason Reitman's movie is really the total package -- a great story, great writing, and some great performances. It's really quite funny -- the script has a good bit of one-liners and humorous events that had this blogger chuckling pretty often and smiling for much of the movie. But it's also very emotionally charged and not afraid to tackle difficult questions on life and the relationships that define it. Although not a particularly sad movie, there were a few scenes where people cried, and you'll find that you actually care about the fate of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) and his friends and family by the end of it.

The movie tells the story of Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizer that spends his life on the road. He has no real friends, no woman in his life, and his family barely knows him. When he's not firing people from random companies, he spends his days traveling around giving "inspirational" talks that are titled, "What's In Your Backpack?" The message is that we should try to keep the relationships of our lives (the things that would fill our metaphorical backpack) to a minimum so we don't have anything weighing us down and can stay on the move (to Ryan, moving is living).

He meets fellow traveler Alex (Vera Farmiga), and the two start a casual relationship that essentially consists of the two meeting whenever they are in the same city. But shortly thereafter, his company then decides to follow the advice of rising star Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) and start operating via webcams instead of in person (effectively grounding Bingham). But first, Bingham must take Keener along to show her the ropes. During their travels, Keener begins to question Bingham's lifestyle and ultimately gets to Bingham to reevaluate his life, culminating in him asking Alex to join him at his sister's wedding. I know this plot might sound like a corny love story between Bingham and Alex, but I assure you it's far from it. In fact, the movie is just as much about Bingham's relationship with Keener and to a lesser extent, his family.

As I previously mentioned, many of the parts were written specifically for the actors in the film. And it really shows. This movie is wonderfully cast. Clooney is terrific, Farmiga is perfect for her part, and smaller parts played by Danny McBride, Zach Galifianakis, and Jason Bateman are also very good. But, to me, the real star of this film was Anna Kendrick (if you've never heard of her, don't feel bad -- her big screen resume is pretty much Twilight and nothing else). She was absolutely fantastic. Despite being beautiful and humorously charming, Kendrick really shows her range by playing a fiery young businesswoman determined to prove she belongs but who is also a bit of a softie, dreaming about the perfect man and crying over failed relationships. She was far and away my favorite character of the movie and, in this blogger's opinion, should take home this year's Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (yes, even over Mo'nique's performance in Precious).

Bottom line: Believe the hype. This one is worthy of its praise. Go check it out. (A-)

Living Life One Flight at a Time

I recently posted about the Christmas day opening of the much anticipated Sherlock Holmes. For those who have no interest in Holmes but are still looking for something to see, you probably won't be too disappointed with Paramount's Up In The Air. To be honest, I'm not sure which to recommend, but if you went by the recently released Golden Globe nominations, Up In The Air would be your winner -- it received the most nominations of any movie this year. And it's already won best picture from a couple of lesser known awards associations.

Written and directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking), the movie is an adaptation of a 2001 Walter Kim novel of the same name. It's the coming-of-age story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) who is a corporate downsizer (a consultant who basically goes from struggling company to struggling company and fires people) that spends the majority of his life on the road. He doesn't really have any friends or a personal life to speak of. But things change once his company decides to have him located at their headquarters in Omaha for good.

Reitman had a vision of exactly what he wanted the movie to be as he wrote it. He wrote the part of Ryan Bingham specifically for Clooney. But more than that, he wrote parts specifically for much of the rest of the cast (and this movie boasts a damn good cast) as well -- Vera Farmiga (The Departed, Nothing but the Truth), Anna Kendrick (Twilight), Jason Bateman, Danny McBride (Kenny Powers from HBO's East Bound & Down), Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover), Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men), Amy Morton, and the legendary Sam Elliot (if you think you don't know who he is, click here). I suppose that in reality most writers have specific actors or actresses in mind when they write certain parts, but I can't recall another time where so many of them ended up actually being in the movie. It's hard not to be excited for this one.

Here's the trailer:

(Mostly) Fantastic Mr. Fox

Anyone who read my preview post about Fantastic Mr. Fox knows that I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson. And I was pretty excited about the movie. And for good reason -- aside from Wes Anderson's direction, the movie had a lot going for it: the voice cast was great, it was done in very cool and underused stop animation style, and the movie had been getting great reviews (including a nearly unheard of 100% rating on rottentomatoes). But, much to my chagrin, despite having been released for two weeks, the movie was not playing anywhere near me (Charlotte, NC) until the last few days.

To say I was disappointed would be misleading. I liked the movie. I really did. I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would. It was definitely enjoyable, and there were many things about it that were vintage Anderson. Despite being an adaptation of a children's book, it was certainly geared towards adults. It was full of the dark, humorous, and awkward one liners we've come to love from Anderson. I think my favorite character of the movie was actually Jason Schwartzman's "Ash," Mr. Fox's insecure son who is obsessed with proving himself to his father as being an athlete (the sport they play in the movie, called "whackbat," is pretty hilarious). His approval-seeking (and yet rebellious at the same time) attitude leads to some pretty funny moments. And George Clooney's "Mr. Fox" also had some pretty funny lines as well.

The stop animation was very well done and made me realize that more movies should be done this way. As I watched, I thought about how long it must take to produce a stop animation film -- according to WikiAnswers, it probably takes about 1 to 2 hours for every 30 seconds of animating; if you extrapolate that out to 90 minutes of movie, you're looking at about 180 to 360 hours. Keep in mind that this is only to shoot the movie and doesn't factor in all the prep time it takes to actually create the scenes. It's no small time commitment. And the voice work (especially Jason Schwartzman and Michael Gambon as "Mr. Bean") was also pretty good. Most of the movie was George Clooney's "Mr. Fox" talking, but his voice fit the part well. And Streep sounded like a natural as the supportive, yet frustrated, "Mrs. Fox."

But there seemed to be certain things that were lost in translation -- things that I would've appreciated and enjoyed much more if the movie had real people in it. I think it made various parts less funny than they otherwise could have been if real actors were on screen (i.e., I would've laughed much more if Bill Murray the man was on screen as opposed to Bill Murray the badger). It's really not anyone's fault -- pretty much all animated (especially stop animation) movies suffer from a similar fate. It's hard to convey certain facial expressions through animated characters, and, for the most part, real people are just funnier than animated characters (in this blogger's opinion anyway). Don't get me wrong -- I completely understand that this movie needed to be animated (it is, after all, about a group of talking animals), and, truthfully, many of the movie's strengths stem from the fact that it was. But I'm still much more of a fan of "real life" Wes Anderson movies. And I probably always will be.

Bottom line: Wes Anderson loyalists might be slightly disappointed with the film, but it is still a quality piece of work with many things you'd typically expect from him. The stop animation is pretty cool, and I'd recommend it to moviegoers of all ages. (B)

Here's the trailer:

George Clooney, Jedi Warrior

The Men Who Stare at Goats was barely worth seeing. If you read my preview post, you know that I had pretty high hopes for it. It didn't meet them. But it wasn't as big of a disappointment as some of the reviews I've been reading have said it would be. And it wasn't bad enough to actually walk out of the theater about an hour into the movie (as two people did when I saw it).

The movie is definitely lacking when it comes to anything resembling a cohesive plot. Most of the film is simply Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) following around George Clooney's character, Lyn Cassaday, in Iraq as Cassaday tells Wilton the history of a top secret sector of the military called the "New Earth Army." The New Earth Army was started by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), basically a huge hippie that convinced the higher-ups in the military to give him approval for the team, and focused their training on psychic powers (for example, the group focuses on the ability to "remotely view" anywhere in the world by simply going there in their mind). Cassaday was the all-star of the group and considered himself a true Jedi warrior (and the only one ever portrayed as actually successful in any remote viewing).

But when another group member Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) convinces the military to start using the New Earth Army for "the dark side," Cassaday quits the team. Now, years later, Cassaday is going to reunite with Django at Hooper's facility in Iraq in an effort to stop him from psychic experiments torturing prisoners (using methods such as playing the Barney and Friends theme song for 24 hours straight in their prison cells).

That's all there is to it, really. You'll definitely be disappointed if you go expecting anything more. And the movie's climax (if it even really has one) and ending are such an insignificant and honestly stupid part of the movie that I won't even bother mentioning them.

But the movie still has its positives. You will definitely laugh more than a few times. Clooney has a bunch of great one liners and does a great job convincing you that his character really believes in everything he's saying. It's really funny to hear him describe some abilities that his psychic training has given him (for example, he says he can become "invisible," but he really just means hiding himself). The nerd in me also found it humorously ironic to watch McGregor (best known as Obi-Won Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy) ask Clooney explain to him what a Jedi warrior was. And Bridges has his moments as well. But Spacey's character and performance are really not very good. And, as a friend of mine said, the movie is essentially an SNL skit that would've been hilarious for 4 minutes stretched out into an hour and a half movie.

Bottom line: The movie has a few laughs but not much else. If there's anything else you'd rather see, don't feel like your missing out by avoiding this one. (C-)

Here's the trailer:

Wes Anderson Like We've Never Seen Before

Wes Anderson is one of my favorite directors. I know that his work can be pretty polarizing, and most people either love him or hate him. But I think the guy's a genius. The Royal Tennenbaums is pretty high on my all-time movie list. And Rushmore, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited are all quality pieces of work. But his new movie, coming out November 25, is going to assuredly be something a little different.

Fantastic Mr. Fox will be Anderson's first animated (stop animation, actually) film. It's tough to know what to really expect from this film. No director I've ever liked so much has ever done anything animated, and I really wonder how different the film will be from the rest of his work. But, despite the guaranteed differences due to the film being animated, any Wes Anderson fan will be pretty excited about all the old Wes Anderson favorites joining the film for voice work: Bill Murray (Life Aquatic, Royal Tennenbaums, Darjeeling Limited), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, Darjeeling Limited), Owen Wilson (Darjeeling Limited, Royal Tennenbaums, Life Aquatic, Bottle Rocket), Anjelica Huston (Royal Tennenbaums, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited), Adrien Brody (Darjeeling Limited), Willem Dafoe (Life Aquatic), and even Wes Anderson himself.

And if those names don't excite you, there are some really big names joining the usual Wes Anderson crew: George Clooney (who will play Mr. Fox), Meryl Streep (Mrs. Fox), and Michael Gambon (you know him better as Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies). With one hell of a director and such a great voice cast, it should be interesting to see what the final product looks like.

Here's the preview:

Staring at Goats?

On November 6, Overture Films will release its adaptation of Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare at Goats. Directed by Grant Heslov (writer of Good Night, and Good Luck), the movie packs some serious star power: Ewen McGregor will play Bob Wilton, a reporter who stumbles upon the story of Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a special forces operator involved in top secret military experiments (among these experiments, and where the story gets its title, is trying to kill goats through psychokinesis -- basically blowing them up with your mind). Wilton tags along with Cassady until they discover the founder of the unit, Bill Django, played by Jeff Bridges, has been kidnapped by a rebel group led by a former member of the unit, Larry Hopper (played by Kevin Spacey).

With such a strong cast, I've got to admit I'm pretty excited to see how funny this movie is. It'll be interesting to see how well Clooney, Bridges, and Spacey can pull off lunatics believing they have psychokinetic powers . My guess is that we won't be disappointed.

Here's the trailer: