Up in the Air

I think circumstance was a friend to director Jason Reitman with respect to Up in the Air. This film was meant to be made much earlier, but other films pushed this one back to 2009. I think the current economic climate is extremely relevant to the success of this film.

Ryan Bingham spends his life flying from company to company firing employees he has no connection to and has never met. His job is to handle the way people react to the news that they no longer have a job, and make sure that they make it through the experience alright, or at least get through that first day with enough sanity to turn things around on their own later on. He tells people, quite convincingly, that there are bigger things than employment, that their children admire them for following dreams rather than bringing home a paycheck, that it's ok to start over. He, on the other hand, holds on desperately to a job that is becoming obsolete thanks to a young up-and-comer who proposes moving much of the interaction to the internet, thus removing the need for Ryan to be in constant motion around the country.

Ryan's only real goal has to do with acquiring frequent flyer miles. Everything in his life becomes portable and temporary as he fails to put down any roots. Only George Clooney could portray this character as likable through all his flaws. He's charismatic and engaging, and then dismissive and shallow. Many aspects of this film are pleasantly real. As with Reitman's other films, he doesn't shy away from harsher truths and doesn't go out of his way to tie up loose ends with a happy ending, but he still manages to create driving and enjoyable films. The tension between the freedom of a travel-sized life and the fulfillment that comes with responsibility plays out beautifully in the scene where Ryan reaches his magic number of miles, although I can't say too much about it without giving things away.

It has the feel of a small movie, more like Thank You For Smoking than Juno, despite the highly-recognizable cast. It has the gloss and pop of a big-budget film while retaining a trust for the intellectual capacity of its audience, which pays off in the quality and depth in the way Reitman treats the subject matter.

Sherlock Holmes

I'm glad the Christmas season did a better job of delivering enjoyable popcorn films than this summer did. Guy Ritchie brought us Robert Downey Jr. as a charismatic, but unlikable Sherlock Holmes--exactly how I imagine Holmes. Jude Law, as Watson, is a much more likeable, if slightly less compelling, character. The chemistry between the two actors plays well as they work to defraud the apparent sorcerer and killer, Lord Blackwood. The team seeks to uncover the simple, if sometimes contrived, explanations to what Blackwood passes of as black magic.

The story isn't perfect, but it retains enough of the Sherlock Holmes tradition to be enjoyable and familiar. Many questions arise during the story line, which the film tries to answer neatly, but unsatisfactorily by the end, but ultimately none of it matters. It's a fun movie. There's mystery, action, and suspense, which is precisely what I wanted out of it.

Avatar

This movie will change the way you look at movies, yes, but only the way you look at movies.

Avatar tells the story of a paraplegic marine, Jake Sully, who fills in for his brother to operate an alien avatar in scientific exploration and mercinary reconaissance on the planet Pandora. Yes, Pandora. Subtle, right? As the story develops there is a growing conflict between the researchers exploring the social/biological aspects of the planet and the capitalists and their mercenaries who are after the extremely valuable supply of "unobtanium" (again, subtle) located under the native species' home tree.

Sully and a few others make use of "avatars," which allow them to operate, what is basically an organic robot version of themselves in the form of one of the natives. Sully spends most of the film becoming one of them, and then must defend these people against the blindly evil Americans who are out to steal and destroy.

Yes, this is a Blockbuster film, but it really does work down to the lowest intelligence of the audience. I'm not implying that only unintelligent people can enjoy this film, because I actually did enjoy the experience of watching it, but everything is right on the surface. It is blatantly environmental without making any deeper points or subtle connections. The Navii people seen vaguely Native American in their worship and respect for land and nature. Somewhere the film degrades to a grown-up version of Ferngully with an action sequence where Jurassic Park meets Star Wars. The plot has enormous holes and a lot of the dialogue is clunky and cliche. To be fair, Sam Worthington's performance was really enjoyable here. After this film and Terminator: Salvation, I have full confidence in his acting skills ability to pick lucrative roles, but not much faith in his judgement of quality movies.

All that being said, I have never seen anything like this film. The plot problems did keep me from being entirely swept away, but I could have easily sat through another 30 minutes of one-dimensional characters and plot holes just for the chance to continue looking at the spectacle of the film. The visual effects were that good. I'm thrilled I had the chance to see it in 3D, and I hear that the IMAX experience is even better. It's entertaining, but I wish that the technical mastery could have been applied to a better film.