A day of movie watching in the theatre, themed according to flight, began with Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009) and ended with Avatar (James Cameron, 2009.) Despite the oppositional pairing: a visually stark film about a man who fires people for a living and a visually overloaded fantasy picture about a man studying beings that will be fired upon, these two pictures worked nicely together.
Up In The Air (spoiler) is a compelling meditation on the status of our economy distracted by a tale of unrequited love. Regardless, it's dark and fittingly so. Clooney is fabulous, as always. He has the knack for picking pictures, and as my viewing companion remarked, this talent allows him to shed light upon worthy pictures with challenging themes (for example: Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, O Brother Where Art Thou?) The script is a bit hot and cold at times, but a desirable and intelligent female character, Alex, an unapologetically successful business woman, made up for the weaker lass (Natalie) learning the ropes. Favorite quote - Natalie, burned by a text-message break-up, whines to Alex (I paraphrase) "This might sound anti-feminist and I apologize to your generation of women who made it possible for me to feel this way, but I just want to be married to a man."
It required a warm cup of hot chocolate in between films to appropriately jack-me-up for the blue beings (indeed, as I put on the 3D glasses, I realized I was too caffeinated to blink.) There's lots that will be said about this picture so I won't rehash the plot for y'all. In short, I think it's stunning to watch and I was wrapped up in its limitless beauty. The blue warrior lady is a babe which sets up the need for physical perfection amongst all the ladies on screen (ergo Sigourney's body double in her character's death sequence gave me pause.) Plus, anything with Michelle Rodriguez kicking ass is always welcome here.
To be serious though, throughout this surprisingly moving film I thought of two things: Fuck Halliburton and Fuck Blackwater. Fuck all those companies and our citizens who work there who wreak cultural and environmental havoc for our "energy needs." If you are surprised that I got this from Avatar, re-watch the film. The visual spectacle can distract from the message, but it's there quite clearly.
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Funny, I found myself comparing these two films after seeing Avatar yesterday, only because of how each made me feel leaving the theater. As a woman. Up In the Air was a pleasant surprise in that the woman characters were directly on par with Clooney's character, sympathetic, smart and relatable, and I didn't leave the theater with that, "I'm a stupid woman" feeling. But that's exactly the feeling I left Avater with. Jake Sully was meant to be universally relatable? And the kick-ass woman he falls in love with is veritably invincible until she meets him, and then she becomes...a woman. UGH. It made me feel like shit. Not to mention Sigourney Weaver's mother-anthropoliogist turn. And why does anyone still have a cigarette 150 years from now?
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