drunkenhopfrog
Joined Sep 2006
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Reviews25
drunkenhopfrog's rating
Up in the Air is a hard movie to classify. I think the best I can do is say that this it is a drama with comedic elements, but not what we would call these days a "dramedy." Be careful calling this a romance of any kind. George Clooney (Batman: The Worst One) brings his charismatic A-Game to Jason Reitman's film and gets help with brilliant supporting turns from Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga (whom I raved about in Orphan).
Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, an elite business-class frequent flier who also dabbles in motivational speaking. Bingham's full-time employment is as a for-hire executioner that companies come to to do their dirty work during these hard economic times. Bingham travels away from "home" 300 days a year due to this job and logs over a quarter of a million frequent flier miles annually.
Due his on-the-go lifestyle, Bingham has developed a personal philosophy about life, relationships, etc. that is something like a mash-up between Buddhist non-attachment and the juvenile Ayn Rand superman. Bingham's life is a stop-over of one night stands; carry-on luggage; hotel and airline executive privileges; and avoiding everyone that is not himself — including his family. Probably only George Clooney could pull off playing such a jerk and still come across as likable. This approach to life is also the one that Bingham pimps during his side job of motivational speaking.
Ann Kendrick is fresh from college upstart Natalie Keener who is hired by Bingham's company to revolutionize the axe-for-hire business. In short she wants to take the terminators out of the air and put them in a seat to do the deed by video conferencing. Bingham disagrees with the change and brings up enough points that his boss (Jason Bateman) decides to send Keener to the skies with Bingham to learn how to tweak her program pursuant to real life experience.
The last ingredient in this would-be-Oscar recipe is Vera Farmiga as Alex Goran. I have only seen Farmiga previously in the sleeper hit horror movie, Orphan, this past summer. I was stunned by how excellent she was in that movie playing the distressed and maligned mother. I made a note to myself to keep an eye out for her in this film. I did and she did not disappoint. Alex is Bingham's foil. What he does – she does; from non-attachment selfishness and one night stands to valuing airline and hotel rewards as priceless commodities. The two engage in amusing banter the first time they share the screen and the potent chemistry never lets up from that point on.
The movie is built around several layers of character interactions: Bingham and Natalie as he shows her the ropes and, as unlikely as it would initially appear, the human side to what he does; Bingham and Alex as they explore a completely casual relationship amidst constant plane-hopping that may be growing, against Bingham's will, into something else; Natalie and her growth from young gun for hire to an actual human; each of the character's respective relationships with their family; and the lives of all three against the back drop of the corporate world in times of fiscal turmoil.
There is more to Up in the Air than just that, but I would be ruining some of the nice work with character arcs and the subtly of some of the allegorical moments if I went into it much deeper. I will say that scenes at Bingham's sister's wedding and when Clooney, Farmiga, and Kendrick share the screen are sublime*.
*This includes an awesome cameo and performance by (not so) Young MC. Bust a move.
I personally delighted in the complete deconstructing of the third act of the film and its opposition to derivative formula. The end result is what makes Up in the Air such a hard movie to label. It's not what you think.
I also found it interesting that Clooney's Ryan Bingham is not the biggest jerk in the film. The fact that he is not — and who actually is — is a stunner.
Up in the Air is a meticulously crafted film with few or no flaws. However, though it reaches to a slightly deeper level than one may expect, it still lacks resounding profundity. That simply means that Up in the Air is the best film it can be, but it is not the best film of the year. Each of the main three performances, however, do merit some discussion come awards time.
Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, an elite business-class frequent flier who also dabbles in motivational speaking. Bingham's full-time employment is as a for-hire executioner that companies come to to do their dirty work during these hard economic times. Bingham travels away from "home" 300 days a year due to this job and logs over a quarter of a million frequent flier miles annually.
Due his on-the-go lifestyle, Bingham has developed a personal philosophy about life, relationships, etc. that is something like a mash-up between Buddhist non-attachment and the juvenile Ayn Rand superman. Bingham's life is a stop-over of one night stands; carry-on luggage; hotel and airline executive privileges; and avoiding everyone that is not himself — including his family. Probably only George Clooney could pull off playing such a jerk and still come across as likable. This approach to life is also the one that Bingham pimps during his side job of motivational speaking.
Ann Kendrick is fresh from college upstart Natalie Keener who is hired by Bingham's company to revolutionize the axe-for-hire business. In short she wants to take the terminators out of the air and put them in a seat to do the deed by video conferencing. Bingham disagrees with the change and brings up enough points that his boss (Jason Bateman) decides to send Keener to the skies with Bingham to learn how to tweak her program pursuant to real life experience.
The last ingredient in this would-be-Oscar recipe is Vera Farmiga as Alex Goran. I have only seen Farmiga previously in the sleeper hit horror movie, Orphan, this past summer. I was stunned by how excellent she was in that movie playing the distressed and maligned mother. I made a note to myself to keep an eye out for her in this film. I did and she did not disappoint. Alex is Bingham's foil. What he does – she does; from non-attachment selfishness and one night stands to valuing airline and hotel rewards as priceless commodities. The two engage in amusing banter the first time they share the screen and the potent chemistry never lets up from that point on.
The movie is built around several layers of character interactions: Bingham and Natalie as he shows her the ropes and, as unlikely as it would initially appear, the human side to what he does; Bingham and Alex as they explore a completely casual relationship amidst constant plane-hopping that may be growing, against Bingham's will, into something else; Natalie and her growth from young gun for hire to an actual human; each of the character's respective relationships with their family; and the lives of all three against the back drop of the corporate world in times of fiscal turmoil.
There is more to Up in the Air than just that, but I would be ruining some of the nice work with character arcs and the subtly of some of the allegorical moments if I went into it much deeper. I will say that scenes at Bingham's sister's wedding and when Clooney, Farmiga, and Kendrick share the screen are sublime*.
*This includes an awesome cameo and performance by (not so) Young MC. Bust a move.
I personally delighted in the complete deconstructing of the third act of the film and its opposition to derivative formula. The end result is what makes Up in the Air such a hard movie to label. It's not what you think.
I also found it interesting that Clooney's Ryan Bingham is not the biggest jerk in the film. The fact that he is not — and who actually is — is a stunner.
Up in the Air is a meticulously crafted film with few or no flaws. However, though it reaches to a slightly deeper level than one may expect, it still lacks resounding profundity. That simply means that Up in the Air is the best film it can be, but it is not the best film of the year. Each of the main three performances, however, do merit some discussion come awards time.
courtesy of www.PopBunker.net This German language film was a nice surprise as a piece of tense and entertaining film-making. I'm a little surprised at some of the reviews that I read after viewing the movie. I agree with the almost universal acclaim that the film receives, but I don't understand the level of sincerity and claimed psychological satorie attributed to "Das Experiment" as a dramatized documentary. It's not. The movie is based off a novel which is loosely inspired by a real life experiment.
The rough premise of the film is The Stanford University Prison Experiment which took place in the United States in 1971. Information available regarding the experiment is patchy, but it is suggested that the reactions escalated to the hypothesized extremity in a matters of days instead of weeks and caused the experiment to be abruptly halted. That general outline is the basis of this film, but it otherwise never pretends realism.
The peak of the humiliation and brutality of the real experiment is represented in the film early on, but from that point the film sheds all viewer expectations of being realistic cinema and instead opts for stylish and amped up tension. It is in this dramatization that the movie works very well as, if not exactly thought provoking, then entertaining cinema.
Moritz Bleibereu, who appears to be Germany's answer to a young Billy Zane, is Tarek Fahd, aka Prisoner #77. Tempted beyond resistance by the $4000 payout for volunteering for the experiment, the smart ass Fahd signs up and through psychological evaluation is placed as a "prisoner." There is some psychological mumbo-jumbo used by the generic (but mostly well acted) scientists in charge of the experiment regarding the reasons some volunteers were placed as prisoners and some as guards. A quick cheat is: Fat or Aryan = guards; skinny, old, or ethnic = prisoners. As in many German films, there is a subtle subtext of apology that attempts to assure the viewer that Germans still hate Hitler (it's so common that seeing a modern German movie without the subtext is surprising).
#77 doesn't take the role of "prisoner" seriously. He cracks jokes, is obstinate to the "guards," disobeys rules, etc. His wit and bravo quickly gets under the skin of the guards to the point where they eventually feel they must strike back to subdue #77 and make the experiment as realistic as instructed. Here the most Aryan of the guards, Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi), takes control of discipline and keeping order with psychotic (Hitler-referenced) glee. Other guards begin to enjoy the humiliation of #77 and other prisoners, so they join in and, with the help of lax security by the scientists, things quickly nose dive out of control. The ending sequence is worthy of the film and takes a step back to avoid the gluttony of a hyper sensationalized finale.
The acting in "Das Experiment" is its strongest attribute. The script is mostly tight with one completely unnecessary side story told in hard to follow and excessive flashbacks. Even with that one minor caveat, however, "Das Experiment" succeeds in presenting a tense and surprisingly action-filled story that only fails to entertain during the cumbersome flashback sequences.
courtesy of www.PopBunker.net
The rough premise of the film is The Stanford University Prison Experiment which took place in the United States in 1971. Information available regarding the experiment is patchy, but it is suggested that the reactions escalated to the hypothesized extremity in a matters of days instead of weeks and caused the experiment to be abruptly halted. That general outline is the basis of this film, but it otherwise never pretends realism.
The peak of the humiliation and brutality of the real experiment is represented in the film early on, but from that point the film sheds all viewer expectations of being realistic cinema and instead opts for stylish and amped up tension. It is in this dramatization that the movie works very well as, if not exactly thought provoking, then entertaining cinema.
Moritz Bleibereu, who appears to be Germany's answer to a young Billy Zane, is Tarek Fahd, aka Prisoner #77. Tempted beyond resistance by the $4000 payout for volunteering for the experiment, the smart ass Fahd signs up and through psychological evaluation is placed as a "prisoner." There is some psychological mumbo-jumbo used by the generic (but mostly well acted) scientists in charge of the experiment regarding the reasons some volunteers were placed as prisoners and some as guards. A quick cheat is: Fat or Aryan = guards; skinny, old, or ethnic = prisoners. As in many German films, there is a subtle subtext of apology that attempts to assure the viewer that Germans still hate Hitler (it's so common that seeing a modern German movie without the subtext is surprising).
#77 doesn't take the role of "prisoner" seriously. He cracks jokes, is obstinate to the "guards," disobeys rules, etc. His wit and bravo quickly gets under the skin of the guards to the point where they eventually feel they must strike back to subdue #77 and make the experiment as realistic as instructed. Here the most Aryan of the guards, Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi), takes control of discipline and keeping order with psychotic (Hitler-referenced) glee. Other guards begin to enjoy the humiliation of #77 and other prisoners, so they join in and, with the help of lax security by the scientists, things quickly nose dive out of control. The ending sequence is worthy of the film and takes a step back to avoid the gluttony of a hyper sensationalized finale.
The acting in "Das Experiment" is its strongest attribute. The script is mostly tight with one completely unnecessary side story told in hard to follow and excessive flashbacks. Even with that one minor caveat, however, "Das Experiment" succeeds in presenting a tense and surprisingly action-filled story that only fails to entertain during the cumbersome flashback sequences.
courtesy of www.PopBunker.net
courtesy of www.PopBunker.net We've all had it happen. A day will be going merrily along with normal annoyances and accomplishments. Then suddenly, out random chaos, something triggers the memory of an innocent of something so profoundly awful and cringe-inducing that all he wishes is that the memory would have stayed forgotten.
Sometimes the buried memory is in the form of an embarrassing moment; like taking out one's junk and swinging it around at a wedding reception. And other times it is bewildering reminders of craptacular movies like Double Team.
My day "job" includes managing an online inventory. Recently we obtained around 300 DVDs to add to our online and brick and mortar inventory. Usually I don't pay attention to titles when mindlessly adding to our inventory. But yesterday I was struck as if by a malevolent satorie when this DVD came through.
I tweeted about it and got back a few colorful responses with regards to re-opening this wound of a movie in the minds of many.
So what was so awful about "Double Team?" Well, first of all the name: Double Team. Everyone is entitled to his most far-fetched fantasy, but I can't imagine anyone – not even the most strong stomach celeb stalker – wanting to be doubled teamed by JCVD and Dennis Rodman. It would be like having a fantasy involving a threesome with Larry King and Frances Bay (Granda from Happy Gilmore) while everyone wears a KISS mask. It just doesn't compute even to the most perverse of minds.
The next thing well Dennis Rodman. I mean just image google his name. Or don't.
Be who you wanna be, kid. It's all good. But to be who Rodman is and mix that with the absolute fact that he can act about as well as he shot three-pointers (23.1%) makes a mess recipe for a movie.
"Double Team" even had Mickey Rourke when he was an a-hole everyone hated instead of The Wrestler reborn a-hole that everyone suddenly thinks is cool because he is in Iron Man 2. (A side note: Rourke is the ultimate retro-cool has-been a-hole re-made into the suddenly in-demand cool a-hole that soon everyone will remember is an a-hole and will be cast aside once again. It's a crazy business.) The last thing I'm going to point out in "what was so awful about " is that it was a stone cold career killer for JCVD. It may well be that JCVD was going to have a short career arc as a major action player anyway, but in the three years leading up to "Double Team," he was in Timecop (1994), Streetfighter & Sudden Death (1995), The Quest & Maximum Risk (1996). "Double Team" flushed down in 1997 and then that was it. I think everything after "Double Team" was a direct-to-DVD or limited release for JCVD. JCVD was not known for quality cinema, but he was known for exploitative movies made for men who love movies made for men. JCVD movies were cheap to make and did enough bank at the box office until "Double Team." Not even men who love movies made for men could love JCVD after he was in a movie with Dennis Rodman that, if I remember correctly, featured a fight or chase or something where Rodman's mode of attack was Grabbing a Rebound Kung-fu or some ridiculous junk like that. I know it involved a gratuitously out of place basketball reference somehow.
courtesy of www.PopBunker.net
Sometimes the buried memory is in the form of an embarrassing moment; like taking out one's junk and swinging it around at a wedding reception. And other times it is bewildering reminders of craptacular movies like Double Team.
My day "job" includes managing an online inventory. Recently we obtained around 300 DVDs to add to our online and brick and mortar inventory. Usually I don't pay attention to titles when mindlessly adding to our inventory. But yesterday I was struck as if by a malevolent satorie when this DVD came through.
I tweeted about it and got back a few colorful responses with regards to re-opening this wound of a movie in the minds of many.
So what was so awful about "Double Team?" Well, first of all the name: Double Team. Everyone is entitled to his most far-fetched fantasy, but I can't imagine anyone – not even the most strong stomach celeb stalker – wanting to be doubled teamed by JCVD and Dennis Rodman. It would be like having a fantasy involving a threesome with Larry King and Frances Bay (Granda from Happy Gilmore) while everyone wears a KISS mask. It just doesn't compute even to the most perverse of minds.
The next thing well Dennis Rodman. I mean just image google his name. Or don't.
Be who you wanna be, kid. It's all good. But to be who Rodman is and mix that with the absolute fact that he can act about as well as he shot three-pointers (23.1%) makes a mess recipe for a movie.
"Double Team" even had Mickey Rourke when he was an a-hole everyone hated instead of The Wrestler reborn a-hole that everyone suddenly thinks is cool because he is in Iron Man 2. (A side note: Rourke is the ultimate retro-cool has-been a-hole re-made into the suddenly in-demand cool a-hole that soon everyone will remember is an a-hole and will be cast aside once again. It's a crazy business.) The last thing I'm going to point out in "what was so awful about " is that it was a stone cold career killer for JCVD. It may well be that JCVD was going to have a short career arc as a major action player anyway, but in the three years leading up to "Double Team," he was in Timecop (1994), Streetfighter & Sudden Death (1995), The Quest & Maximum Risk (1996). "Double Team" flushed down in 1997 and then that was it. I think everything after "Double Team" was a direct-to-DVD or limited release for JCVD. JCVD was not known for quality cinema, but he was known for exploitative movies made for men who love movies made for men. JCVD movies were cheap to make and did enough bank at the box office until "Double Team." Not even men who love movies made for men could love JCVD after he was in a movie with Dennis Rodman that, if I remember correctly, featured a fight or chase or something where Rodman's mode of attack was Grabbing a Rebound Kung-fu or some ridiculous junk like that. I know it involved a gratuitously out of place basketball reference somehow.
courtesy of www.PopBunker.net