Up In The Air, And The Increasing Trend Of Filmmakers Lying

I saw Up In the Air yesterday, now that it's been out for something like six months and has garnered a bunch of nominations for some awards show that will probably be both boring and televised. Ever since I saw a preview for it, the movie was on my radar as One To Watch, Ideally In A Theater. Yesterday I did this. That's just how on the ball I am. Anyway, it was very good, and I recommend it to everyone who is not Isaac (As a wise man once said, this movie has naughty language!). George Clooney stars as A Charming Character, and performs his role very well (Who would've thought Clooney could be charming?!?). The performances are all quite good, and the script is great. So, yeah. I'm not a movie critic (As you can probably tell, I'm not really trying), and this is not why I've called you here today. Why have I called you here? Well, I'll tell you, in new paragraph form.

No, why I am writing today is the fact that, w/r/t Up In the Air, I was deceived. You see, Up In the Air has a very intriguing preview, which is only made better by the fact that it is set to 'The Passenger' by Iggy Pop, which is awesome. Not only is it set to this song, Iggy actually (From what I've heard) re-recorded a version of the song specifically for this film. And yet, the song does not appear in the movie. As George Steinbrenner would say, #$!&* the heck?!? Instead, we are treated to a variety of music than can be described nicely as 'twee', about what you'd expect from a production crew that was in some way involved in Juno (I'm too lazy to look up what the exact connection is). Still, I can even see not putting the song in the bulk of the film, as it is a fairly driving piece, which might overwhelm whatever else is happening on-screen at the time (Not that it does this in the previews, but let's be charitable here). But, then, isn't that what the ending credits are for? Not in this case, as halfway through the credits the song playing ends, giving us a perfect moment to bring on the Iggy. Instead, we are treated to some crappy acoustic number evidently recorded by Fisher Price™ tape recorder, closing things out on a bit of an anticlimax.

Most troublingly, this is not the first time this has happened to me in the last year. I'd estimate I go to see somewhere between one and two movies in the theater annually, and the last two have now played this exact same deceitful sleight of hand on me. The other film in question is Where the Wild Things Are, a movie whose trailer was set to a rerecording of The Arcade Fire's stunning Wake Up, a song which perfectly fit the mood and got me so amped up that you'd think it was a motivational speech by Rex Ryan. And then, again, not present in the movie. Lame. So what gives, filmmakers? Yes, your movies are good (At least the ones I bother to see. I suspect Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. The Rock) will not be on the level of Citizen Kane). But why the lying? Why must you pull the old Three-Card Monte in your previews? Because I give you my word that, if I find a certain combination of music and imagery exhilarating on the small screen, I will not suddenly be put to sleep when I see it on a screen the size of my apartment. In fact, it might even be better. At the least, it will be bigger and louder, which I thought was what Hollywood did these days.