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.

I Am Racist Jesus

Prelude - This post is a review of the movie Gran Torino, which came out last year. Now, if you're interested in the movie, you've had plenty of time to see it. But in deference to anyone who hasn't while secretly harboring the desire to do so, allow me to warn you that this is going to contain spoilers. In fact, now that I think about it, it's more a short essay on the movie than it is a review. Too bad my delete key is broken.

Gran Torino supposedly is Clint Eastwood's swan song, and the movie shows it. Eastwood is present in every scene, dominating the movie with his craggy visage and the rasp that age has left of his voice (He is officially in contemporary Cohen territory at this point). And while the movie itself is fairly good, it winds up seeming a bit self-indulgent as a result of this. Then there's also the fact that the ending is so over-the-top ridiculous that the phrase 'ham-handed' does not even begin to do it justice. But we'll get to that.

Eastwood plays a man at the end of his life. His wife has died, and he has strained to nonexistent relationships with his children and grandchildren. So what's a man to do? Well, why not sit on the porch with his dog at his side, drinking PBR all day, observing the downfall of the neighborhood? This is how he spends his time, using his personal definition of 'downfall of the neighborhood', which can be nicely translated as Asian people moving in. That's right, Clint plays a racist character, obviously still haunted by his experiences in the Korean war and unwilling to attempt to befriend (Or even acknowledge) his new neighbors. That is, until the presence of a totally non-stereotypical Asian gang sets off a chain of events involving Clint slowly coming out of his shell in a fairly predictable, drawn-out fashion. The movie addresses the sensitive topic of racism with a sense of humor, the highlight of this being two seperate scenes set in a local barbershop featuring Eastwood and the barber hurling ethnic slurs at each other (Maybe if more people had a bit of humor about things our society would be less sensitive and angry, and then rather than dying of heart disease, people would die two years later from type-2 diabetes. I have a dream). There's a running dialogue between Clint and the priest at his local Catholic church based around Eastwood's wife's request that this priest gets Eastwood to go to confession. And that's 90% of the movie. It's fun in a slightly offbeat yet predictable way. Now let's get to a very detailed discussion of how it ends.

By this point the gang violence hits a point where it needs to be stopped. Clint being the local war veteran who has gradually stepped up to become pretty much the neighborhood patriarch by this point (As well as having the coveted title of Guy In Every Scene), it is apparent that this will fall to him. So he goes at night to confront the gang. We are now at the point when I am going to be stating massive spoilers left and right. Let's start with one in a parenthetical, all caps (NOTE TO CINDI: HE DIES). There then is a lengthy confrontation on a front lawn between Eastwood and the gang members that ends when he quickly reaches inside his jacket and is shot approximately 5,000,000 times. He dies, with his hand opening to reveal that he was going for his lighter to fire up a cigarette, and was actually unarmed. The gang is arrested, and the neighborhood is saved. Yay! Heavy-handed ending? A bit. But we haven't got to the best part. After Clint is riddled with enough bullets to supply a third-world military coup, he (Totally coincidentally, I'm sure) falls to the ground in the exact shape of the cross (Yes, he took confession earlier). I AM RACIST JESUS is not proclaimed, but would be about the only thing that could make this more ridiculous.

At least, that's what I thought at the time. Little did I know that the ridiculous factor would shortly be turned to 11. After this we have a scene of the reading of his will, which features some more humor in the form of ethnic slurs (It was funny. That sentence makes it sound like it wasn't. Again, stupid delete key). The titular item is given, not to a family member, but to one of the Asian kids from next door who Clint de facto adopted. And then the movie gradually fades into the credits over a minute-long shot of this kid driving the car, listening to a faux lounge-jazz number on the stereo. But what's that? The vocals! Dear god, it's 956-year-old Clint Eastwood rasping out a lounge number (Dear Heather joke goes here)! And cut to black. Yes, that's the ending. I did not think, upon viewing the climax of the film, that the denouement would be able to up the comedic ante. But dear lord, it certainly did. For a film that attempts to take a serious-yet-light approach to a heavy topic, the fact that I have tears of joy in my eyes remembering it probably is a result the production team would be proud of. However, I'm not so sure they'd be happy about the reason.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Warning: This is going to contain spoilers. Probably quite a few of them (I don't really know. I'm writing this disclaimer before the actual review). You should still read it, because it's WAY shorter than the movie. Also better.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has been nominated for something along the lines of 968,000 Academy Awards this year. It is also not technically a good movie. Don't get me wrong. It tries hard, and has a very interesting premise (If you really haven't been paying attention (Not to what I've written so far. To other sources. Which pale in comparison to me), said premise is that the titular character is born at the end of his life and ages backwards). Unfortunately, it fails to translate these into an entertaining (Or thought-provoking) film. And unlike the film, I will start at the beginning. Maybe (Probably not).

As has been pointed out to me, it is hard to encapsulate an entire life in a film, which is the ambitious undertaking David Fincher (Director of Fight Club and Seven, among others) has tried here. However, he totally undercuts his efforts in this regard with the framework he gives the story. Rather than just telling the story straight-up, he has chosen to have it related through a diary (That of the titular character), being read to a dying elderly woman in the hospital by her daughter. This adds absolutely nothing to the film, and wastes at least a half-hour that could have been better-spent with relevant characters. Anytime the film cuts back to the hospital it is jarring, as this breaks up the storyline and returns the viewer to two characters whom there is absolutely nothing to care about. Sooner or later you inevitably begin to root for the death of the older woman, as that might end these scenes forever. And did I mention that these are set in a hospital in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina bears down? No? Well, it's okay because this setting is never used for anything at all and is completely irrelevant. The only possible reason for choosing it is a thought process resembling that is the following: "Hmmmmmm. Hurricane Katrina was sad. Many people died, and/or lost their homes and possessions. We're making a sad, serious film. Maybe if we tie it to Katrina in some thoroughly irrelevant way, we'll get some kind of spillover sadness. Brilliant!" And the having it set up around an older woman's memories? Yeah, Titanic won lots of Oscars. Therefore we shall ape it's style. This is absolutely atrocious filmmaking, and nearly unforgivable. And we haven't even gotten to the film itself yet (I refuse to consider this extraneous garbage a part of the film, even though it takes up nearly 20% of the running time (All numbers based solely on personal estimates/guesses))! Oh boy (This is such an officially-written review right here. I tell you)!

Moving on to the actual central narrative of the film (Ideally without giving away all that much), we find that it centers around two characters who, conveniently enough, are love interests for each other. And the movie attempts to use the fact that they are aging in seperate directions to make the point that nothing stays the same (It gets rather heavy-handed in trying to hammer this home occasionally), but the joke here that Fincher isn't in on is that he does not really characterize either Blanchett or Pitt, meaning that we are stuck staring at these static, unchanging people as the backgrounds spin around them. The only real interesting possibility that we are left with, as the film plods along toward the conclusion, is that we have a chance to see someone offer up their answer to the eternal question posed so well through music at the end of (Certainly not this film) Rushmore; namely, I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger. However, determined to not even leave us on this potentially minimally-satisfyling result, Fincher cheats the audience one final time by giving Pitt's character approximately 3 minutes of screen time for the last 20 years of his life, during most of which he has been struck with Alzheimer's.

So what are we left with? The movie itself seems to think it is dealing with deep, eternal questions, but instead it leaves the viewer with more than they started with. By way of example, throughout the film, set primarily in the city of New Orleans, some of the characters often go to sit and watch the sun rise outside a house next to a large body of water out in the country, with no other dwellings in sight. No one ever mentions this place when they are not there. Where is it, and where did it come from? Who knows? Certainly not the moviegoer, left fighting various limbs falling asleep by this point of the movie. There is no real style to the movie. Fincher often attempts to portray it as a period piece, and in large part succeeds visually. As the decades pass, the film follows the general style of Hollywood portrayal of each. However, touching on everything really does not count as coming up with something distinctive, and it feels like a mess of a stylistic mish-mash/mismatch. The actors and actresses seem like they are trying, but the static characters offer nothing to care about. The script tries to provoke thought, but only arouses ire. For a movie that tries so hard to be Important, what Benjamin Button achieves in the end is only to be both interminable and intolerable.