Up in the Air review

Up in the Air

Up in the Air is a brilliant film about a man, played by George Clooney, who is going through a mid-life crisis. While he may have thought his lifestyle was liberating and allowed him to excel in his career, it's also made him a very lonely man. A man whose main goal in life is to achieve enough airline miles so he can be a part of an exclusive club (you get a nice-looking card if you get in this club). Yet, this job has also made it impossible for him to have any real personal relationships. Furthermore, his job revolves around firing people for companies who do not have the guts to fire their employees themselves. While his job may have a few nice quirks here and there, one can't help but wonder how desensitized Clooney's character, Ryan, is to human relationships.

Ryan has a side job as a motivational speaker. Telling people that they are better off with less relationships, or an "emptier" backpack. Get rid of all things that make your "backpack" heavier. So it's not just part of the job, for him, it's a philosophy.

Along the way, Ryan meets two women: one, a busy career-woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga), who seems to have a job that requires just as much traveling as Ryan's. Ryan finds someone in Alex that he might want to have a relationship with, potentially. Then there's Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a recent college grad that Ryan is forced to mentor as she begins her first nationwide tour of firings, so to speak. These two women play an important role in causing Ryan to re-think the way he has been living his life. Does he want to settle down? Does he want to find love? Most importantly, is it too late?

Up in the Air is about the state of personal relationships. While Ryan's case is very specific, Up in the Air causes you to think about your own relationships. Does technology de-personalize human contact? With texting, Twitter, and Facebook playing a huge role in the way people communicate today, perhaps we're slowly starting to lose touch with each other. Ryan Bingham's career forces him to keep a distance between himself and other people. He only lives at home for 70 days out of the year. As the movie shows, nobody can go on in life living alone, not even Ryan.

This is a very well-made, mature movie made by Jason Reitman who is starting to establish himself as one of the bright young directors working out there today. This movie is definitely going to get him another best director nomination from the Academy. He's made three movies in five years, which I appreciate. Some of my favorite directors working today take forever before their movie finally gets made. That's right, I'm looking at you Paul Thomas Anderson.


George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick

Based on the novel by Walter Kirn
Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner
Directed by Jason Reitman

Obama

Is there any position that's tougher to take right now than a pro-Obama position? Even an anti-Obama position is tough. If I'm pro-Obama, I'm ignoring the fact that he hasn't really done anything since he became president. If I'm anti-Obama, I'm on the same side as all the crazy right-wingers who believe he's Muslim and that he was born in Kenya. Nobody can just dislike Obama for his policies, they have to suspect that he's this evil black socialist that's destroying the country. But how? Everything that's been going on lately has been a result of Bush's last years in office. The problem is that Obama hasn't done anything to right any of the wrongs. Then you have a shoddy healthcare plan that, while it may be a minor step forward in healthcare reform, it sure is a big step back from what it was going to be.

The fact of the matter is that Obama has really done nothing. I've been trying hard to still support Obama because you still believe that he's going to get us out of this mess, but supporting Obama these days is a lot worse than supporting Bush during his years. Supporting Bush was a cakewalk no matter how badly he was doing. Apparently there was enough of a following from the conservative base that it didn't matter that he was bad. Sure, he had low disapproval ratings, but Fox News was still kissing his ass. Now, you can't go 15 minutes without some pundit making these ridiculous claims against Obama. And you know what's worse about it? Obama hasn't been doing a good job, that's actually true. But if you wanna take that position, you have to be in the same boat as those other crazies.

It's a confusing mess and it's gotten so bad that they're even using the Haiti earthquake as a way to criticize Obama. Obama wants to raise money to support the victims of Haiti, and yet Rush Limbaugh accuses him of using that tragedy to give himself higher approval ratings. Are you kidding me? Of course people will have a better opinion of him for doing that, it's the humane thing to do. I didn't realize that Bush's lack of response was actually a planned strategy to NOT get higher ratings. What is Obama supposed to do? No matter what he does, he'll be criticized so he might as well pursue the interests that he truly believes in. What he has to do is stop making these specific promises (like repealing don't ask don't tell, which is taking forever to become accomplished) and start doing the simplest things possible that will help him garner better ratings as a president. Obviously the financial crises and the issues with Afghanistan aren't going to help him, ratings-wise, in the future. But he has to do other things that will, in the very least, comfort Obama-supporters into thinking that they made the right choice on that historic Tuesday afternoon in November 2008.

The Most Disappointing Band of the 2000s: Weezer

In the '90s, Weezer released two albums. One of those albums (The Blue Album) has since gone on to become a classic. There is good reason for that. The album has ten tracks, all tightly written, all very catchy, all capturing Weezer's (more specifically Rivers Cuomo) youthful energy coupled with inspired influences. "Buddy Holly", "Say It Ain't So", "The Sweater Song" are absolutely brilliant singles and the rest of the album never misses a beat.

"Pinkerton" was initially considered a disappointment upon release but has since gone on to achieve cult status. While I maintain that "Pinkerton" is weaker than their first album, it definitely has its fair share of classics. My only problem with "Pinkerton" is its amateurish songwriting. While some dig the confessional style of "Pinkerton," I always found to be a little too much. Lines like "Screw this crap I've had it" and basically all the lyrics of "Across the Sea" is kinda weird and creepy... don't you think? Read them over again. Seriously.

But nevertheless, "Pinkerton" is still a fine album! Unfortunately the press at the time hounded the band for Pinkerton. Rivers Cuomo seems to be a very sensitive guy so I imagine that he didn't take the criticism too well. And his subsequent actions regarding those criticisms, I feel, directly impacts that quality of Weezer's five albums that were released this decade.

Let's start off with "The Green Album." "The Green Album" is a very short album, doesn't even reach the 30 minute mark. It has some catchy songs, some memorable riffs, and "Island in the Sun" is actually quite brilliant. But overall, if you compare green to blue, you'll find that "The Green Album" feels awfully... safe. I'm talking Cold War era, mid-1950s safe. Like, any minute now, the sirens are gonna go off and we'll all have to hide under our desks for fear of nuclear war. The album just doesn't have the emotional punch of the first two albums. While it's still a decent album, its safeness is clearly a direct result of the criticisms that Pinkerton received. Unfortunately, in my opinion, "The Green Album" is the last good album Weezer has made. And after what I just said about the album, you can only imagine what I think about the subsequent four albums.

If the singles off "Maladroit" aren't bad enough, the main single off "Make Believe" is just plain insulting. It's insulting to anyone who has followed Weezer for more than a decade (at this point). But, let's go back to "Maladroit" for a second. It's not that "Dope Nose" is a bad song, it's just not a good single.

"Cheese smells so good
On a burnt piece of lamb (Say what?)
Fag of the year
Who could beat up your man"

What the hell is that? Rivers Cuomo of 1994 would have never written such awful lyrics. I know it's just ol' silly Rivers Cuomo talking, but damn... twenty-four years old Rivers Cuomo was a lot more witty and clever than 32 year old Rivers Cuomo. Unfortunately, this began a sad, sad trend in the life of Weezer. Look it over folks, each album that has been released by Weezer has suffered from immature, laughably bad lyrics. What happened? Why is Weezer, and more specifically Rivers Cuomo stuck in perpetual adolescence? Consider, for example, Pork and Beans:

"I'mma do the things that I wanna do
I ain't got a thing to prove to you
I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans
Excuse my manners if I make a scene
I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like
I'm finally dandy with the me inside
One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink
I don't give a hoot about what you think"

You'd expect something like this to be sung by a geeky 13 year old boy, not a 38-year old man. Rivers Cuomo is almost 40 years old. He has no business writing lyrics like this. Especially when he started his career as such a promising young songwriter. It's not that he's not allowed to be funny anymore, it's that he's simply not funny. He just sounds strange and awkward. It's like the past ten years, Rivers Cuomo has been trying to "make up for" the embarrassment that is "Pinkerton." Since then, he's never been able to capture the pure naked honesty and emotional purity of those songs. He's definitely never been able to write anything that comes close to "Only In Dreams." When I listen to "Only in Dreams" and "Holiday," I'm confused as to how badly Rivers's songwriting has become. Does it really have to be this way?

In order for Weezer to get better, Rivers Cuomo has to grow up and stop being so insecure. It's ok to pour your heart out in your songs still, Rivers.

And now, I leave you with some excerpts of Weezer lyrics that prove my point.

"I hope that I ain't freaking you out
You probably hear it all the time
I swear I ain't like those other boys
I'm a special kind

I would like to give a demonstration
Of what it is I do
I'll take you out to dinner at Palermo's
We'll split a cheese fondu"

I'm Your Daddy

"Me and JD chilling in the shack
Sharing Chiclets from the same pack
180-proof Vitamin Water
Energy flavor
Take us to your daughter
I want to see you pretty ladies on the dance floor (dance floor)
Put your hands up in the air like you don't care no more (we don't care no more)
We gonna hit the town tonight, we were born to rock"

Let it All Hang Out

"Put me in a special school
Cos I am such a fool
And I dont need a single book
To teach me how to read
Who needs stupid books?
They are for petty crooks"

Troublemaker

Sigh.

I don't know why this sounds so much better...

"I've got posters on the wall
My favorite rock group KISS
I've got Ace Frehley
I've got Peter Criss
Waiting there for me
yes I do, I do"

But it does, it really does. It's inexplicable. Maybe it's that those lyrics (from the blue album) just come off more naturally than the lyrics I posted above. Maybe it's that they're not coming from a 37 year old man. Or maybe it's just that much more clever, yet simpler than the other lyrics. Every album since "Make Believe" sounds like Weezer trying to recapture the magic, yet simplicity that made their first album great. Unfortunately, they have failed. This is why they're the most disappointing band of the 2000s.

My random musings about music in the 2000s

This has been a rather strange decade for music. When you think about what music dominated this decade, can you really name one specific genre? You had British invasion pop and psychedelia in the '60s, disco and punk in the '70s, new wave and hair metal in the '80s, grunge, gangsta rap, and boy bands of the '90s.... but what about the '00s?

The 2000s featured bastardized versions of the music that dominated the '90s... if we're talking mainstream, that is. I don't want to get too much into how much mainstream music sucked in the 2000s, but what I will say is that where there's grunge in the '90s, there's post-grunge of the 00's; when there's boy bands of the '90s (and lord knows that's bad enough as it is), there's every single musical act associated with Disney of the '00s. Since when did Disney decide to invade the music industry? I PREFERRED it when girls were obsessed with Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Doesn't it just seem weird and wrong that there are all these "musicians" that come from straight from the Disney channel that dominate the charts? Literally every fucking star on Disney can sing. Why? I just heard of Selena Gomez a few weeks ago, she's the star of the "Wizards of Waverly Place" show on Disney. Fine. Then I see her singing on ABC's New Year's Eve party last week. Why? That just doesn't seem right to me. And the Miley Cyruses, Selena Gomezes, and Jonas Bros' of Disney aren't even catchy. Seriously, they are so bland, they make water taste like vodka. At least Backstreet Boys had "I Want It That Way" as much as that song makes you roll your eyes, you know all the words to that song. I bet you do. Everybody does. At least it does its job.

Now I'll give hip-hop a pass this decade because we did have some good rap albums and rap artists. I enjoyed DMX when he dominated mainstream rap and MTV, Jay-Z also has made some very good albums (two great ones), Kanye West's rap albums (that is, the ones not named 808s and Heartbreak) are instant classics, then you have Lupe Fiasco, Li'l Wayne is oddly appealing in his own way as well. Although it took me awhile to get into Li'l Wayne. 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Trying" was also a really good album, although I haven't really liked any of his albums since. Sure you had some embarrassments like Soulja Boy and pretty much every rap-metal/NU metal band that existed earlier in the decade, but they are minor complaints.

The decade that had it worst was rock music. The aforementioned Nu Metal dominated the radio earlier this decade and even though we had a brief period of confusion (which caused actually talented bands such as Shins, Modest Mouse, and Franz Ferdinand to be played on the radio) thankfully, we had post-grunge to make up for that confusion. And wow, is mainstream rock radio ever dominated by post-grunge... I swear to God if I hear "so sick of these hobos, always begging for change" once again I'm going to hang myself. This is some of the most embarrassing, god awful music ever made and the radio plays it proudly. How did this happen?

The sad thing is that there were some gems this decade... Queens of the Stone Age, Radiohead, White Stripes... the three of whom all consistently made great music for the masses. And you had the Foo Fighters who never got sucked into that post-grunge blackhole. Audioslave had some decent tunes, but egotism ultimately proved to be the demise of that band. And even Metallica enjoyed a comeback after their first album this decade was proven to be a disaster.

On the whole, however, thanks to things such as file-sharing, a ton of indie bands that would've never seen the light of day in this environment, were able to become moderately successful this decade. In fact, I'd say that "Indie" rock had a good decade. I use the term indie loosely, of course because it could indicate a lot of different genres. And there are some bands that only get slapped with the Indie title because the mainstream are too stupid to play them (like Spoon or Les Savy Fav).

Anyway, let's make some lists...

My Top 15 albums of the decade...

1. Modest Mouse "The Moon & Antarctica"
2. Broken Social Scene "You Forgot It In People"
3. Kanye West "Graduation"
4. Radiohead "In Rainbows"
5. Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
6. Outkast "Stankonia"
7. White Stripes "White Blood Cells"
8. Queens of the Stone Age "Songs for the Deaf"
9. Jay-Z "The Blueprint"
10. Animal Collective "Feels"
11. The Wrens "The Meadowlands"
12. Spoon "Ga Ga Ga Ga"
13. My Morning Jacket "Z"
14. Mclusky "Mclusky Do Dallas"
15. The Shins "Chutes Too Narrow"

Favorite 25 Songs of the Decade (in no particular order, except the first five)

1. The Wrens "13 Months in 6 minutes"*
2. Kanye West "Everything I Am"
3. Broken Social Scene "7/4 (Shoreline)"
4. The Strokes "Hard to Explain"
5. MIA "Paper Planes"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"
Walkmen "The Rat"
LCD Soundsystem "All My Life"
Modest Mouse "3rd Planet"
Talib Kweli "Get By"
The Shins "Phantom Limb"
Radiohead "Everything in its Right Place"
Les Savy Fav "The Sweat Descends"
Jay-Z "Dirt Off Your Shoulder"
Outkast "I Like the Way You Move"
Spoon "I Turn My Camera On"
Band Of Horses "The Funeral"
At the Drive-in "One Armed Scissor"
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists "Hearts of Oak"
Queens of the Stone Age "No One Knows"
My Morning Jacket "Mageetah"
Air "Cherry Blossom Girl"
Animal Collective "My Girls"
Metallica "Cyanide"
Outkast "BOB"


*I reserved a special spot for this song. This song was my life for a good year and a half. I'm not saying I obsessively listened to this song, but I would say for a good part of my junior year of college, this was the song I played the most. I wasn't even going through that rough of a time, really, it was just something that really struck a chord with me. Something that really spoke to me and really made me think about where I'd taken my life so far. The song is so incredibly sad. It's sad in a way that's refreshing. It's completely passive. It's not overly self-loathing, he's not complaining or contemplating suicide. God no. By the end of the song, I feel like the singer just shrugs his shoulders and says "oh well" then the song changes pace. Of course, that "oh well" comes after a good three and a half minutes of complete lament. Like the singer had something big to get off his chest. The way the music perfectly synchronizes with the whispery vocals is just fantastic. And once the "forward seven months" part kicks in, it's just complete bliss. I'm in awe of this song. If I was a musician, I'd try my whole career to try to make a song this honest, this complete, this densely layered. I mean, production-wise, this song has it all. For a "lo-fi indie" band, this song is pretty rich when you listen to it with headphones. Every space in your head is filled with some form of music. Not a single note is wasted. This is a carefully made, deliberate song. Though the lyrics are specific to one man's problem, the emotion and tone of this song can apply to anybody in any woeful/sorrowful situation. Emo music is an insult to this song. This is what real emotion is like. This song is about life slowly and helplessly slipping by. I feel that's something everyone can relate to.

The Wrens - 13 Months in 6 Minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYxKuJspTtk

Darryl Clark and PSU Football

Perhaps the OSU loss was the final nail in the coffin that Penn State kinda needed in order to save their season from embarrassment. Sure it would have been great to have them win today, then run the table, and have OSU beat Iowa next week, then win the Big Ten... but what good would that have done? The loss hurts but I can't think of anything more embarrassing than the loss to USC last season. Did we really need another one of those? Besides, it'd be great if Penn State won out from here, made it to a Jan 1st bowl, and beat a good team from another conference. It'd be a great way for Darryl Clark to go out.

Public Enemies vs. Inglorious Bastards

Back in January 2009, if you would've asked me what my two most anticipated films of the year were I would have said "Public Enemies" and "Inglorious Bastards." Now that they've both been released and I've seen them both, one surpassed by expectations by a mile and another one fell way short. The thing is, back then, "Public Enemies" was miles ahead of "Inglorious Bastards" as far as expectations were concerned. That remained when their trailers were released. I was even kind of low on "Inglorious Bastards" for a few months before its release even though I still wanted to see it very much. I guess it's just the way the trailer focused on the actual bastards themselves. For the people who have seen the movie, we know that the movie has a lot more to offer than what the trailer shows.

So what the hell happened? How did Tarantino do it? How did Michael Mann blow it? Well, for starters, we all seem to forget that when Tarantino wants to entertain his audience, he does it. He knows how. He knows what we want, but more importantly, he knows what we didn't KNOW we wanted. From the trailers, I'm sure casual QT fans were pumped expecting this cool WWII action movie with Brad Pitt and these "basterds" who kick some Nazi ass. Do they do that? Yes. I'm sure some of the more cynical movie lovers, who perhaps prefer QT's most thought-provoking films such as Jackie Brown and Kill Bill Volume II, were expecting an engaging story, some great tense scenes, and some great acting. Did they get that? Hell yes. Basterds is part kick ass action movie, but the heart of Inglourious Basterds is its great, imaginative story, its slow, tension-building scenes that lead to the most satisfying conclusions in recent history, as well as excellent performances from Christoph Waltz, Melanie Laurent, and Diane Kruger. Not to mention, Michael Fassbinder. Who? Exactly. Brad Pitt was the star of the movie, but he was outacted and outshined by the actors I just mentioned. Inglourious Basterds is an excellent movie, filled with surprises, and loved by any type of movie fan. As long as you can stomach the violence, you'll love this movie. In fact, I haven't even mentioned the movie's main, thought-provoking, mind-blowing message: should we be enjoying the violence we see on the screen? Just like the Nazis enjoy the violence that is displayed against the Allied forces in the movie that's shown in the movie? The way Quentin Tarantino turns the camera on us just completely forces you to re-think the way you've been watching this movie. This is why I love this movie more than some really strong, amazing movies this year such as Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker. I just knew, once that display occurred, that I was watching something special. Something that I would cherish for a long time to come.

It is possible to make a movie that's both a crowd-pleaser and one that raises the bar on war movies and filmmaking... all the while telling a completely original story that re-writes the history books.

That being said, Public Enemies does none of this. The movie takes a bunch of great actors and makes them look average. It takes some great, authentic-looking set pieces and diminishes them by capturing it on crappy, cheap-looking video. What should've been a great shootout sequence looks like a very impressive student film. There have been some great movies shot on video, hell, Collateral was shot on video and that was a good movie made by the same director. But Michael Mann really dropped the ball on this one. Honestly, if this movie was shot on film and all of the same, exact scenes were played out... this probably would've made my top 10 of this year even though the performances were still below par. It's funny how Michael Mann can take such a stiff actor in Russell Crowe and churn out a great performance in "The Insider," but he somehow doesn't know how to handle Johnny Depp who is one of the more flamboyant and energetic actors working today. But, instead, it's just Johnny Depp wearing a nice suit, carrying a gun around, and acting like... Johnny Depp. Let's not forget Christian Bale's performance. Oh yeah, he was in this movie. I did forget. Maybe if he wasn't so underused, he would've been better, and his storyline would've made more sense. Really, this film would've been better off focusing primarily on Bale and the formation of the FBI than on Dillinger. While Dillinger's robberies are fascinating and they were executed perfectly, after awhile, it's just no longer thrilling to watch Dillinger rob banks. We get it, he's good, who cares?

This could've been the greatest movie of the year and of the decade, but instead we got a collection of good scenes that were ruined by cheap camera work and stiff acting. Michael Mann should've taken a cue from Quentin Tarantino. Story first, then the rest later... AND SHOOT THE DAMN MOVIE ON FILM!

The Most Amazing Guy in the World, starring Will Smith

What is it about Will Smith and generally big-budget Hollywood movies where the main character (played by Will Smith) either has a supernatural power that he uses to help people, is an amazing guy that everyone loves and does amazing things, is some sort of hero, or all of these rolled up into one. Recently, it's been the latter. I mean, I like Will Smith. That's the problem. How could I not like Will Smith? Every role he's in requires me to like him. Every film he chooses to star in must portray him in a very positive manner, or so it seems. His rap music is more positive than a Jonas Brothers album. He never seems to have any real substance, even in this new movie Seven Pounds. Again, another movie where Will Smith plays a great guy who changes peoples' lives for the better. Do you see the pattern here?

What's to say here? Should I be ragging on a seemingly nice person who just likes to star in movies that help boost his ego? Does it matter that he never plays a character that challenges the audience to like him? Or a character that's... a bad guy?

It was fun while it lasted, but ever since "I Am Legend" I'm starting to grow tired of Will Smith's act. I actually thought the Pursuit of Happyness was a good movie, but it's been downhill since then for me. Hancock was just awful and so was Legend. Now, with his new movie Seven Pounds, I have now started to realize the game he's been playing on all of us. He's brainwashing us into believing he's the greatest, nicest person in the world! Ok, maybe not. Or, at least not intentionally. Like Jerry Seinfeld would say, he's too... good. Kill somebody, for crying out loud! Murder someone in cold blood or something. Do something that will shock me, Will Smith. Stop this act. I'm growing tired of it and eventually other people will grow tired of it too. Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise eventually had to switch it up, you're gonna have to do it too. In fact, Denzel and Cruise's roles in "Training Day" and "Collateral" (respectively) are probably their strongest performances.

I just think "Seven Pounds" is going overboard, but then again, "I Am Legend" wasn't? I think killing yourself to save the human race is up there. You can't die without it affecting the whole world in a positive way, huh? Must you be the martyr? Can't you just be a nasty son of a bitch? I'm only saying this because I like you, Will Smith. And please, PLEASE, stop your son from being in a remake of "The Karate Kid." Most importantly, stay the hell away from "Oldboy." I want you to be a bad guy or a guy who challenges the audience, but let's take baby steps. We all know you'll drastically change the script so that the main guy never winds up cutting off his tongue or sleeping with his daughter. I know you too well. Either way, it'd be too disturbing to see you in a role like that. Just stay away from that. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Ken