Up in the Air

I saw Up in the Air at a Stars & Strollers screening a few weeks ago and am just now getting around to writing about it. I had to give in to the award buzz and see if it was any good. I was pleasantly surprised.

Written and directed by Jason Reitman, the film stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a "termination specialist" and aspiring motivational speaker. Ryan travels the country for work and loves his life constantly flying from place to place to fire the people working for the company that hires Ryan's firm. The film doesn't quite fall into just one genre. As with one of Reitman's other directorial films, Juno, the film is a comedic drama with a little bit of romance.


As with most every narrative film, the story begins when the protagonist's life is thrown out of balance by the inciting incident. The inciting incident being that Ryan is called into head office with the news that with the help of a new, young go-getter, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), the termination specialists will be working from the main office with the help of new technology. This panicks Ryan as he considers the airports, airplane cabins and hotels that he frequents home. He convinces the head boss to let him take Natalie on the road to show her why they can't fire people via webcam. Ryan also meets a woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) who lives his jet setting lifestyle as well and begins a casual affair. Ryan has always liked his solitary life, sees no value in being tied down to the usual familial obligations and responsibilities and has based his motivational speaking philosophy on this. While attending his sister's wedding and with his affair with Alex becoming a little more than casual, Ryan begins to question his choice of lifestyle. One that Natalie deems a "cocoon of self-banishment".


I really like this film a lot not just because of the great writing, but because George Clooney is awesome and shows a side that I've never seen before, a vulnerable one. Also, the cast is great with Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick all nominated for Golden Globes, Oscars and numerous other awards for their roles in this movie. There are a lot of great actors who appear even for a short amount of time that add so much to the film, like Jason Bateman as Ryan's quick witted, sarcastic boss, J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliot, Danny McBride and more. The character transformation with Ryan was subtle and well done. Reitman did a great job directing and illustrating Ryan's life up in the air while making his story a touching one. I highly recommend this one. Ending with a quote from Ryan's "motivational" talk about the amount of things in your figurative backpack when you add more relationships......

"Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks. "

More ramblings to come.......

Rifftrax!

I have been a super nerdy fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 since I first laid eyes on it on the Sci Fi network sooo many years ago. I'm always really impressed when people can make great, funny things on a small budget and really pull it off. This was one of those shows. Mike Nelson, and his robot friends Tom Servo and Crow are forced to watch crappy Sci Fi movies. So in order to keep their sanity, they crack jokes and make smartass comments thoughout the whole movie. Created by the original crew member, Joel Hodgson, I actually caught this show later in its run, so I was only familiar with Mike Nelson. I couldn't miss this show when it was on Saturday afternoons or Talk Soup when it was hosted by hilarious cheesemeister John Henson. I was able to watch some of my favourites on YouTube, and I discovered through a friend last year that the guys were still at it with RiffTrax. They're downloadable mp3 tracks of the guys riffing the movie to play at the same time as the DVD. You can also download the rifftrax player, so you put the DVD in the computer and they automatically play together. Although it's not quite the same as MST3K, I'll take what I can get! If you watch tv shows or flicks on the pute, I would recommend a few of my favourite episodes, such as Time Chasers, Hobgoblins, The Final Sacrifice and Space Mutiny. They've helped make some crappy movies watch-able and given us a lot of laughs on a Friday night. These guys are too freaking funny. Enjoy......



More ramblings to come.....

Valentine's Schmalentine's

So for the Valentine's Day post, I thought, do I try to pick from a billion crappy rom coms to write about? I decided against that and thought for a change I'll make a post about Winter Olympic themed flicks. It being Winter Olympics time and whatnot, especially since it's taking place this year in my lovely country. Sooo, happy Olympics, everybody!

Blades of Glory
I really like this one a lot. Cheesy comedy? Yes. Guilty Pleasure? Most definitely. Will Ferrell and Jon Heder star as two rival men's skating champions who get banned for life from skating. Ferrell is Chazz Michael Michaels, the bad boy of skating while Heder is Jimmy MacElroy, a wholesome, picture-on-the-Wheaties-box type champion. They discover they can still compete if they team up and skate as a pair, much to their reluctance. Odd Couple hijinks ensue. Also starring Will Arnett and Amy Poehler as their pairs skating nemeses, plus many more great comedic talents.

Cool Runnings
This film is a comedic story about the real life challenges of the Jamaican Bobsled Team that competed at the winter Olympics in Calgary in '88. Starring the late, great John Candy as a disgraced, former bobsled coach who reluctantly takes on the four men who wish to go to the Olympics as Jamaica's first bobsled team. Classic underdog story, as well as fish out of water story, being that well, there's no snow in Jamaica (duh). Very funny and another reminder that we lost John Candy much too soon.

The Cutting Edge
I admit I saw this once a longgg time ago and remember it vaguely, but hey, it fits. Moira Kelly stars as a temperamental pairs figure skating champion in need of a partner after a bad fall. After trying out several partners who are unable to deal with her attitude, her coach and her father stumble onto an ex hockey player (played by D.B. Sweeney) with no figure skating experience that may be a possibility. Classic rom com with a figure skating twist. Kate (Kelly) and Doug (Sweeney) are oil and water who often butt heads, but somehow end up having feelings for each other.

Better Off Dead
Okay, so this one might be reaching a little bit. Although not Olympic themed, it involves alpine skiing, so give me a break! In all honesty this one is a favourite winter movie of mine. John Cusack stars as Lane Meyer, a high school guy who gets dumped by his girlfriend, Beth. Lane decides that the only way to get Beth back is to beat the captain of the high school alpine ski team on the slopes, since he was the one who stole her away. Lane gets help training for the race from the French foreign exchange student hottie who's staying across the street and from his hilarious friend, Charles de Mar (Curtis Armstrong) who has one of the most classic lines in this flick. "Lane, I've been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I'm no dummy!"

So if you'd rather hit yourself in the head with a big chocolate heart over and over again than watch another predictable romantic comedy on Valentine's Day, curl up with one of these instead. Can't make it to Blockbuster or can't find it at the video store? Here's Cool Runnings and The Cutting Edge both in full on YouTube. Enjoy!





Happy Valentine's Day, dear readers........more ramblings to come........

The Lovely Bones

So, my friend Rox calls me and asks me to go with her to see The Lovely Bones. Why, why, why, WHY did I agree to go see this movie?? It's not that it was bad, but it's every parent's worst nightmare and something you don't ever want to think about happening to your own child.

Directed by Peter Jackson, the film is based on the novel by Alice Sebold. Starring Saoirse Ryan as Susie Salmon, the main character in the story. Also starring Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's parents, Jack and Abigail, and Stanley Tucci as you've never seen him and will never want to see him again as Susie's murderer, George Harvey.


The film begins with an introduction to Susie and the Salmon household. She comes from a small, tight family with her loving parents, her older sister and younger brother. Susie is interested in photography and wants to be a wildlife photographer when she grows up. The only problem is that she also has a creepy, older neighbour who watches her.


If you've seen the trailers going into this movie, you know she's going to die. The first line in the trailer is "I was 14 years old....when I was murdered." This does not make it any easier to watch, though. The other thing about the trailer is that it is a bit misleading. It makes it seem as though the story is about Susie helping her family solve her murder from the other side and that's not really the case. Susie is in the "in between" place, which means she is not quite in heaven yet, but has already left her earthly body. Susie narrates while she makes her way in the after life and watches over her family and her murderer.


I have to admit that I have not read the book, but from reading the IMDB boards for this film I can tell that fans of the book are NOT happy with this adaptation. I agree with them in the way that the film seems conflicted with itself. One of their gripes is that there's too much CGI flashery to illustrate the afterlife. I agree there and some of it may have been visual metaphors, but I didn't get them. The other criticism is that it watered down the story lines and arcs of the characters who are mourning Susie's death. The scene right before her murder is very uncomfortable to watch and apparently, the book is much more graphic with her brutal rape and murder. In the movie they didn't even hint that she had been brutally raped before being murdered and in a big way, I'm glad that part wasn't graphic. It felt like they tried to balance too many things like the CGI special effects, the grieving family, and Susie's struggle with accepting her death to do a really good job on any one of them. Also, as much as I LOVE Susan Sarandon's sassy, chain smoking, hard drinking Grandma Lynn who comes to help the family after Susie's death, the comic relief her character brought seemed awkward and out of place. It was interesting, but didn't go deep enough to really explore the emotions that all of the parties felt going through their own experiences, but also, the biggest message being that sometimes life isn't fair and there is no justice. How depressing.

More ramblings to come......

Happy New Year!!!

Wishing my dear readers (all five of them) a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous 2010! My party days are long behind me, so the LAST place I want to be on New Year's Eve is an overly crowded, drunken mess. Our New Year's tradition usually includes board games, comedy specials and staying safe and warm (it's a balmy -42C with the windchill this evening). So as a Happy New Year to you, here's one of my favourite comedy specials featuring that hot piece Daryn Jones. You might know him from MTV Live on MTV Canada, but I know him from Buzz with Mista Mo, one of my favourite low budget, late night shows back when I used to live in Calgary ten years ago. Below is the first of five parts from Jones' Comedy Now special. Funny ass shit!! Enjoy.....




More ramblings to come......

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Another year come and gone, holy moly! I haven't been keeping up with this thing much and now that I'm done all my holiday stuff I can take a few minutes to sit and post. This time of year is crazy for everybody, trying to get all the baking done, trying to get the shopping done, trying to get the packages shipped out in time, Christmas concerts, etc. So if you can, relax and take a breather with your eggnog and enjoy some good holiday flicks. I don't mean watch Christmas Vacation or A Christmas Story or A Charlie Brown Christmas for the hundred and tenth time. This year I've compiled a list of great holiday flicks to watch that are not for the whole family, but ones for the adults to sit and watch alone that they haven't already seen a million times. Here goes.....

Love Actually
I love this flick. A great British ensemble film written and directed by Richard Curtis featuring Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney, hot ass Rodrigo Santoro and many more. This Christmas film is part romantic comedy, part drama with a number of intertwining stories. Very entertaining and highly recommended.

The Holiday
Written and directed by Nancy Meyers, this holiday film is more of a chick flick. Starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as two women unlucky in love and looking to get away from their lives. They meet over a holiday home exchange website and decide to live each other's lives for two weeks over the holiday season, mostly because they are far apart (L.A. and just outside London). I found this very entertaining and it wasn't just about two women getting away and finding possible romantic interests, but also finding parts of themselves again. Also starring Jude Law, Jack Black and Eli Wallach.

The Family Stone
This film is a family drama written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Starring Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Sarah Jessica Parker and more as a family meeting the son's girlfriend (Parker) for the first time at Christmas. It's a more offbeat and quirky holiday film and I love that the deaf gay character isn't made a novelty and how much of the dialogue among the family members is said also in sign language, even when not directly spoken to the deaf character. They said in the 'making of' featurette that they went through the script together line by line to decide which ones should also be in sign language. A different holiday film to watch to escape the usual standbys.

Grumpy Old Men
I like watching this one at Christmas, although not marketed as a Christmas film, I consider it one with all the snow and it taking place in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Plus it's a nice, light comedy to watch with the adult folks in the house, but also suitable to watch if you've got kids running around. Starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as two old neighbours and rivals fighting for the affection of the new town hottie, played by Ann-Margret. A very funny film.

Have a safe and happy holiday season!! More ramblings to come......

Dear Santa......

I've decided that as my gift to you I'd track down one of my very inappropriate holiday favourites from the Trailer Park Boys. This wasn't a part of the regular series, but filmed as a separate prequel. Language, language, language, so do not watch with any young ones. Here it is, the lost Christmas special titled "Dear Santa, Go Fuck Yourself".......so, pour a little dark, spiced rum into your eggnog, sit back and enjoy.....

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

I know it's been a gazillion years since my last post, but I really didn't see many films this summer and nothing really inspired me enough to write. However, the kids decided to break out the seasonal dvds we love watching this time of the year. I bet everybody has their movie and television traditions when it comes to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. So for this post I decided to list a few of our favourite Thanksgiving traditions as well as shows I wish I could see again.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Written and directed by the late, great John Hughes, the film stars Steve Martin and the also late, great John Candy as an oddball couple thrown together by circumstances beyond their control where everything that can go wrong does. Neal Page (Martin) is an uptight marketing executive visiting NYC for a meeting and is trying to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving with his family. Neal meets Del Griffith (Candy), a floundering shower curtain ring salesman who gets by on his charm and likeable nature. Through a series of travel related mishaps (delays, having to land in a different city due to weather, rental car difficulties, etc), Neal and Del are thrown together and Del makes it his mission to help Neal get back home for Thanksgiving, much to Neal's dismay. Despite the very dated music (think 80's Casio keyboard type stuff), it is very humorous and has held up well. A Turkey Day favourite for us.

Ellen
I love Ellen's television series so much that I've got almost all of the seasons on dvd and have written about it in more detail here. We broke out the season four box set to watch the Thanksgiving episode. In this episode, Ellen volunteers at a soup kitchen and invites a fellow volunteer to join her and her friends for Thanksgiving dinner. Paige has the Four Seasons cater the dinner to impress Spence's mother. Ellen and her friends discover during dinner that Perry, the volunteer that Ellen invited to join them, is actually homeless. Awkward hijinks ensue. Guest starring the very talented and funny Joe Flaherty as Perry.

Cheers
When thinking about Thanksgiving shows, this one has always stuck out in my memory. You know the one. The one where everybody, not able to be with their loved ones, goes to Carla's house for Thanksgiving with the infamous Thanksgiving dinner food fight with Diane dressed in a ridiculous pilgrim costume. I hadn't seen it in ages, though, but was able to track it down on youtube. Enjoy.



WKRP in Cincinatti
Another television show that immediately comes to mind when thinking about Thanksgiving is the episode of this show when Mr. Carlson, who owns the radio station, decides to give a whole lotta turkeys away to listeners.....by dropping them out of a helicopter. I was unable to find the episode in its entirety, but I did find this small clip of the Turkey Drop.....

WKRP in Cincinnati: Thanksgiving Turkey Bomb! @ Yahoo! Video

Garfield's Thanksgiving
This is one we have on dvd and watch every year. We actually have the dvd with the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas specials on it. Garfield looks forward to a big Thanksgiving dinner. Jon attempts to make his own dinner for his crush, Liz, Garfield and Odie's veterinarian. Grandma has to bail Jon out of a turkey dinner disaster. I was able to find the episode on youtube, but the video has embedding disabled, so you'll just have to click here to watch the special on youtube.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
We broke out the season 1 box set to watch the Thanksgiving episode where Will's mother visits from Philly for Thanksgiving. In order to prove to Will's mother, Vi, that the children aren't spoiled, Aunt Vivian orders Will, Ashley, Carlton and Hilary to make the Thanksgiving dinner for the family and Will and Carlton's English teacher with disastrously humorous results.

Enjoy your turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed taters n gravy, punkin pie and all that other fun stuff. I will end with a quote from Garfield's Thanksgiving special with Garfield explaining to Odie the reason for Thanksgiving:

Garfield: Thanksgiving is the day we celebrate food by eating as much of it as possible!

More ramblings to come.......