Various movies, plus memory lane...

I have spent the entire day thinking that I have to re-watch Up in the Air because I don't remember Clooney wearing wingtips at the end - and then I realized. He says in the voiceover that"one of the stars, brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over." I think that means the wingtip on the plane, not a wingtip shoe. But I'm fascinated by the way that completely changes the ending of the film.

I think I first started liking Hugh Grant when I saw About a Boy. I actually liked that Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock movie (I think it's called Two Weeks Notice), which really surprised me, since as a rule I don't care for Bullock and didn't enjoy Grant at the time either. (Trivia note - the same guy directed Two Weeks Notice and Music & Lyrics. Or maybe it's the same screenwriter.) But the first time that I really liked him was definitely About a Boy, which I thought was a terrific move. I still haven't seen Love, Actually - I guess I'd better add it to the Netflix queue. So many movies, so little time...do you remember how many movies we used to see? I guess that's one of the ways we spent our time before we became parents - Tim and I have been trying to remember what we did, exactly.

I recently watched, thanks to Netflix, Next Stop, Greenwich Village. Have you seen it? Early Mazursky, set in, of course, Greenwich Village, in the early 1960s - or maybe the late 1950s. Even though our time was decades later, it made me so nostalgic for that time in our lives - young, aspiring artists in NYC. It's a state of mind and being that only a few of us are privileged to experience, and while watching that movie, I truly felt in my bones that it really doesn't matter what happened to those dreams. I don't at all mind that my life turned out so differently than I'd imagined - I'm honestly very happy, and I know how lucky I am. But I will forever be grateful for the years I spent dedicated to the belief that my life would turn out exactly as I pictured it, and that I was able to experience life in the hum and roar of that city. I don't want to live there again - but living in NYC is such a specific experience. It really is like no other place, isn't it?

"Music and Lyrics": Entertaining Delight

Lea Thompson. You do have to wonder how she has managed to get so far. Maybe she's terribly nice. Do you remember that show Carolyn in the City? What a big deal that was. Did she get it because she'd been in a John Hughes movie? She just didn't have the star power to carry a whole show. Fizzlesville. You wanted to like it but it was just dishwater. How did it go four seasons?

I'd wanted to go see Music and Lyrics in the theatre, but Bret never goes to movies like that and it did give the impression it would be fine on HBO in six months. What a happy surprise when I finally got to see it.

Hugh Grant has irritated me for years. A few years ago, on some talk show he and Sandra Bullock played outtakes from some bland comedy they were in, and they seemed to be having so much fun that I sort of started to like him. And then it was probably About a Boy or Notting Hill that I began to tolerate him better. By Love, Actually I was onboard. He'd lost most of the stuttering and blithering and there were lines in his face that made him look mortal.

This new calmer Hugh Grant in Music and Lyrics, where he pokes fun at himself and seems less driven to be liked was a pleasure to behold. Drew Barrymore was a decade or so too young for him, but they were very appealing together.

I love the song Pop Goes My Heart and the accompanying video is a smilefest. You'd swear you'd watched it on MTV back in the day.

Haley Bennett (I had to look her up on IMDB) was sensational as the Madonna-Brittney Spears-style character. What a talent. You'd think she'd have gone further by now.

Music and Lyrics is a Dean Martin comedy – maybe we should say Rock Hudson-Doris Day type of comedy; his body of work doesn't support him as a whole genre. It was an evening thrown away on a fattening dinner out, high priced movie tickets, overpriced popcorn, and a sitter, but satisfying nonetheless. You're full on sugar and fat by the end, but in a good mood and humming the theme song.

"Up in the Air"

I don't know exactly why I have left this movie in the past so easily, but I was so taken by the initial praise that I couldn't wait to see it. And so I did.

I know that I was favorably impressed and enjoyed the performances, and was moved. I was caught up in the love story, mildly stunned by the outcome. And after mentioning it to people the next few days, saying how good it was, I moved on. I only thought of it again during Oscar time, and when an old high school friend wrote on Facebook that it had "pissed" her off, but she didn't say why. Because she's smart, I felt stupid for having liked it, assuming I had missed some major irony or point. And then the Oscars passed it by, too.

I think your treatise is right on, Shakes. But overall, it was much more conventional a movie than I was led to believe it might be. And that is, I think, in no small part to the fact that George Clooney is so very good at making the smart movie taste good as it goes down. He's our Cary Grant, isn't he? He's a populist and a good guy. But he isn't afraid to occasionally smear the need to think in our faces (Syriana, Michael Clayton, Good Night, and Good Luck, for example.)

But this wasn't one of those kinds of movies. In a way it was like a Capra movie. Lots of identification with the "little man," and entertaining and a little righteous. The state of the economy at the time it was made and released are the only reasons the movie felt a little tough. If and when the economy improves, will future viewers see it the same way?

I had a different interpretation of the end. I got the sense that the Clooney character had changed more than you and others may have. He does narrate clearly that the shoes he's wearing onboard that plane at the end are wingtips, and those require shoelaces, an indicator that he has dumped the slip-ons for shoes that take time going through security checkpoints. I assumed he was traveling for pleasure.

Maybe I'm a little deaf and dummy. I thought it was a happy ending.

About "Up in the Air"

WARNING: this post assumes that anyone reading it has seen Up in the Air. If you haven't and don't want to know what happens, stop reading now.

We just watched Up in the Air the other night, and I've been thinking ever since about the various reviews I read about this film. After its initial, positive response, there was a slew of commentary that damned it with faint praise, or outright complained that it was too slick, too neat, too perfect of a vehicle for George Clooney, etc.

(The most interesting complaint, to my mind, was the assertion that Jason Reitman condescended to the unemployed by hiring real, live, recently unemployed "ordinary folk" as well as actors to play some of the people who lose their jobs throughout the course of the movie. To be honest, I still have not made up my mind about that. On the one hand, isn't it a bit condescending to assume that those individuals didn't have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they were being exploited? On the other, in our five-minutes-of-fame obsessed society, how many people have the strength of will to refuse such an opportunity, especially since they could doubtless use the money? More to the point, however, is the fact that I don't think it actually added anything of note to my experience as a viewer.)

Setting that aside, I think all of the criticism that I have read missed the central thesis of the film, the issue that made me really love the movie: that what we do for a living matters, that it shapes (or misshapes) our soul. The journey that Ryan Bingham (Clooney's character) takes is a journey toward that discovery.

Consider: the movie opens and we see a happy man doing a terrible job with grace and ersatz compassion. He enjoys his life of disconnection. The movie seems to set up a traditional scenario, with Ryan as the good guy who needs to learn the value of love, positioned opposite the seemingly monstrous Natalie, played (to perfection) by Anna Kendrick. She is pushing for the efficient method of firing people remotely, via computer, and Ryan argues that the personal touch is critical in such a demeaning moment. We are set up to expect that Ryan will be vindicated and that Natalie will be humiliated and proven wrong. In a way, that happens - but it's utterly beside the point.

The point is that firing people is a horrible way to make a living. Natalie realizes that, and leaves in order to live a better life. Her epiphany is not driven by her idea to revolutionize the company's methods - her failure occurs in a face-to-face moment. It is also, not incidentally, Ryan's failure. But the movie doesn't dramatize either character paying a professional price for their failure to avoid tragedy; it is made very clear that their boss accepts their statements that they don't recall the woman in question at face value. Natalie quits voluntarily, and moves toward a career that will make her genuinely happy. When the movie ends, Ryan has won his battle and is returning to the life he so valued at the beginning, having lost all of the joy he previously took in his perceived freedom.

I haven't even mentioned the love story at the movie's center. It could work almost as well without it, but who would wish for this movie without Vera Farmiga's Alex? Clooney has never had an onscreen partner this strong - the closest was Jennifer Lopez, of all people, in Out of Sight, and how long ago was that? The romance, like the rest of the movie, is set up according to movie convention and then neatly turns that convention on its ear. We get the epiphany, we get the hero dashing through an airport and racing to proclaim his feelings at last - what we don't get is a happy ending. Instead, Ryan sees that he has given his heart (for the first time in his life) to a deceitful, dysfunctional human being. It was the right resolution, but no less excruciating for that.

The movie's ending is, I think, deliberately ambiguous. We know that Ryan has grown a little. He gives his precious frequent flyer miles to his recently married sister so that she and her husband can have their dream vacation after all. His misery in the final closeup is indicative of his new awareness - the question is, will he sink into misery or do something to change and redeem his life? Anyone who doubts Clooney's ability as an actor should take another look at that closeup; with no change in facial expression, I saw a man gazing into the depths of his soul and seeing only emptiness looking back.

I've gone on this long because I think this is a rare topic for an American film, and that is why it has gone unremarked. Some of us are lucky enough to find work that matters to us, that feeds our spirit; not everyone has that luxury. But there's a difference between working purely for sustenance, and doing something that is actively destructive. Active destruction hurts the person who commits it. It's a notion not many people discuss, but I consider it to be a central truth, and I was very glad to see a mainstream American movie with one of our biggest movie stars exploring it.

However, critical reception indicates that most people didn't pick up on that aspect of it at all.

Dean Martin equivalents

You are right, of course - I was just so startled to turn on the television and see someone interviewing Lea Thompson about the "enduring" popularity of the Back to the Future movies. Then again, Thompson herself has always been something of a mystery to me. These moderately attractive, moderately talented people who keep getting work - well, Thompson is not as much of a mystery as, say, the "super stardom" of Sandra Bullock, who to me is the personification of mediocre likeability.

More to the point, if there is one, your post started me thinking about not-great movies that give more pleasure than one would reasonably expect. A relatively recent example, for me, is Music & Lyrics.



That movie made me ridiculously happy the first time I watched it, so much so that I ended up buying a DVD of the movie at Target, and yes, I've watched it a few times since. It's the equivalent of its subject - a great pop song. It makes me happy the way that "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" used to make me happy as a teenager. It's effervescent and cheerful and it's well-played on every level. While the plot is typically predictable, there are enough surprises in the dialogue and performances to elevate it above the current crop of romantic comedies - which are a sadly woeful lot, in general.

I've read many a review about the sad state of the romantic comedy, a genre once perfected by American film makers and now in such decline that even a moderately enjoyable entry can generate excitement. But nothing in recent years can even approach the unparalleled greatness of Bringing Up Baby or My Man Godfrey or the flawed-by-sexism but nevertheless (to me) fabulous-beyond-words The Philadelphia Story.



I remember thinking during the early heyday of Hugh Grant (Four Weddings and a Funeral, etc)that his movies (and performances) were overpraised because people were so hungry for a great romantic comedy that they'd settle for a decent one.

But it may be time to change the subject to bagels and peanut butter.

Back to the...What was it again?

I admit I'm a little surprised to hear that anyone is throwing accolades at this series of movies. The last time I heard them mentioned was when the derelict movie set burned down a couple of years ago. A great comedy series of the 20th Century? Well, maybe we're too close to it to judge them clearly. They have an artificial 80s vibe in my mind.

I remember going to see them all when they were new, and dutifully, too. I must have liked them to have made the commitment. And I have some recollections of scenes: the town clock, the Delorean, Christopher Lloyd's goggles...I see an old locomotive in the Old West, and Shirley MacLaine's daughter, Sachiko, in a bit part (I remember hoping she would have a career in movies out of it), and Crispin Glover scratching his head and being all weird, and I was left wondering what he was doing there in such wholesome company.

These movies were anchored so well by the capable and immensely likable Michael J. Fox. Is anyone more likable? Not even Tom Hanks.

The films are perfect popcorn fare. I was going to say that it would be too much effort to watch them again, that there are too many new movies to watch, lined up on my Netflix queue. But, you know, somehow I'm starting to think these would be great to watch with my son. Sure, the special effects probably look a little dated, but I am no big fan of CGI myself.

One weekend, some years ago, I stayed in a little rental house in the Connecticut countryside, and in the cellar I found an old diary, written by a teenaged girl in the 1960s. She offhandedly mentioned going to see a Dean Martin comedy at the theatre in town, and I was struck by the lack of enthusiasm she had about it, for I'm never not charged up one way or another about any movie I go see. But it dawned on me that this Dean Martin comedy was nothing but a summer evening pastime for her. Americans line up for movies as a matter of course, not always expecting more than a smile or a momentary thrill. The "Back to the Future" movies were fluff, zany big budget pastimes. My son goes to the movies far more often than I did as a child - I can count the times I went on one hand - and a movie of his youth like "Up" or "Avatar" may, for him, be nothing more than a Dean Martin comedy in retrospect, just like "Back to the Future" registers so dimly with us.