Up In The Air (2009)

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a corporate down sizer. He lays off people who's bosses are too cowardly to do it themselves. He flies all over the country and has almost amassed his goal of 10,000 frequent flyer miles. Apparently only about 6 people have done this before.

He is also a motivational speaker who's speech "What's in your backpack" is all about how great life is without things or relationships. He himself is only "home" about 43 days out of the year which is the way that he likes it. He has almost nothing in his apartment (a hotel room has more stuff in it) and he has only casual relationships. He also doesn't have a great relationship with his family.

While on a business trip, he meets a woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) who is just like him. In fact, when they meet, they spend time comparing frequent flyer cards for everything from hotels to rent-a-cars. They begin a relationship based on when they are in the same town.

Ryan is called home to Omaha by his boss (Jason Bateman) and is told that they are going to be trying something new, firing people over the computer. Whoa Nellie, this would change his whole life. The new employee suggesting this new approach is a confident woman named Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) and Ryan must take her on the road for training. He is not happy.

Natalie goes along with Ryan and begins to see that detaching yourself from these firings is not as easy as it looks. When Natalie is dumped by text by the boyfriend that she moved to Omaha for, Ryan and Alex take her to a party that they are crashing that is given by some electronics company. She has a good time.

Ryan invites Alex to go with him to his sisters wedding and she accepts. When they arrive it is obvious that there is tension between siblings. The day of the wedding finds that his future brother in law is having second thoughts. Ryan is able to convince him to marry his sister and all have a good time at the wedding.

Ryan and Natalie are informed that they are to do a trial run using the computer to fire someone while they are in the next room. This is disastrous. They go back to Omaha to find that one of the people that they had fired earlier had killed themselves and that leads Natalie to quit and Ryan to go find Alex. We soon find that Alex is not who she led Ryan to believe that she was and he is dumped.

When he finally reaches his 10,000 frequent flyer miles, it certainly didn't feel as good as he thought it would.

This was a great movie and I would recommend it. Clooney was great here, not best actor great, but great. Farmiga and Kendrick are also good, but not Oscar good. You might have seen Farmiga in "The Departed" and Kendrick in the "Twilight" Series.

Rated R. 109 Minutes. I give this movie FOUR STARS.

A Perfect Getaway (2009)

Cliff and Cyndey (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) are a freshly married couple spending their honeymoon in Hawaii. They decide to backpack to a hidden beach that they had heard about that has to be accessed by hiking in.

They pick up a couple of hitchhikers named Cleo and Kale (Marley Shelton and Chris Hemsworth) along the way to the trail and think that they are strange and drop them off at the side of the road.

Along the trail on their hike, they run into some hikers talking about the recent murders of a couple in the islands. Cliff and Sydney question whether to go on, but decide to continue. They run into Nick (Timothy Olyphant) along the trail and decide to hike together and meet up with Nick's girlfriend Gina (Kiele Sanchez) at a water hole. While at the water hole they bump into Cleo and Kale and freak out but figure they are o.k. since they are with Nick and Gina.

The couple continue to bond with Nick and Gina until one of the ladies finds out something about the others that leads to the truth. I won't tell you what happens, that wouldn't be fair.

This movie is o.k. for a cheesy and mildly entertaining way to pass the time.

Rated R. 120 Minutes. I give this movie TWO AND ONE HALF STARS.

Things We Lost In The Fire (2007)

I had not heard of this movie starring Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro until it was recommended by Mike (Thanks Mike).

Audrey and Brian Burke (Halle Berry and David Duchovny) are a happily married, well off couple with two children, daughter Harper 10 (Alexis Llewellyn) and son Dory 6 (Micah Berry). Audrey gets the devastating news one evening that Brian has been killed trying to intervene in a domestic dispute. She realizes the day of the funeral that she has not informed Brian's best childhood friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro) about Brian's death. She send her brother to give him the news and take him to the funeral.

Audrey has issues with Jerry as he is a heroin addict and has sometimes come between her and Brian.

After the funeral, Audrey asks Jerry to move in to help him out while he works on his recovery and he becomes close to her children and has an effect on her as well. She becomes upset at him after a while and asks him to leave the house. He relapses and she finds him and brings him back. He goes through heavy withdrawals and finally agrees to go into a treatment program.

The film flashes back often to events including David Duchovny's character Brian and Jerry.

I am not a big Benicio Del Toro fan, but I feel that he did a great job here especially during the withdrawal scenes. This movie kept me interested and moved along smoothly.

Rated R. 119 Minutes. I give this film THREE STARS.

The September Issue (2009)

This film is a documentary that follows Vogue Magazine's editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, through the making and publication of the magazines September 2007 issue.

The September issue of the magazine is their largest for the year as it introduces the fall fashions and is filled with advertisements. This particular issue was their largest ever. It weighed five pounds and had 840 pages. I recently flipped through the latest Vogue magazine and had a hard time finding anything other than advertisements for the first quarter of the issue. For those who know me well, fashion isn't exactly my forte considering that some of my favorite pairs of shoes are still Vans.

There is much speculation that Meryl Streep's character in "The Devil Wears Prada" is based on Wintour and I was all set to see this. She is definitely a strong and aggressive personality and I found that most of her staff would back down in an instant and not try to push their opinions. One of her creative directors, Grace Coddington, a former model, has dealt with Wintour for around 20 years and they seem to have a wary working relationship as Grace is able to stand up to Wintour. Wintour apparently recognizes Grace's creative genius and even brings it up at the end of the film.

With the success of this documentary, sales of this particular issue of Vogue has sold from a high of $80-$115.

I found this film to be an interesting overview of how an issue of a magazine is prepared.

Not Rated. 90 Minutes. I give this film THREE AND ONE HALF STARS.

The Ugly Truth (2009)

Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl star in this he against she film.

Abby Richter (Heigl) is the producer on a morning show that has falling ratings. She happens to see a show called "the ugly truth" hosted by Mike Chadway (Butler) that highlights his ideas on male/female relationships and they are not good. Abby calls the show and argues with Mike on the air.

She goes into work and finds that the station owner has hired Mike to help boost ratings. Needless to say, the two do not get along.

Abby begins to date a man from her building and agrees to let Mike help her with the relationship. If it doesn't work, he will quit the station. You can guess what the outcome is, everyone can guess. Not original or good. Someone should tell Gerard Butler that being a hot Scottish guy (the accent is half the hotness) does not a romantic comedy actor make (he wasn't bad in P.S. I love you though). I am hearing bad things about his new movie coming out with Jennifer Aniston called "The Bounty Hunter".

Rumor has it that the Mike Chadway character was based on Adam Corolla on the Adam Corolla show.

Not entertaining for me, I lost interest within the first half hour.

Rated R. 96 Minutes. I give this film TWO STARS.

Land Of The Lost (2009)

This film, a parody of the Saturday morning show by Sid and Marty Krofft, is one of the worst films that I have seen in the last year.

It stars Will Ferrell (who I usually like)as Dr. Rick Marshall a paleantologist, Anna Friel as Holly, and Danny McBride as Will. None of the characters are as they were in the original show. They fall into a space/time vortex and find themselves in a quasi desert, jungle situation with evidence that there have been others there before them.

Most of this movie varies from the original although Chaka, the Sleestak and the T-Rex are still there but that is about it. This was made for adults and therefore has the usual sex and adult jokes. At least the older one had the excuse that it was from the 70's and the cheesy effects were funny.

It sucks, nuff said.

Rated PG-13. 102 Minutes. I GIVE THIS MOVIE ONE AND ONE HALF STARS.

Here is the lead in for the old Saturday morning show. Memories people?

Herb And Dorothy (2009)

This documentary profiles Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a regular couple who managed to amass one of the most important modern art collections in history.

The Vogels live in a very small one bedroom apartment in Manhattan and have been married since the 60's. He was a postal worker and she was a librarian and they would spend his salary on art and live on her salary. Their commitment to their art is astounding and it proves that you don't have to be rich to acquire art.

They seem to concentrate on up and coming artists and their only requirements are that the art be affordable and that it be able to fit into their apartment. They eventually filled up their small apartment with more than 4000 works of art worth millions and in 1992 they had their collection moved to the National Gallery of Art. They have since refilled the apartment.

I am not much on contemporary art, but I found this documentary to be interesting and have much admiration for this couple.

Not Rated. 87 Minutes. I give this film THREE AND ONE HALF STARS.