Review of Up in the Air (2009) by Jonm — 02 Mar 2010

No movie I've seen in the last year has more infuriated me than this boring, bourgeois fluff-piece about Ivy League Grinches having their poor little hearts suddenly grow three sizes and just BURST out their chests.

It tells the unremittingly boring tale of a mostly despicable guy who has a despicable and confused affair with an equally confused and despicably adulterous woman, an affair rife with despicably vacuous, wannabe suave banter.

In the course of carrying out his despicable job working alongside and for other despicable people firing other despicable people who just can't FATHOM how to pick up the pieces of their lives after losing out on all the sweet Grand Cherokee-filled promise of their entitled, upper middle class 60-90+k salaries.

And Anna Kendrick's performance is most offensive of all. Not a shred of authentic type-A female humanity in her performance, a truly disgustingly low-quality acting performance. People who think Anna Kendrick is worth her salt IN THE LEAST in this performance HORRIFY me.

I was APPALLED to see that she was nominated for a Golden Globe for this. Was nobody else moved to vomit by her ridiculously phony parody of an emotional breakdown in the airport with Clooney? Pure broadway bull.

All I can imagine on this score is that aging people with ink to spill have ATROCIOUS taste in young actors. And that ridiculous hip hop concert scene with everyone dancing? Yeah, that would have already been a cheesy, condescending appeal to a younger generation back in like 1997.

. .it's 2010, you freaking troglodytic wannabe pop-cultural savants. I CAN NOT BELIEVE the praise with which this tripe has been lavished. . .although I CAN imagine that the FILM CRITICS of the world would just ADORE a meditation on a soulless, promiscuously single middle aged man's anomic descent into an emotional isolation of his own creation until at last.

. .he has become so estranged from his baby sister that she asks their UNCLE to walk her down the aisle instead of her big brother GEORGE CLOONEY! Can you just IMAGINE?! (who, incidentally, I deeply respect and love in almost everything.

I also enjoy Jason Bateman and Danny McBride. I decided the three of them must have lost some bet to get dragged into this unmitigatedly stupid, shlocky and downright sociologically reprehensible movie whose almost boundless crappiness is keenly augmented by a soundtrack straight out of the eighth circle of hell) And for those who think this total piece of crap is somehow "uplifting" or "deeply relevant in light of recent economic blah blah blah", I rebut that the over-arching "oh, our poor down economy" theme smacks revoltingly of noblesse oblige.

You know who this "down economy" has hit particularly hard? People who worked for LEHMAN BROTHERS and other types who watch tickers and used to read the Wall Street Journal before they started using it as toilet paper last year because they aren't QUITE SO RICH ANYMORE, you bunch of stupids.

You get away with this as a special interest-sponsored Special Presentation on Watching Your Dollar TV on the freaking MONEY Channel. This movie can bite me. Critics of America, your response to this piece of trash means class warfare.

You're on.