Word: reitman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Clooney has starred in three movies released in the past month. The first two, The Men Who Stare at Goats and Fantastic Mr. Fox, are already withering at the wickets. Up in the Air, though, is soaring. The Jason Reitman comedy-drama, with Clooney as a corporate hired gun and frequent flyer, has swept awards - best film, actor and screenplay - from the National Board of Review and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association. That plus a fruitful 91% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, top critics. (Read "Clooneypalooza: A Star Is Airborne...
Playing on a mere 15 screens, Up in the Air soared to a stratospheric $1.2 million. The Jason Reitman comedy-drama, starring George Clooney as a charming, rootless management consultant who flies around the country firing people, was deemed a front runner for the Best Picture Oscar after its premieres at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals. The National Board of Review, the first big group to announce its year-end awards, showered Up in the Air with four major laurels: best film, actor (Clooney), supporting actress (Anna Kendrick) and adapted screenplay. The picture, which comes to your neighborhood...
What's gutsy is that writer-director Jason Reitman (adapting Walter Kirn's novel) is springing a movie about a toxic social problem at a time when more than a tenth of the workforce is out of a job. Moreover, Reitman hired a few dozen unemployed nonactors to play the parts of staffers who get the hook. These folks aren't performing; they're bleeding on camera. (See pictures "Glitz and Glamour at the Venice Film Festival...
Kirn's novel inched into nightmare, as Ryan got mixed up with a company called MegaTech and became convinced someone was stealing his miles. Reitman, who previously scored with the quirky hits Thank You for Smoking and Juno, and who shares screenplay credit with Sheldon Turner, soft-pedals the satire and pumps up Ryan's relationships with Alex and Natalie. The movie's development of three strong personalities, each with grails the others don't seek, shows a maturity rare in modern movies. So does Reitman's refusal to judge any of the three. He doesn't force comeuppance...
...acknowledged, this is a portrait of a character not far from his own: a traveling man with scores of women in his past, riding high on the confidence that people will buy anything he pitches - even a savory comedy-drama with a tart aftertaste. He, and Reitman, could close the sale on Oscar night...