During the filming of Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, I saw a set photo where George Clooney was dressed in a full-on NASA space suit, walking in an airport. That scene didn’t make the final film, and I’ve always wondered what it was about, and where it fit. Up in the Air hits DVD and Blu-Ray on March 9th (On Amazon: $27 for Blu-ray, $17 on DVD), and we’ve been given a look at the deleted scene in question, in which Ryan Bingham goes about his disconnected routine in a spacesuit. You can watch it now, embedded after the jump. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend watching the clip unless you’ve already seen the film, as the deleted scene in question was to be set late in the film.
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Variety isn’t the only organization that can bury info in reports. Hawaii does it, too! Down at the end of the long press release trumpeting Hawaii as the filming location for Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is a minor nugget about Alexander Payne. The director is currently in pre-production on The Descendants, which will indeed star George Clooney as recently rumored. Read More »
Okay, first of all, let me warn you: If you haven’t yet seen Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air:
1. Why haven’t you? It’s in theaters everywhere… go now!
2. You might not want to read the following story as it contains some spoilers for the film. (the headline is not a spoiler, trust me)
While George Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham is not dying of terminal cancer in the actual theatrical cut of the film, might one have been written and even filmed? After the jump we get to the bottom of the mystery. Is it true? Was it written? Was it filmed? We talked to Jason Reitman to get the answers.
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Another international phenomenon is about to get a US remake, probably before you’ve even had a chance to catch the original. Doesn’t mean the Stateside do-over isn’t sounding tasty, though…
The biggest crowd pleaser at this year’s Frightfest was the English speaking world’s premiere of a smart, pointed thriller in the Silence of the Lambs vein, though with added politics. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is an adaptation of the first book in Stieg Larsson’s worldwide smash novel trilogy Millennium, known as Män som hatar kvinnor in its native Sweden - a title that would translate literally as Men Who Hate Women. It’s a rather apt title.
The deal for US adaptations of the book series is closing now, with Sony reported to be tying up the last loose ends of some rather complex negotiations. Things have apparently been slower than with normal rights negotiations, largely due to the sudden death of Larsson shortly before the publication of the first novel, and the ensuing entanglements when it became clear that he had neither married his common law wife or left a will; and partly due to the existence of the Swedish film versions.
Linked to the project are screenwriter Steve Zaillian and producer Scott Rudin. That’s a real power player duo and they give the project a genuine whiff of Oscar even before a single word has been scripted.
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In Jason Reitman’s new dramedy Up in the Air, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who travels around the country trying to get to ten million frequent flyer miles, a number only reached by six other people, which would grant him uber elite black card ConciergeKey frequent flier status on American Airlines.
But thats a movie… a real-life Ryan Bingham-type found a way to cheat his way to American Airlines lifetime platinum-elite status, which grants him, among other things, early availability of upgrades for the rest of his life. Much in the way that Adam Sandler’s character in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love cheated the system by buying millions of packages of pudding, a man Mr. Pickles (his anonymous online nickname) was able to achieve this by legally purchasing $800,000 in coins from the U.S. Mint, which offers free shipping on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value.
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As I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox and gradually sensed the darkness of the theater lose out to the autumn-colored, classy, stop motion shenanigans on screen, I began to accept that every silhouette in the audience—fat and small, rich and me—was dressed in ship-shape, semi-formal attire. I pictured moms silently imagining themselves speaking in snooty English accents and serving cups of Earl Grey. And kids ages five through nine on the verge of zzz’ing in handsome jackets of tweed and corduroy; mildly stimulated by what equates to a visually dazzling hipster Sunday School lesson taught with Adderall on its gums and Tryptophan in its belly.
In contrast to Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are—itself a furry and visionary 2009 adaptation of a famous kid’s book about nonconformity—Wes Anderson’s Fox focuses foremost on family via adult characters. Whereas Wild Things united male Eighties Babies with its look at psychological distress, a side effect birthed by so much of that decade’s parental divorce and separation, Fox unites families of the aughts with an increasingly rare and welcome air of sophistication. One is a film about adults-as-wild-animals suitable for families, the other is a film about a child amidst wild animals suitable for would-be adults.
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Paramount Pictures has released a new clip from Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air. The clip features the lovely Anna Kendrick as Natalie, a young college graduate questioning George Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham, who she is stuck on the road with, about why he chooses to have more casual relationships than relationships of substance. There is also a lot more going on in the clip, such as Clooney snapping a photo of a cardboard cutout of a couple in love (and yes, that is Danny McBride…), but you don’t really need to understand whats he’s doing to enjoy the clip. As I’ve stated before on the site, this is one of my favorite films of the year. This clip alone probably won’t be enough to convince you to buy a ticket, but please, take my word for it. The clip is embedded after the jump.
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Focus Features today announced their 2010 release slate. Highlights include:
- March 12th 2010: The Squid and the Whale writer/director Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg which stars Ben Stiller
- April 16th 2010: Thomas Balmès‘ Babies, a documentary film which simultaneously follows four babies around the world - from birth to first steps.
- Wednesday, September 1st 2010: Anton Corbijn’s The American starring George Clooney as a retiring assassin
- Third Quarter 2010: Kevin Macdonald’s Roman epic adventure The Eagle of the Ninth
- November 2010: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck’s (Half Nelson, Sugar) dramedy adaptation of Ned Vizzini’s 2006 novel It’s Kind of a Funny Story
- TBA 2010 (we assume in December for Award Season): Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning
After the jump you can read the full press release, which includes detailed plot synopsis for all of these films.
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Our friends at Collider scored a shitload of early promotional images and posters from the American Film Market. You can head on over to Collider to see all of the images, but I thought I’d profile a few of the projects that I’m more looking forward to. After the jump you will find photos of Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning, Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg starring Ben Stiller and The American starring George Clooney,
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I have a hard time calling this sort of thing a television spot, even though that’s technically what it is. But when you go over a minute and and half in length, I call it a trailer. Maybe we should term this new kind of commercial a “TV Trailer”. Anyway, this new TV Trailer for Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air premiered during the season finale of Mad Men, a show I desperately need to catch up on. Entitled “Everyone Needs A Co-Pilot”, this ad focuses more on Ryan Bingham’s relationships.
If you’re already sold on seeing this film, I would recommend staying away from this, or any other trailers for the film. I feel they are getting progressively worse in terms of showing you story points which occur in the second half of the film. Having the main character speak the lesson that you hope he might learn during the two hour cinematic journey is a bit too revealing for me, regardless of the fact that he could just be saying it to someone else, regardless of the fact that you don’t know how this film ends (and trust me, you don’t).
For those of you, like me, who didn’t see Mad Men this week…. or those of you with DVRs or itunes/torrent downloads, both of which bypass commercials, you can watch the new tv trailer embedded after the jump.
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