The Third Wheel: Luke Wilson is a bumbling cubicle slave who is determined to go on a date with the sexy and successful Denise Richards.  Everyone in his office, including Ben Affleck (who is at his douche with a goatee best) is pulling for him and even have a party where they place bets on, like, whether or not he will get laid or something like that.  But then, on their date, Luke Wilson hits this crazy homeless guy (played by the movie’s screenwriter, Jay Lacopo) with his car.  This is where we started to fast forward.  The guy is fine, but wants money for his crystal animals that were broken in the accident, so he gets in the car with them.  As far as I could tell, the guy keeps showing up wherever they are on their date and putting salt in the Luke Wilson’s already meager game.  Then Matt Damon makes a cameo as Denise Richards’ ex-boyfriend.  I watched this part on regular speed.  I love me some Good Will Hunting-era Damon.  Then I guess they probably fall in love or something and there is a quirky break dance scene while the credits roll.

I don’t like Denise Richards, but I can tolerate her.  She has a weird robot face and I find her to be a bad actress.  Young Luke Wilson I can more than tolerate.  He is gorgeous.  Superdouche Ben Affleck I LOVE.  Jay Lacopo, who you have never heard of and went ahead and wrote a huge part for himself in his own movie, is INTOLERABLE.  I literally could not even stand to look at his face.  Is he supposed to be crazy?  Retarded?  Homeless?  I don’t even know.  He’s just wearing some stupid beanie with a perpetually confused look on his face and you just know he was so fucking satisfied with himself.  HATE YOU.  FAST FORWARD.

The Breed: A group of sexy friends, played by actors who are a good decade older than their characters are supposed to be, find themselves in a remote cabin being attacked by rabid(?) dogs all while two of them are brothers who have both fucked Michelle Rodriguez.  Questions this raises:

1. Are the dogs rabid?  Did we fast forward through that part?  Because without a good reason presented, I really don’t want to watch dogs get hit with baseball bats.

2. Did this blonde suck someone off to get this part?  She’s some utterly noncute version of Amy Pohler and did not want to look at her face.

3. How much does it suck to be Kate Hudson’s unfamous brother who looks vaguely like Steven Weber?

4. Is Michelle Rodriguez sexy?  I’m kind of scared of her.

Henry Poole Is Here: Luke Wilson, 10 years later!  I was on board with this one from the beginning.  Luke’s aged a little, but isn’t Verizon Commercial Fat yet.  He  buys a house and intends to drink himself to death.  I can get behind this idea.  But then his weird neighbor decides she can see Jesus in the stucco of his house and he goes on a walk with her other neighbor Radha Mitchell (whose daughter who has that weird movie quirk where she doesn’t talk until, like whatever yawn) and then I guess it was like, he has cancer (OR LUKEMIA, the prospect of which I could not stop giggling about) and thinks he’s going to die but I think maybe the Jesus water stain saves him or maybe he just stops drinking I really don’t know PEACE OUT.

Some day I will stop getting excited about movies.  I will learn my lesson and go into even the most highly touted and slickly marketed film skeptical and broken.  Unfortunately this has not happened yet and in I went to see A Single Man expecting Tom Ford to translate his piercing stare and effortless style into something not just pretty but moving.

But of course.

He didn’t.

Yes, this story (based on a presumably monstrously depressing novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood) of a gay man in 1960s Los Angeles mourning his dead lover is — dramatic.  The idea of being forced to suffer in silence and secret because of prejudice is a depressing one.  But the subtlety of the subject matter — what is more subtle than the day to day process of grieving — is overwhelmed by droll, condescending voiceover, pointless quirks and dialogue and situations that are anything but subtle.

As the eponymous man, George, Colin Firth is sad eyed and straight faced.  More slender than normal he fills out his suits very nicely.  Julianne Moore, as his (pardon the expression) fag hag Charley is glamorously over the top with piled high hair and caked on mascara, but her truly dreadful British accent is too much to bear.  And the gorgeous gay men that not only fall all over themselves to get to George (yes, how depressing that must be for him) have not only the perfectly sculpted forms of actors, but the offputting feminine faces of model.

Finally, A Single Man falls into the trap that far too many modern period films and television shows (I’m looking at you, Mad Men) of giving  not just a nod to their contemporary era.  An oversized movie poster advertise, not something obscure or artsy but Psycho.  A newscast on the radio isn’t talking about the local school board or traffic conditions, it’s talking about the Cuban Missle Crisis.  Particularly in this film, the style is of the decade is so pervasive and well-done that there is no reason for these insulting shout-outs.

I didn’t enjoy this movie.  It is nice to look out, well-framed and just attractive.  I wouldn’t mind having it play on mute while I sipped Pinot Grigio on a third date.  But it’s not moving.  It’s not a good story.  It’s not even satisfyingly depressing.  It’s just kind of…suck.

The movie opens with a series of quick cut close ups of Ryan preparing to go on the road.  His clothes are folded neatly and fit perfectly in his carryon, then he whisks his way through check in and security.  Get it?  He travels a lot so he’s good at it.  The problem is, the contents of the sequence betray Ryan’s precision and his antiseptic life, free from messy connections.  But the style does not.  The shots are oddly framed and sloppily edited.  Far from precise and clean, they are confusingly messy verging on amateurish.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the problems with Up in the Air.

The film continues to follow Ryan on the road, through his encounters with Alex (Vera Farmiga), a lovely female road warrior with whom he begins a torrid romance, his training of Natalie (Anna Kendrick, who went from high school senior in New Moon to college graduate in a matter of a month), the seemingly heartless ingénue whose idea of romance involves finding someone that fits all the boxes on her checklist and his trip to his sister’s wedding where he is forced to reexamine his life philosophy: make no connections and you can achieve your goals free of baggage.  Except for maybe a carry-on.

No, the story certainly doesn’t break any new ground, but the way in which it doesn’t is so completely disappointing and frustrating.  There are elements of the story that, while not brilliant, are easy setups.  Easy like kicking over bowling pins.  But then, a few scenes later, when you’re looking for the payoff, it isn’t where you thought it would be, or worse yet, it isn’t there at all.  Why waste time and energy making a scenario that begs for resolution and then leave that part out?

Worse yet is the “twist” in Ryan and Alex’s relationship.  It’s surprising, but not in a way that you can go back and rewatch it into making sense.  No, it just makes no sense at all.  It serves the purpose of making Ryan sad, but it does not at all jive with the rest of the story.  It was so bad it made me use the word “jive”.

I wish I could say that I knew what Jason Reitman was going for in making this movie.  The undercurrent of Ryan’s job – the message that even if you lose your job, you’re going to be ok – is one that sort of makes sense.  It’s a nice uplifting message, I guess.  But I can think of about a billion ways that such a message could have been conveyed in a more coherent and dare I say entertaining way.  I could even see Ryan Bingham as a character as being quite compelling.  But I wasn’t convinced the two stories fit together.  At all.

So, big deal, a movie was disappointing and shitty.  Oh well, happens all the time.  But what doesn’t always happen is all the attention that has been heaped on it.  Even though it’s not in wide release until Christmas, it has already won awards from the National Board of Review for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film.  WHAT.  WHAT.  BEST FILM?!  They know that Inglourious Basterds came out this year, right?  And Adventureland?  And  at least 5 other movies that don’t completely suck though I can’t think of them right now??

So, big deal, who cares about awards and Oscar buzz.  It’s just a popularity contest with no real relation to what’s good or not.  But the critics, they surely won’t stand for this kind of suckage.  Right, Rotten Tomatoes?  Wait.  89%?? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!  A.O. Scott of the New York Times?  You think what?  That  “this is a classic in the making”?  Could I really be so far off base?  I don’t understand.  I don’t understand.  This movie was so so bad.  With characters who weren’t whole, cinematography that was not good, a story that wasn’t interesting or important.  Did I see the same movie?  Did I accidentally go see New Moon again?

I hate you and everything you stand for, Up in the Air.
On a less infuriated note, here are some things I found acceptable:
The Sam Elliott cameo towards the end.  That guy and his mustache can do no wrong.

Vera Farmiga’s haircut.

Creating a new category for my blog called “suck”

This poster that I found online: