RANDOM REVIEW:'UP IN THE AIR'

A GOLDEN GLOBE?...SIX ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS?.....A FOUR STAR REVIEW FROM NONE OTHER THAN ROGER EBERT? GIVE ME A FREAKIN BREAK!!!

This movie is flying so high up in the air(forgive the pun) that i consider it my moral and aesthetic obligation to 'ground it'.Don't let the hype and marketing fool you,this movie,about a corporate downsizer and his adventures is nothing but a romantic comedy.And what is a romantic comedy? Well,its a film where a Hollywood star overcomes certain obstacles to finally unite with 'the one'.Obstacles may differ,characters may vary but the plot invariably remains the same.But nay....we have here,a twist in the end.It seems as though the filmmakers set out on making a Rom com but then thought to themselves,'Hey,we can go places with this one!'

A reviewer suggested that this movie works like 'a meditation on existentialism' as the protagonist realizes the pointlessness of life and decides to enjoy it,albeit selfishly,anyway.Well if that is the case i think that 'National Lampoon's Animal house' should be seen as a 'Treatise on existentialism' but there the characters didn't have a reason or justification for their behaviour. But here,we have a solution to the perils of this philosophy....'Family and friends!'What is this?....a Christmas movie?

One appalling fact of the movie is the shameless way in which the makers have 'borrowed' certain key elements from other sources.Just to name a few,the images of Clooney at the airport,the suitcase anecdote, even the poster are direct thematic lifts from the c.d. jacket of the U2 album 'All that you can't leave behind'.What about the tag line,'The story of a man ready to make connection'? Is it a coincidence that the tag line of the similarly themed but infinitely better 'Lost in translation' was 'Everybody wants to make a connection'?Of course that one had the great Bill murray in it,this one has George clooney.

Another pitfall of the movie is the director's inherent need to impress.An illness which his previous effort,the equally shallow 'Juno' suffered from.If you watch that you'll notice that the movie can be termed as one long B(D)rag.Hey,look at me,i'm a pregnant teen,i speak in witty quips,my family curses at the dinner table,i listen to Sonic youth and watch movies by Dario Argento and Hershel gordon lewis.Over here we have Clooney raving about the intricacies of his job,his gold card,gives us tips on flying...all very informative and somewhat incidental to the plot but are they really necessary?

Both films hover over the real issue without so much as take a taste,and thus cannot be taken seriously.And letting the camera linger on a sobbing employee who's just been fired adds nothing but schmaltz to the end product.

I thought of giving him a chance,of overlooking his deliberately quirky and pretentious movies and give him a chance.Never again..Mr.Clooney...never again.

The kingdom of God is within you

Leo Tolstoy

excerpts from the book

....Men who are used to the existing order of things,who like it and dread its being changed,try to take the doctrine as a collection of revelations and rules which one can accept without their modifying one's life.Whilst Christ's teaching is not only a doctrine which a man must follow,it unfolds a new meaning in life,and defines a whole world of human activity quite different from all that has proceeded it and appropriate to the period on which man is entering....'

....stagnation is death.

.....We think today that the requirements of christian doctrine-of universal brotherhood,suppression of national distinctions,abolition of private property,and the strange injunction of non-resistance to evil by force-demand what is impossible.But it was just the same thousands of years ago,with every social or even family duty,such as the duty of parents to support their children.of the young to maintain the old,of fidelity in marriage.Still more strange and even unreasonable,seemed the state duties of submitting to the appointed authority,paying taxes,and fighting in defence of the country and so on.All such requirements seem simple,comprehensible,and natural,to us today and we see nothing mysterious or alarming in them.But three or five hundred years ago they seemed to require what was impossible.'

'The slavery of antiquity'

'Outlived the age of Christian mysticism'

'The mistaken notion of scientific men that the essence of Christianity consists in the supernatural,and that its moral teaching is impracticable,constitutes another reason of failure of men of the present day to understand Christianity.'

'The ideal is not to desire to do do ill to anyone,not to provoke ill-will,to love all men.The precept,showing the level below which we cannot fall in the attainment of this ideal,is the prohibition of evil-speaking.and this is the first command.The ideal is chastity even in thought..of purity in marriage,avoidance of debauchery.The ideal is to have no thought about the future,to live in the present moment.'

'Christ taught men not angels'

A brief critique

by A brother

The works of Tolstoy have always captivated me though that would seem very strange for a devout Catholic to say.I feel as long as Christianity exists,Tolstoy will be relevant because his books always puts on display a side of us that's 'uncomfortable' and 'latent' but nevertheless 'true'.And this less trodden path of self introspection and justice has to be pursued on a daily basis by every christian because it is only the road to Calvary that leads to liberation.As Tolstoy so eloquently puts it 'stagnation is death'

My one and only complaint is,and has always been that for all the intellectual and academic brilliance that the man exhibits in his works,he always employs an almost puerile argumentative technique especially when it comes to the Church.With a brief stroke of the pen the contributions of the Catholic Church in the past 2000 years are stricken off,the Francis Assiss of the world,the Father Damiens,the Mother Teresas,the hundreds and thousands of priests and Nuns who have always stood for the downtrodden and neglected albeit in secret are told,'Well,you just missed the boat!'.And what about the myriad 'ignorant' religious laity who lived such blessed and fulfilling lives around 'their' church?Well,they might well be burning in hell!(which incidentally does not exist).All this is done in a language and tone that is laced with so much contempt and malice that his writings on love and forgiveness sometimes become a parody of himself.

When Tolstoy rejects the divine truths of The Trinity,the resurrection,the motherhood of The Blessed Virgin,the necessity of God's grace etc. by sighting sacred scripture,he does exactly what every crafty,two bit pseudo evangelist has been doing for years,that of quoting the favourable and leaving the unfavourable unsaid.

However,if you can get past the 'Catholic bashing',you should certainly give Tolstoy a place in your Christian library.I genuinely feel that a book by Tolstoy can do more good than ten Christian books written in the heights of some fleeting religious fervour.

Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona; July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010)