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The month of February is commonly considered a dark period for movies. Nick mentioned that it is the graveyard for film. New releases are basically overshadowed by the award season.  In fact, Oscar nominated films get a distribution boost in February in order to milk the buzz they get from the nomination.

So, we know that you are not going to hit up the theaters for new releases. Instead, we know that you all are going to try to catch up on the Oscar movies that you didn’t get to see the first time around.  Get this, “An Education” went from 100 theaters before being nominated for the award, to over 700 after receiving the nod for Best Picture. However, Summit’s “The Hurt Locker” was sent to DVD, which went from being in theaters to being completely removed. Theaters will not show movies that get sent to DVD FYI. So, Summitt messed up.

As we are in the Oscar season, there is trophy talk everywhere. We have a year where 10 films got nominated and lots of movie hooplah to go through.  Since we know you all are trying to play Oscar catch up, we wanted to help you out.   Here are the 10 films nominated for Best Picture and our review for each one.

1. The Hurt Locker

2. Avatar

3. Up in the Air

4. Precious

5. Inglorious Basterds

6. The Blind Side

7. District 9

8. An Education

9. UP

10. A Serious Man

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Up in the Air is a poignant, fresh, and remarkable movie that brightens the day of anyone who sees it.  Adapted from the book of the same name, director Jason Reitman delivers his best movie to date, quite a feat after the presentations of Thank you for Smoking and most recently Juno.

Ryan (George Clooney) works in an unusual industry.  He fires people for a living.  The economic meltdown means high times for him and companies hire him to lay off their clients when they don’t have the balls to do it themselves.  He is traveling almost every day of the year and his goal in life is to reach the 10 million frequent miles club, a feat only few have done.  He lives this sheltered and lonely lifestyle although thrives on the mere acquaintances and conversations he has with everyday people.  Natalie (Anna Kendrick) is the stud recruit out of Cornell who helps the company develop a way to lower costs by implementing new technology to help them fire people over the computer.  When Ryan realizes his lifestyle for living on the road will vanish, he pleads with his boss not to do this, and that the human connection side of firing someone has to be done face to face.  His boss (the always funny Jason Bateman), sends Natalie with Ryan to learn the ropes of the trade from him as the two set off around the country.

The movie crosses generational gaps between the two with everything from work, to dreams, and of course love.  Love something Ryan doesn’t want or believe in, manages to fall for an independent business woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) who also is always on the road.  The two begin this quasi-relationship and Natalie learns as much from Ryan about the job and life and he does from her.

This movie has Clooney playing typical good looking, suave, confident and cocky Clooney, and it fits to a “T” here and you wouldn’t want it any other way.  The role was made for him and his charm and wit can be seen throughout the whole movie with the excellent script he was given to work with.  Whether talking about life with Natalie, or flirting with Alex, this is one movie that will have you pleased throughout.

Being a fan of the past two Reitman movies, it’s hard to imagine he could top those, and he did.  Direction and script were spot on and this movie had everything you could want in it for it to succeed.  This easily is one of the best movies of the year, Clooney will be nominated for best Actor, and this may even be the front runner for movie of the year.  Although I don’t think the Oscar Academy will give this movie the award, it certainly is in my top 3 of the year.

What did you think of Up in the Air?

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Three weeks now and still nobody can predict where The Blind Side will land at the box office, and how much it will take in. This weekend Sandra Bullock’s feel-good sports drama took in another $20.4 million. Sure, it’s down 49%, but the surprising bit is that after three weeks of staying at #2, it actually topped The Twilight Saga: New Moon to become #1…and it’s not even a new release. Side’s total is now a phenomenal (considering the circumstances) $120.3 million. It will be interesting to see if it is able keep up this type of box offfice success in the coming weeks.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon sunk 63.4% to second place taking in $15.7 million.  The movie’s total is now a healthy $255.6 million, easily making back its minimal $50 million budget and then some. A new release Brothers debuted at #3 with $9.7 million in 2,088 theaters. The film’s budget has yet to be released as far as I’m aware, so I’m unable to comment on that. However director Jim Sheridan’s previous drama Get Rich or Die Tryin’ actually made $4.3 million more in its first weekend at #5 in 2005, although Rich’s worldwide total was an abysmal $46.4 million. Brothers will surely make more than that in its total run.

A Christmas Carol moves up a spot but still falls 52.3% to fourth, with $7.5 million. The Disney family fare’s grand sum is now a “just okay” $115 million. Again, this movie still has to make back its $200 million budget. Old Dogs falls a spot (thank God) and 59.2%, rounding out the top five with $6.9 million. Its total is up to $33.9 million, a good amount lower than the $77 million Wild Hogs had accumulated by its second weekend.

Out of the top five-

• Nimród Antal’s Armored, starring Matt Dillon, did reasonably well considering, opening with $6.6 million on 1,915 screens.
• Kirk Jones’ holiday dramedy Everybody’s Fine debuted at #10 with $4 million, $10.5 million less than the opening weekend gross of Jones’ previous directing gig Nanny McPhee in 2006.
• Up in the Air, which I am so dying to see, debuted in only 15 theaters this weekend before it will expandnationwide on Christmas day.  Jason Reitman’s heavily hyped by word-of-mouth film managed $1.6 million at #13.
• Transylmania, which I had actually forgotten about while writing this post was also released. It bombed this weekend, opening with $252,000 on a decent 1,007 screens. Let this and the fact that the film earned a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes be a caution to movie studios to never make more of this trash again.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday:

1. 1. The Blind Side…$20.4 million
2. 2. The Twilight Saga: New Moon…$15.7 million
3. 3. Brothers…$9.7 million
4. 4. A Christmas Carol (2009)…$7.5 million
5. 5. Old Dogs…$6.9 million
6. 6. Armored…$6.6 million
7. 7. 2012…$6.6 million
8. 8. Ninja Assassin…$5 million
9. 9. Planet 51…$4.3 million
10. 10. Everybody’s Fine…$4 million

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George Clooney is going to have a very merry Christmas, and a happy Thanksgiving. It will be an end-of-the-year blow-out for the “silver fox”, releasing three major films in the coming fall/winter months. The man already has Grant Heslov’s screwball comedy The Men Who Stare At Goats, which he both stars in and produces, out this past weekend. (Goats Semi-Pro film Ever After full movie exceeded expectation at the box office, debuting with $12.7 million, topping The Informant!, where he last played producer).

This Friday, Clooney’s highly-anticipated Fantastic Mr. Fox, director Wes Anderson’s first animated feature, hits theaters as well. And a few weeks later in December, he’ll finish it off with Jason Reitman’s hugely-awaited Up In The Air.

This may just be me, but I expect Fox and Air to at least be nominated for some kind of Oscar come February. This spur of great movies isn’t so unlike Clooney. If you’ll think back a few years to the fall 2005/winter 2006 Oscar season, there came a bunch of Academy Award contenders all starring, you guessed it, George Clooney.

The historic-drama Good Night, and Good Luck, in which news anchor Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) attempted to remove Senator Joseph McCarthy from office, gave Clooney two more Oscar nods: one for Best Achievement in Directing and another shared with Grant Heslov for Best Original Screenplay. Clooney won his first Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar for playing Bob Barnes in Syriana, the thriller about people involved in the oil business. In one of my favorite films of 2006 The Good German, I was sad to see Clooney’s wonderful performance as Jake Geismer ignored. Still, the film’s composer Thomas Newman took Oscar home for Best Original Score.

Some people flat out dislike George Clooney, which I can respect. Although you can’t deny the fact that he makes some pretty damn good films. I’ve always loved Clooney’s work, and look forward to the future spectacles he’ll star in, produce or hopefully even direct. Being a freak for Where the Wild Things Are, I’ll be a part of the audience for Fantastic Mr. Fox this weekend, and one of the many who will take up seats in December for Reitman’s Up In The Air.

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The Toronto Film Festival (for some reason abbreviated “TIFF”) brings some great indie alums when the annual fall film festival arrives in Canada. The most-buzzed about flick this year has to be Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air Pulse (aka Octane) movie . You might be a bit confused on what it is; after all, the only reviews we’ve gotten are from Stephen Farber (THR), Pete Hammond (Boxoffice Magazine) and Todd McCarthy (Variety). (Each one has been positive.) Don’t worry, I’ll try to make sure that you understand by the time you finish reading this article. Well, let’s start off with the co-writer-director Jason Reitman. You may know Reitman from the Oscar-winning Juno The Chumscrubber hd , or from the highly underrated Thank You For Smoking. While Diablo Cody isn’t writing Up In The Air, it is based on Walter Kirn’s fantastic novel. Kirn also wrote the book Thumbsucker, which was later turned into what I thought was a snarky cult hit of a movie.

Up In The Air’s plot is highly secretive. In fact, the only details we’ve gotten is just that Ryan Bingham is a corporate downsizing expert who’s almost gotten ten million frequent flyer miles, and that’s threatened when he meets the “constant traveler woman of his dreams.” George Clooney stars as Ryan, which is always a sign of a good movie. I’ve previously called Clooney one of the rare A-list actors who have always been on their game. Ocean’s Thirteen, Burn After Reading, Syriana. Even his upcoming Men Who Stare at Goats BgFATLdy full movie

looks like a regular brilliant-asshole Clooney flick. Co-starring is Jason Bateman, J.K Simmons, Zach Galifianakis, Chris Lowell, Vera Farmiga and Danny McBride. The trailer and a 66-second clip were released on September 9^th and it blew my mind. It doesn’t remind me so much of Juno Trapeze download Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick ipod download The Condemned dvd Rise of the Footsoldier

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as it does Thank You For Smoking, with Clooney’s Bingham the new Nick Naylor. The trailer may just be a narration (that I’m told is a speech Clooney gives in the movie), yet I’m already sold. I’m unsure if it’s because of the added music track that gently plays in the background or the swirling clouds, but I never watch a recent trailer twice and I did for Up In The Air. If there’s an Avatar for the IFC crowd, Up In The Air is definitely it. This is going to be great!