Up in the Air... in association with American Airlines Films... in association with Hilton Hotel Productions... in association with Hertz Pictures...
Let me say this: I liked the film.
Now that we have that out of the way, I can talk about the stuff that really matters, like, wtf is up with all the product placement?? Maybe I should be happy that our content providers are no longer trying to be coy about advertisements. There will be no more wondering why I suddenly crave Starbucks after watching Fight Club. I know this isn't new stuff. I know that this is how movies get paid for. It's just so, well, cheap. And un-romantic. (This coming from the girl who hates happy endings.) (Not that kind.)
Anyway, I wonder how upstream the advertisers go -- do they sit in the writers' offices with them? Do those writers have to take Klonopin to get through the day because they're probably sitting with like the energetic VP of Marketing from Hertz who's all like, "Now write, 'But you forgot to give me your Gold Hertz card, sir!'" then laughs at herself for being so witty? And then the writer really, really wants to punch the VP of Marketing in the face but he knows he'll get fired plus look like a dick for punching a girl and never work in Hollywood again if he does so in addition to the pills he starts drinking too, and not just after work but on the job, and even though he ends up writing a movie which gets an Academy Award nomination, he winds up an alcoholic and then loses his wife because no one loves a drunk, which sends him deeper into depression so to pass the time he sits at the racetrack all day, and ends up meeting this waitress who's never made the acquaintance of sunscreen and who also forgot to mention that she had a venereal disease before stealing his car? And in the end, none of this would have happened if instead of dropping out of his Midwestern Big 10 school and transferring to sunny Los Angeles to be a writer in the movie business, none of this would have happened at all if he had just heeded his father's advice to be an accountant, it's an honest profession, son, and what's so wrong with being an accountant?
P.S. Next week my thoughts on 24-Hour Fitness' Biggest Loser.
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P.P.S. This weekend I'm in the middle of a Therapeutics workshop w/ Noah Maze and Naime Jezzeny. Today I learned that I do in fact have scapula. Tomorrow I'll meet my hips.