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New York, 7:40 AM
Mon Dec 21
18 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/14/09
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12/14/09
BTW: Walter Kirn, the author of the novel, is similarly unlikable. I've met him, and I know.
12/14/09
12/14/09
I think you'll find that broad indices like the NASDAQ Composite and the S&P 500 actually peaked in Spring 2000, and by summer 2001 the rout was pretty well on. I certainly don't recall anyone in 2001 saying the short-term outlook was anything but troubling.
12/15/09
12/14/09
But empathizing with the non-poors, that's what all your human history is about, innit? If My son Jay-Jay was the Homeless Dude of Peace as opposed to the Prince of Peace, you think yall woulda given a shit? You don't study the history of the poors and obsess over them. You spend time pondering Kings and Presidents. You don't spend a long time feeling bad for the chimp attack lady but you will spend the rest of your life mourning that Jennifer Aniston is wounded, lonely and sad. The poors are the chimp attack lady for the centuries that have gone and the centuries that will come. Now you'll use the grotesquerie of the poors as one heck of a conversation piece (Did you hear? People are so poor and hungry now that they look for undigested food in their own excrement!!!) and shudder deliciously for a minute or so and count your blessings and then it'll be time for Top Chef and that exotic brown lady's breasts. Also every kiss begins with Kay! Now that's news you can use.
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12/14/09
We are not meant to pity Clooney because he thinks his job is hard and he has no life outside of work. Anyone working in the corporate world (well, not anyone but I'd say a good 60% of us) are in it for the money and we check our conscience at the door, telling ourselves we have given up trying to find our dream job and are now just pulling in money, because, well, we need money. He is filling a need and making money and that is the end of that. Throughout most of the movie he is content to operate on that level, while distracting himself with his silly and ultimately useless frequent flier mile goal.
No, we are meant to pity Clooney because he ultimately comes to realize many sad facts about himself: that he has no life outside of the airport, that what is a mere distraction for other people IS his life, and ultimately that he has wasted years of his life in a fruitless, lonely and empty pursuit. The crash of all this around him is what this movie is about, not just Clooney being Clooney.
The final shot of him standing in despair in front of a towering airport departures/arrivals board will ring true to anyone who has had to go on a business trip to some horrible meeting with personal issues rumbling loudly just beneath the surface.
Maybe it is some sort of anti-corporatism that makes you read the movie this way, but the fact is there are a lot of people doing shitty jobs they ultimately hate, only making it through distractions and finding the aspect of the job they like and emphasizing that (Clooney emphasizes his ability to put at least SOME sort of a positive spin on what is often the worst day of someone's life).
Yeah, he has a distasteful job, and his expressed motives for wanting to stay on the road are BS; he initially does not really care about how the message is delivered to those laid off; he just sees his made up life (and ultimate distraction from the horror of his job) disolving in favor of net meetings. Ironically, when he gets his wish and gets to stay on the road, it is now a nightmare as he realizes how crappy his life and job really are.
Yeah, he's a hired gun and maybe he shoulda studied harder and been a doctor, but at the end of the day, he's now just another guy with a shitty job he hates.
12/14/09
However, I think Brian's actually focusing his ire at Frank Rich for his reading of the film more than he's focusing on the film itself.
And I do believe this criticism is still valid in terms of your take - this character's life and job are still crappy, but that is because of what he has made of it, not because he doesn't have a cushy job, money, security and the opportunity to travel.
The sympathy is about this guy's personal issues, and indeed, that 'my job is secure but god I hate it' issue. (Why, hello! *waves from her desk*)
But there are too many people who would kill for that security at this moment for him to be a real Hero of the People. So critics and filmmakers trying to broaden this movie character's range of sympathy to people who are fired by people like him rings false, and their take deserves a bit o' contempt.
12/14/09
However, I can't bring myself to see it, as I can't watch Clooney do that thing he does that bores me in. every. single. movie. until. we. all. die. Also, airplane movies end up having waayyy too many metaphors for me. Arrrgh! I get it, lonely, sad, poignant, a depiction of our unfeeling, unthinking, detached nature of the world, until someone stops in the middle of the hustle-bustle and reevaluates his life, or realizes someone's been living in the airport lounge for ten years, or met his wife at the bar, or gave his plane seat to some schmo so he could see his family for Christmas but now he's dead...cue life-affirming moment of clarity for future prosperity. Great. Now find John McClaine or something and drive the thing into a blonde hitman from Austria!
(Simply. Without shame. I like things that go bang.)
12/14/09
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12/14/09
Power corrupts.
12/14/09
You see yourself as an intellectual top-feeder, don't you. :P
12/14/09
Oh, wait. No question mark. Rhetorical?
12/14/09
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12/14/09
To what end?
The first question you ask after reading The Grapes of Wrath is "How do we stop this?" The answer is the horrible, grinding corporate human-processing system we've created.
All those incentives and social stigmas conspire to whip you out of bed in the morning; all that constant fear keeps you contributing to society. Which minimizes suffering, without eliminating it. People like Clooney's character are the natural consequence of a society that has attempted to compartmentalize and limit suffering. The way they keep from killing themselves - while avoiding death at the hands of others - is endlessly fascinating to me.
12/14/09
12/14/09
Well, no. I think the answer, in the end, is that if you shed one tear for anyone you'll shed billions for us all. Or something? I wish you well on the social justice front.
12/14/09
Throughout your entire life in poverty, with all of the stigma and the pain of it?
To what end?
12/14/09
Yeah. Anne Frank - borrrring. Can't wait for a movie about the Gestapo officers, who've made those complex choices of theirs!
12/14/09
I was a big Holocaust student for a long time - did history in college for a while, but I started young - and wound up being heavily interested in the experience of concentration camp guards. Specifically, how did they live with themselves? How did they come to follow THOSE orders? You wind up reading accounts of them becoming ill, writing journals and letters expressing deep doubts, etc. But always there was that uniform, that conforming sensation of being controlled by an overwhelming, omnipotent force that kept their hands on the gas valves and MP40's.
I've always been interested in why people do terrible things, and that's why I'm excited for the film's exploration of the concept. The answer seems to be frequent flier miles?
12/14/09
The corporate dildo who was responsible for downsizing me and my colleagues was as cold and unfeeling as a canned ham.
We sent him a plastic dog turd via interoffice mail.
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12/14/09
This is a brilliant post. From the excerpt to the writing. Well done.
12/14/09
Most modern film criticism could be reduced to the single sentence "This sucked/didn't balls" if this weren't the case.
12/14/09