jason reitman Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In Austin, you can set your watch by the fall film festivals. We don't just have SXSW in the spring. Starting around Labor Day, it feels like we have a film festival practically every week, from Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF) to the Austin Polish Film Festival, Austin Asian American Film Festival and of course Fantastic Fest. One of the oldest and biggest of these local autumn fests is Austin Film Festival (AFF), which spans eight days and seven screening venues, and includes a screenwriters' conference. In 2009, AFF celebrated its 16th year.

AFF focuses on screenwriters even in its film programming selections, as was evident with the opening-night film. Serious Moonlight is best known as the last script written by the late actress/filmmaker Adrienne Shelly. I admit I wasn't fond of the movie, but director Cheryl Hines was a trip -- mock-vampy on the red carpet (as shown above), and full of excitement about her film. Her screening was up against heavy competition: Matthew Weiner brought an episode of Mad Men to the festival and didn't reveal which one until just before it screened. (It turned out to be this season's "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" episode.) Weiner also was featured in panels during the conference portion of AFF.

Sometimes it seems like one of Hollywood's main goals is to make people without spouses and children feel really bad about themselves. If that sort of thing bothers you, I would recommend passing on Up in the Air, which is as strident about the notion that a life without a family is worthless as any movie I've ever seen. Fortunately, it is also brisk, funny, and not enslaved to genre conventions. Parts of the film, in fact, approach comic brilliance. The reason that the film's message-mongering doesn't grate, I think, is that we really do feel sorry for the protagonist – an obsessive frequent flier who begins to realize that his life is an empty, lonely shell of rationalizations and self-delusions.

In some respects, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) approaches caricature: not only is he wifeless, childless and practically homeless – he has a barren studio in Omaha and spends 320 days a year on the road – but he fires people for a living and occasionally gives motivational speeches urging people to "empty their backpacks" and rid themselves of commitment. But there's a kernel of truth to him, in the sense that there is something compelling, almost romantic about transience. His world of luxury hotels and airline perks – and a hot frequent flier girlfriend (Vera Farmiga) with whom he sleeps with when their paths cross but who asks for nothing more – actually seems kind of cool.

The first teaser trailer for Jason Reitman's Up in the Air has arrived online courtesy of Slashfilm (watch it after the jump), and while it doesn't knock my socks off, it definitely has that "Okay, it's time to turn our brains back on" feeling -- that familiar and satisfying post-summer thinking man's vibe. Ya know, the kind that comes at you with a teaser trailer that features a voiceover talking about life, family, responsibilities and all that other stuff. One thing the teaser has going for it is the fact that Reitman put it together himself (with a little help from his editor at Acme), with intentions of just debuting it online.

So not only do you get a piece of marketing that comes straight from the filmmaker (which makes it pure, honest and devoid of Kanye West remixes and product placement), but this is the only venue with which to watch this particular teaser. In the film, George Clooney stars as a guy whose job it is to travel around and help companies downsize. But when he meets and begins to adore the female equivalent of himself as he closes in on his goal of 10 million frequent flier miles, his own job is threatened and he soon must re-evaluate what's really most important in his life.

Up in the Air hits theaters on December 4. Check out the teaser trailer after the jump, and another clip right over here.

Over the weekend, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air premiered at the Telluride Film Festival to some very positive reactions (Cinematical's review upcoming), with some -- like indieWIRE's Anne Thompson -- already talking Oscar buzz. Now, as the film prepares to head on over to the Toronto International Film Festival, the first clip has arrived online over at Apple in advance of the first trailer. Watch it here.

In the film, which is loosely based on Walter Kirn's novel, George Clooney plays a corporate downsizing expert whose job it is to travel around to different companies to determine who needs to be terminated. However, his own job soon becomes threatened as he closes in on his goal of 10 million frequent flier miles, while at the same time meeting the female equivalent of himself (played by Vera Farmiga). In the scene over on Apple, Clooney and Farmiga meet for the first time in what looks to be an frequent fliers club, where they try to one-up each other with their extensive frequent flier card collection.

Up in the Air will hit theaters on December 4.

Man, Roger Dodger/Campbell Scott should have continued his teachings, rather than setting Jesse Eisenberg loose on the school cafeteria. It looks like he hasn't learned the delicate intricacies of women and romance quite yet!

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Jason Reitman and Daniel Dubiecki are producing a new romantic comedy called The Wedding, which will star Eisenberg and Pushing Daisies star Anna Friel. Eisenberg will play a young man who is so infatuated with Friel's 30-something character that he crashes her wedding. Hmm. Maybe Roger should've steered completely clear of the kid, since escorts and Elizabeth Berkley seem to have led the kid right to Benjamin Braddock territory.

Reitman has cooked up a lot of interest for the film, but as of yet, no studios have signed to get this project in gear. I imagine it's only a matter of time. Reitman has a knack for picking solid films, and I've got a feeling that Eisenberg and Friel will play well off each other. But at the very least -- it'll give her something to do post-Daisies.

What does last year's most talked-about teen flick have in common with this year's most talked-about pre-teen flick? Here's a hint: A director and an actress. Yes, Juno director Jason Reitman has finally chosen the female lead for his follow-up flick Up in the Air -- based on Walter Kim's (Thumbsucker) 2001 novel -- and he's chosen none other than Anna Kendrick. Who? Oh wait, I forgot to put this next to her name: Twilight actress Anna Kendrick.

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Kendrick, who played one of Bella's friends in the poetic vamp tale, beat out other actresses like Emily Blunt and Juno herself, Ellen Page. Go figure! In the film, Kendrick will play "a young woman who finds herself pulled into the orbit of a "career transition counselor" (i.e. professional firer) careening through the airless world of business travel." Oh, and that "career transition counselor" will be played by George Clooney. I haven't seen Twilight, but Kendrick was excellent in the small indie Rocket Science, and from what I remember she's got a sort of Emma Stone thing going on. Ya know, cute, girl-next-door-but-intelligent kinda personality. I dig her. Paramount will shovel it into theaters, but there's currently no word on a release date.

For the longest time -- until earlier this week, in fact -- I was convinced that Jason Reitman's next directing project was Diablo Cody's horror flick Jennifer's Body. Maybe that's because at a Team Juno roundtable interview last year, the two of them talked about it like it was their project (which it is, sort of -- Reitman's producing). Anyway, it's actually Karyn "Aeon Flux" Kusama who is directing Cody's follow-up, while Reitman is moving on to helm an adaptation of Walter Kirn's Up in the Air.

I strongly recommend the novel, which is a terrific satire about a perpetually transitory businessman obsessed with collecting a million frequent flyer miles. I liked it better than Kirn's more popular Thumbsucker which was already adapted into a film. The movie could be very funny in the hands of a guy like Reitman -- sharp and insightful. It should be closer in tone to Thank You for Smoking than to Juno.

Reitman has already shifted the project into a higher gear by setting his sights on George Clooney, who's in talks to star as the narcissistic protagonist. While I'm pretty sure the character is quite a bit younger than the actor, Clooney has precisely the effortless comic chops this project needs. His profile won't hurt, either.

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

Here's the set up: Folks have been a bit puzzled over the alarming rise in teen pregnancies at North Shore High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the past year alone, 17 girls have tested positive for a little bun in the oven, and officials (as well as school administrators) were baffled as to why, all of a sudden, the girls in Gloucester were all sorts of knocked up. Crazy, right? And weird. I'll fully admit that to wind up with 17 girls pregnant in one high school at the same time seems a bit strange, especially when it's four times the level from the year before. Four times!

Completely baffled, officials turned to the only feasible explanation: Blame the movies. And when they looked around at popular movies within the past year -- whaddya know -- there was an Oscar winner with teen pregnancy scribbled all over it. Juno ... written by that teen pregnancy supporter Diablo Cody, and directed by a pregnant teen himself, Jason Reitman. Of course! The ridiculous rise in pregnancies had to do with Juno -- a film that made teen pregnancy look about as comfortable and enjoyable as stuffing yourself in a piece of old luggage and rolling down a mountain. There's the answer!

But should we talk to the girls? Maybe see if there's another explanation for all this? Nah. Leave it all on Juno ... after all, Fox Searchlight didn't hand out condoms outside movie theaters screening Juno (I sure as heck never got any condoms!), so, really, it's their fault for not paying closer attention. Right?

Ahem, and that's when the twist comes in ...