Best of Ever, Vol. 13: Job Security

 Two classics for the price of one. Inspired to finally finish these reviews so that I can at least start a tribute to Robert Redford, who died this week at 89. Expect a fuller retrospective down the road.

UP IN THE AIR (2009) (A) - Everything comes together perfectly synchronized in this charming rumination on loneliness and loss and the hubris of flying solo through life.

 

George Clooney is classic Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a motivational speaker with a winning smile who flies around the country for an HR consulting firm, for the express purpose of firing people during layoffs. Remember, this landed during the depths of the Great Recession, and Jason Reitman recruits a few real laid-off people to play the victims of corporate downsizing.

Clooney is the middleman among a powerful trio of co-stars -- there is Jason Bateman as Ryan's wonderfully cynical boss; Anna Kendrick as Natalie, a whippersnapper who has come up with a plan to conduct the firings efficiently by video conferencing; and Vera Farmiga as Alex, a fellow random frequent flier, who trysts with Ryan whenever they can arrange to overlap at the same hotel in the same city on the same night. Clooney and Farmiga smolder as the hot middle-aged friends with benefits, and Kendrick is manic as the ball of neuroses who, before implementing her video scheme, must first travel with Ryan in order to get a firsthand feel for the in-person process.

This sets the table for the characters to confront their lingering demons: Ryan as the smug confirmed bachelor who thinks he's got life aced, and Natalie, the emotionally icy automaton who must deal with the breakup of her engagement while sitting face-to-face with the workers impacted by her careerist corporate manipulations. Their mentor-mentee banter is priceless -- Ryan deploys strategic stereotypes to guide her through airport security as efficiently as possible, and when he confronts Natalie about her aggressive keyboard flourishes, she responds curtly, "I type with purpose." 

Reitman's screenplay (with Sheldon Turner) does not miss a beat across 109 taut minutes, and he builds to a third-act dramatic arc that upends the hero's (literal) journey. Ryan's goal is to achieve 10 million air miles to join a ridiculously exclusive club; his home is as much in the sky as it is in the barren apartment he keeps in the middle of nowhere (Omaha, Neb.). Reitman sends Ryan and Alex to Wisconsin for the wedding of Ryan's sister. Ryan seems estranged from his two sisters and out-of-place in the heartland (because he's out of place everywhere, you see), and he falls victim to the oldest tradition in the book -- being around a wedding and family digs up a well of emotion that he foists onto Alex, endangering their no-strings arrangement. (The cast is so overstuffed that some viewers might not appreciate the nuanced work of Melanie Lynskey as the bride and Danny McBride as the groom who gets cold feet and must sit for a talking-to from Ryan, the worst person to advocate for marriage and commitment. Good thing he's a bull-shitting motivational speaker.)

Reitman has a couple more twists to reveal in the homestretch -- Natalie will be confronted with the real-world consequences of her chosen profession, and Alex and Ryan must resolve their situationship. The filmmaker draws his characters so finely and deeply that the various fallouts from their interactions feel like gut punches. Ryan's tutoring of Natalie feels real beneath the wisecracks. There is not a false move here; it's just exquisite storytelling with both a brain and a heart.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) (B+) - Were there three prettier people in 1969 than Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katharine Ross? Were they believable back then as scruffy outlaws from the Wild West circa 1899? Let's not overthink a classic.

Redford and Newman chew up and spit out a script by William Goldman ("All the President's Men," "The Princess Bride") as swaggering bandits bedeviling the railroads before going on the lam. Butch Cassidy (Newman) is the head of a gang -- in an early scene he cleverly fends off a coup by a rival member (played by Ted Cassidy, Lurch from "The Addams Family") -- and Sundance (Redford) is a famed gunslinger. When a train robbery goes awry, this becomes a western road movie, with Butch and Sundance barely keeping one step ahead of the law. 

 

It's a little difficult separating the former cultural phenomenon with the product on the screen as it stands 56 years later. There is the famous leapfrom a cliff into a raging river -- trapped on the cliff, Sundance is afraid to jump because he can't swim, to which Butch guffaws: "Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill ya!" And then there's the famous scene of a new contraption, the bicycle, with Butch and Etta Place (Ross) frolicking to the tune of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" sung by B.J. Thomas. (Ross too often is treated like a third wheel in the film, pardon the pun.)

The film was a breakthrough for George Roy Hill, who would reunite with his two main leads a few years later with another touchstone, "The Sting," an even bigger hit. He keeps things loose, letting the charm of his cast buoy the narrative, without turning this into a farce. Hill has a firm grasp of the conventions of the western genre, which at that point was undergoing a "Bonnie & Clyde"-style correction at the onset of the American New Wave. 

Redford and his feathered coif never quite come across as authentic, but the veteran Newman is all grit as the weathered bandit who knows he is running out of options. Ross rejoins the proceedings when Butch and Sundance decide to flee to Bolivia, believing that their scent will go cold while they knock off some easy prey, like the local banks. The culture clash is amusing without being condescending. The one-liners zing right up until the very end, when a hail of bullets and a freeze frame solidify our anti-heroes as Hollywood legends.

That '80s Grift: High on Molly

THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) (A-minus) - This is an hour and a half of memorable moviemaking. Unfortunately, the film runs 95 minutes, and the gooey final five minutes are tough to swallow four decades after the film's debut.

 

John Hughes, fresh off his directorial debut a year earlier with "Sixteen Candles," brings back Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall to ground this group of five students with nothing in common -- Ringwald was the deb, Hall the nerd -- forced together at a Saturday detention. We also get Emilio Estevez as the jock, Judd Nelson as the juvenile delinquent, and Ally Sheedy as the beta emo chick. Hughes' task is to humanize these social caricatures and help them find some common ground.

Their eventual bonding unfolds over the course of the day and feels natural. Hughes has a couple of adults to serve as foils who get the students to rally together -- the great character actor Paul Gleason as the gruff vice principal and Second City alum John Kapelos as the sly janitor. The common denominator for each student: various levels of abuse from their parents. (Gleason's character stands in as the domineering father figure. Elsewhere, actual parents who appear briefly have a distanced "Peanuts" quality to them.)

It's a smart hook that allows each cast member to dig into an emotional monologue. Things can get pretty deep at times, and a viewer can be instantly transported back to those days of insecurity and self-discovery, which could rattle a teenager on a daily basis. But the real draw here is the humor, and the young cast is up to the task. 

Even the fairly wooden Estevez shows nuance and a flair for delivering a one-liner. He snaps at Nelson's John Bender after the punk pulls out a joint: "Yo, wastoid, you're not gonna blaze up in here." And when the vice principal seems skeptical of prissy Claire's demand to go get a drink of water, lest she suffer from dehydration, Estevez's Andrew soberly intones: "I've seen her dehydrate, sir. It's gross." Hall is quite funny as the brainy nerd who makes quick assessments of his colleagues, and Sheedy is mischievous as the bizarre loner. (One way that Hughes drops the ball at the end is by having Claire give Sheedy's emo Allison a princess makeover, which causes Andrew to go instantly ga-ga over her. Hughes often had a compelling need to pair off his characters neatly through pat endings.)

Despite the MGM finale, "The Breakfast Club" holds up as Hughes' masterpiece. He captures the essence of high school in a single day, balancing cliches with insight, mixing raw angst with silly antics. It lets you return to those days protected by the armor you've built up in adulthood. 

PRETTY IN PINK (1986) (B-minus) - John Hughes wrote this, but he handed off directing duties to Howard Deutch, who launched his career directing middling mainstream comedies. If only it didn't feel so dated.

Ringwald is Andie, the boho poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks (literally the opening camera shot), who becomes the object of affection for one of the "richies," Blane (pouty Andrew McCarthy). But Blane keeps getting drawn back to his privilege by his sniveling pal Steff (a hammy James Spader, below). And Andie is hounded by her puppy-dog pal, Duckie (Jon Cryer, making his bones), who pines for her but must settle for the wise counsel of the older hipster record-store owner Iona (Annie Potts). 

 

It's getting difficult to remember a time back in the day when there was such a distinction between the cool kids and the outcasts, the rich and the poor, and why the differences seemed to matter so much. Maybe that still plays out today, but I doubt it. (For one, schools seem more specialized these days.) Andie is mocked for sewing her own outfits rather than buying off the rack (Annie Hall 2.0). She doesn't want Blane to drop her off at home because she is embarrassed for him to see where she lives; yet the vintage Volkswagen Karmann Ghia in the photo above belongs to her, not Steff or Blane (albeit with dents and dings).

If I were Andie, I'd be more embarrassed about my father who mopes around the house all day missing Andie's mother. Veteran Harry Dean Stanton drops his typical thug persona to play the lachrymose dad who must be mothered by his daughter. He is a humiliated basket case, who is pummeled by Hughes' sappy dialogue at every turn. 

The film has its moments. Potts and Cryer are adorable as two generations of new-wave hipsters. Cryer lip-syncs and nerd-dances to Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness." Potts rocks the eyeliner and plastic dresses. Ringwald bites her lip and shoots glances at the corner of the ceiling, oozing an appealing innocence. McCarthy is as cute as anything on the screen. The narrative builds to a Hollywood ending, complete with an iconic wink to the camera at the very end. And the music is ice cool. But everything here comes across as an anachronism. (Even the DVD extras, of the cast reminiscing in 2006, seem like they were created a lifetime ago.)

The first time I remember ever feeling "old" was on opening night of this film. I was 23 and surrounded by teenage Ringwald fans. I felt like the creep leering after an 18-year-old movie phenom. Now I am old, and I can't help thinking that this quaint little movie is just lost to a bygone era. 

BONUS TRACKS

Simple Minds had the big hit with "Don't You (Forget About Me)," of course, which bookends "The Breakfast Club's" credits. Here, though, is the memorable dance/chase montage to Karla Devito's "We Are Not Alone":

 

 

The Psychedelic Furs with the classic earworm, "Pretty in Pink":

 

 

The anthemic new-wave synth symphony "If You Leave" by OMD is just perfect for the climax of "Pretty in Pink":

 

It's as  good an excuse as any to delve deeper into the "Pink" soundtrack and pluck out "Left of Center" by Suzanne Vega, who fits into the same era cubbyhole as Ringwald:

Out of Their League

 

SPLITSVILLE (B) - Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin team up again after their refreshing debut "The Climb" and return to the twinned concepts of infidelity and male friendship. This one starts out promising but gets pretty silly by the end.

 

The pair again co-wrote the script and star together. Covino directs and plays Paul, a rich jerk married to a beautiful woman, Julie (Dakota Johnson), with a precocious little genius son. Paul's best friend, Carey (Marvin), has just been dumped by his wife of one year after she is rattled by a brush with death on a car drive to see Paul and Julie. Distraught, Carey takes advantage of Paul and Julie's proclaimed open marriage and sleeps with Julie. Everyone proceeds to flip out.

Carey's wife, Ashley (Adria Arjona), wants to be sexually adventurous, and Carey eventually returns home and keeps house with her various oddball boyfriends, most of whom quickly become her exes.  Carey claims to be embracing Ashley's opening up of their flailing marriage, but he can't shake his feelings for Julie in the wake of their one-off tryst. Meantime, Paul's financial empire threatens to come crashing down, turning their living situation upside down.

This is all played quite broadly, and Covino and Marvin have several plot twists up their sleeves. You cheer for them to pull it off while they stage some truly funny scenes. But the basic premise gnaws at you -- what are these gorgeous, thoughtful women doing with these weird shlubs in the first place and why can't the women quit them? (The excessive male nudity might offer a few hints.) Arjona is full of life, and the film can barely contain her. Johnson commits to the uber-indie project and gives a rounded performance as a wife and mother who yearns for more than just her cushy life. 

Covino and Marvin are inventive, and their script seems peppered with improvised moments full of sly observations about relationships, both romantic and platonic. And there is an epic fight between the two men that drags on as they smash through rooms in Paul's house and eventually through a plate-glass window. It is cleverly choreographed for maximum credibility and comedic ordinariness. 

It would give too much away to explain how the narrative gymnastics exhaust the capital that is banked in the first half of the movie. Covino and Marvin have a Duplass brothers aesthetic with a Jim Cummings edge, a devotion to a nerd bro code. They are clever and funny. This sophomore effort feels like a bit of a fork in the road. Let's see where they head next.  

BONUS TRACKS
The film opens, appropriately, on a '70s vibe, Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks' hit "Whenever I Call You Friend":

 

The closing credits return to the '70s with Steve Forbert's passionate Dylanesque ballad "Romeo's Tune":

 

Then there is this Polish disco-era curiosity from ORM, "Pasky Z Cívek Odvijim":

It's All Downhill From Here

 

DEVO (A-minus) - Everything you could want in a documentary about Devo -- if that's what you are looking for -- can be found in this energetic and comprehensive biography of the band, featuring its two leaders, Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale. The story might give you a new appreciation for the nerdy new-wavers.

 

Chris Smith -- the entertaining director behind "American Movie," "The Yes Men," "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond" and "Fyre" -- takes a zippy approach, starting out with a deep dive into the Akron, Ohio, band's origins, which grew out of the 1970 Kent State massacre by the National Guard. The group was deeply committed to the concept of "de-evolution," the idea that human culture has peaked, and now it is declining -- a theory that has only gained traction as the generations have devolved in the past 50 years. The members of Devo (who tend to put the emphasis on the second syllable) also were pioneers in not just electronic music but in video production; they considered themselves an art collective devoted first to film and second to music.

That visual sense probably led to their well-timed big break at the start of the '80s. "Whip It" was their only top-40 single (in 1980), and it not only got new life the next year when MTV debuted, but the band was ready with plenty of video content for the hungry new channel, which added to the rotation the band's films made for their early releases. The documentary does not shy away from the band's demise as the '80s trudged along and the new-wave pioneers struggled to write more great hooks, while their shtick wasn't so weird anymore.

Mothersbaugh would go on to score "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and many movies, for Wes Anderson and others, and Casale directed music videos. Their brothers from the band would participate in an audio/video project. All appear here either in new interviews or in clips (Bob Casale and drummer Alan Meyers have died). The music is strong; they were more than one-hit wonders. Smith recognizes the band's connection to the late-night show "Fridays," with a few clips, including "Through Being Cool" and "Jerkin' Back and Forth." Those and other earworms are fun to revisit while learning the backstory of some devoted, if rather silly, artists.

DIANE WARREN: RELENTLESS (A) - This is a friendly career retrospective of the songwriter behind oodles of mega hits on mainstream radio, going back to the 1970s.

 

Diane Warren is a classic punk who writes adult-contemporary songs. She is unleashed here in all her F-bomb glory -- admired, beloved and feared by some of the titans of pop music of the modern era. Here is a small random list of artists who have recorded her songs:  Cher, LeAnn Rimes, Brandy, Belinda Carlisle, Chicago, Aerosmith, Jennifer Hudson, the Pretenders, Cheap Trick, the Smithereens, DeBarge (her first hit), Starship (her worst song), Gloria Estevan and Milli Vanilli.

Cher, Rimes and Hudson enthusiastically join the parade of friends/collaborators who explain the pitbull attitude of the woman who has been obsessed with songwriting since she was a child in Van Nuys, Calif. Former "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson is an especially enthusiastic colleague, and we also hear from old pals, including actress Kathrine Narducci from "The Sopranos."

We hang out with Warren in her overstuffed office, where the magic happens. (She still records demos on cassette.) We tag along as she bops around town, always accompanied by an old friend whom Warren hired to rescue her from a bad financial situation. We watch as Warren works out her psychological issues with her parents -- her mother constantly hounded her to become a secretary, but her father (who bought her her first guitar and a backyard shed to hang out in) was more supportive. 

Your enthusiasm might flag once the milquetoast music starts flowing and the deluge of tunes, especially the formulaic hits of the '90s, begin to pelt your senses. But the star here is Warren and her truly relentless personality, which seems barely dimmed from her teen firepower, even as she now approaches 70. This is a fascinating character study by newcomer Bess Kargman, and you don't have to be a fan of the music to appreciate it.

BONUS TRACKS

Devo on "Fridays" with "Jerkin' Back and Forth":

  

 

More sick synth solos on "Through Being Cool":

 

 

Always a good excuse to spin "Girl U Want":

 

Diane Warren's list of hits seems endless. (Just those that start with the letter I go on and on. (I could go on.)) Here is Toni Braxton with "Un-Break My Heart":

 

 

To the battleships! Ending with the GOAT, Cher belting out "If I Could Turn Back Time":