Up in the Air - George Clooney

We watched Up in the Air yesterday, by director Jason Reitman (of Thank You for Smoking and Juno fame) with George Clooney. Of course if you have seen Thank You for Smoking and Juno, You would not be surprised how easy and understandably realistic this movie is.

The movie is a very fast paced, excellently written, quite dark comedy centering around Clooney's character and his job which is firing people whose bosses "don't have the balls to sack their own employees". The actors playing the "firees" are real life people who have been terminated, adding a certain poignancy to their candid interviews. There are some excellent one-liners that come of these which George delivers perfectly "try not to take this personally", "review this packet, I am sure you will find a lot of helpful information in it" etc. These scenes make for some extremely memorable moments and George excels in the cynical but casual portrayal of his character, delivering each line with a super size heaping of charm.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable film, speaking very much to today's mood and spirit, easy to watch, with many laugh out loud moments. What could me more fun and humorous than to watch a company thriving on the misfortune of others. Things don't end so well for George's character Ryan Bingham however, as the holes and lack of performance in his own life are exposed throughout his journeys- no significant other, no children, weak ties with his family and worst of all, no place to call home.

Here is a little trailer of the movie.

Food Inc - A worth watching documentry

Plot

The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business - with an emphasis on the business - has as its unwritten goals production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals produced themselves, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes. The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation.

Review :

I believe this is one of the best documentry, I have seen in recent times. Considering I have a Indian background, I actually enjoyed the mechanization of the food industry. Ofcourse most of it is negative, but it did fill me with a feeling of awe.

With family run farms pretty much a thing of the past, institutional farming has pretty much taken over,and the dim,dark & dismal effects are omnipresent. There is an epidemic of food borne illness,due to cattle being exposed to over use of steroids to make them grow fatter, faster (and this also includes chickens,pigs,etc.),not to mention GMO corn,grains,etc. Robert Kenner's eye opening film, 'Food,Inc.' manages to shine at least some light on some pretty unethical practices that are being undertaken by corporate owned & managed farms. The likes of Eric Schlosser (author of 'Fast Food Nation',which was made into a semi fictional film a few years back)is featured in interviews,along with Michael Pollan. Many fingers are pointed at guilty parties doing the dirty deeds of the farming industry,along with some pretty unpleasant footage of unethical practices (i.e. abuse of farm animals, although this film doesn't take up any kind of vegetarian/vegan agenda of it's own---the viewer can make up their own mind just what they prefer to eat).

Let me know what you guys think about the movie. Here is a little clip.