"I'm like my mother, I stereotype. It's faster."

13. Watch 26 movies I’ve never seen starting with each letter of the Alphabet (4/26)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009)

Basically, everyone at my office told me I had to go see it. So much so that I was given passes for it as a Christmas gift. Coming from a film-related work office, that's saying something. So see it I did, Beth in tow, splitting a giant, overpriced popcorn and soda, curled up in the packed stadium-seated movie theater at The Grove, lost in the way only seeing a film in theaters can make you.

Brilliant. 

George Clooney is just as handsome as he ever was, if not more so with the tufts of salt speckling his dark peppery hair. The role is perfect for him: eternal bachelor who lives in transit. This is a man who made 3 Ocean's movies as an excuse to hang out with his friends and get paid for it. A man who's in his 40's and never settled down. A man for whom every woman lusts after and includes on her laminated list . (Okay, so he's not on mine, but that's only because I was discriminatory and only included guys relatively close to my own age. To narrow the field, if you will).

If you don't know, Up in the Air is about a man who's job is to fire people. He spends a most of his year traveling, and the days he's at home he can't wait to get back up in the air. (see what I did there?). His goal is to earn a specific, exclusive frequent fliers number. Enter Anna Kendrick (Twilight and the lesser-known but brilliant Rocket Science), a 23-year-old visionist who comes up with a way to fire people in Dallas without ever leaving Omaha (think: Internet). Georgie ain't so happy about that, considering he hates Omaha and gives speeches about how to empty your life/backpack. It isn't until he meets Vera Farmiga that he realizes an empty life might not be what he wants after all.

This film left us a little sad when we tumbled out after the credits finished rolling. The loneliness, the disappointment, the reality of the film really hit home. Though neither of us are in our 40's and alone, we're in our 20's and alone. We related well to Kendrick's character: so full of hope and optimism that it almost crushes us when disappointment hits. Tack on the fact that many of the testimonials from the newly unemployed are REAL PEOPLE, and it makes you realize where we are as a society.

It's a wonderful film from the director of Juno and Thank You For Smoking, and if I could, I'd send each of you free passes to it like I was given. (Though movie tickets in every other city, minus maybe NY, are significantly cheaper then they are in this film town, so think about that next time you complain about paying half of what I'm paying).

"Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks."