For the love of arrogance

Up in the air

Up in the air is so much more than just a film. It is a reflection of the modern day society we live in. It is a realization of how inhumane and cold we’ve become under the pretext of being progressive, practical and professional. The film aptly uses irony to bring to our notice where the rat race and herd mentality can lead us to. Up in the Air is a film that defines the kind of people we’ve become today... how numb we have become towards our surroundings and thus the people surrounding us! It questions our philosophies and relationships in life in the wake of the current economic crunch.

Up in the Air is by far the most relevant film ever made on ‘life’ as we see it today.

Filmmaker Jason Reitman gives you a dose of reality by making you analyse your life through the eyes of Ryan Bingham (Clooney), a man on the move who believes in travelling light. Ryan is a man whom companies hire to fire their people because their bosses have no courage to do it. Ryan fires other people for a living but believes he does it with dignity. When Ryan is not depriving people of their jobs, he becomes a guest speaker and gives motivational speeches on ‘empty backpack’ to corporates.

Reitman impressively uses Ryan’s ‘empty backpack’ as a metaphor which deciphers Ryan’s real life, isolated from people and any kind of attachment to anything.

Based on the 2001 Walter Kirn novel of the same name, Up in the Air is a poignant tale on people, their beliefs and the choices they make. What makes this film stand out is its superb execution. The filmmaker uses comedy to bring out the most harsh tragedy of life (read, Anna’s beau dumps her through a text message which she finds horrible, but doesn’t realize how bad firing people could be!).

Unlike most romcoms, the film does not show Ryan as someone forced to live an isolated life. He is not a victim of dire circumstances or traumatised past. He is what he is and he does it by choice and in fact enjoys his lonely life until he falls in love...

Up in the Air is a must watch... real life, real people, real circumstances weren’t captured better on reel screen before.

The best war movie ever!

The Bridge on the River Kwai

If you are a fan of war movies no better treat than to watch the said movie which is ranked one of the greatest films of all time and arguably director David Lean's best film.
At the heart of the film is the performance of Alec Guinness as the obsessively principled Colonel Nicholson. In a lesser film, his character might be simplified into a heroic martyr, but The Bridge on the River Kwai revels in its moral ambiguity: no significant character is either purely a hero or purely a villain.
Filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film features brutal prisoner-of-war work camps that are nonetheless considerably nicer than their historical counterparts, a good decision since it frees the audience to focus on the battle of wills, at first between Nicholson and Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), later between Shears (William Holden) and Warden (Jack Hawkins). The film's closing line ("Madness... Madness") is among the best-known and most enigmatic closings in screen history.
The film received seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Guinness).