There’s so many different reasons to see a movie! Sometimes, you will be walking by a theater, and it will be playing A Serious Man, starting in fifteen minutes, and you’ll think “What the hell!” And then, 110 minutes later, you’ll be like, “Hey, that was a kickass, awesome godamned movie, why did I not see it before?” Or sometimes I, like many people in America, will go to a film just see an actor (which is why I have seen every Julianne Moore and Frances McDormand and Holly Hunter movie ever). By those standards, Up in the Air is a damn fine bit of bait. George Clooney, at 48 still outrageously sex-up-able, turns out to be great as a compulsive traveler, romance-avoider and layer-offer of people. (“A mammoth performance,” gargled Rex Reed!) Vera Farmiga, equipped with what she called her post-childbirth “giant porn boobs”, is not overwhelmed by that chestiness and is for real just wonderful. Pointy-faced little Anna Kendrick? Totally awesome. Like, delightful. She is a great sidekick/foil, and Farmiga is a great sexual (not particularly romantic) interest. (Also, awkward times for the Supporting Actress promotion departments, which, whatever.) But sometimes when you go to see a movie for the performances, even when you are satisfied or pleased or awed, you are left troubled.

The film-it is about a loner, yes, who travels about laying people off, then sometimes getting with Farmiga’s character? This you know?-has a number of brief segments of people getting fired from their jobs, performed for the camera, with, as I recall at least, Clooney sometimes cut in. (Clearly he was not present for that bit of shooting.) So the real story is, as Doree Shafrir wrote the other day, about the screening we both attended:

[W]hen I went to a screening of Up In the Air a few weeks ago, [director Jason] Reitman said in a Q&A; afterwards that he had placed ads in the local papers saying that he was shooting a documentary about people who had been laid off, and when the people showed up for their “audition,” he never told them that their wrenching confessions of what it felt like to be laid off were going to be not in a documentary about the economy, but a $25 million feature film half-backed by his father Ivan (

Ghostbusters!). Who knows, maybe he told them later (though he didn’t mention this in the Q&A;), and clearly this guy Kevin Pilla is now aware how his “performance” was used.

In the Q&A; Reitman seemed really thrilled at the authenticity of the performances he had gotten out of these “real” people. But knowing how he got them made me feel icky.

It is so icky. But, the other thing is that these reenactments of getting laid off that he asked people to perform are not particularly good! They tend to slip into past tense, or start describing, instead of performing, and in no way does it look these people are actually being terminated as part of the script. It just doesn’t actually work, and it leaves these lingering questions about Reitman and his disclosures. (On the plus side-he did pay them! So that’s great! Yay Reitman!)

Also, the picture above is of Bush 41 introducing the film at a screening, to the much-Twittered delight of the director. I have formed a fairly bad impression of Reitman, based on what little I know of him-what I’ve heard from people who’ve interviewed him, and that screening and his Twitter. And that Tom Ford profile today. He may be a pretty nice guy! But the egotism is off-putting. You make movies, honey! Though I’ll give you this: you’re not bad.

Because it’s unfortunate that this thing happened with the unemployed non-actors, because it’s bad for a pretty good movie. You will enjoy this movie, I suspect. It is fun to watch! Its plot is happily unpredictable! I do not however think it is the movie “for our times” that everyone keeps saying it is, just because it has a lot of unemployed people in it. I mean, Twilight has a lot of horny high school teens, just like real life, but that doesn’t mean it’s the chronicle of our age or whatever. Or wait, is it?

The video for Raekwon’s “Surgical Gloves” is not as excellent as the ones for “Catalina” and “Walk With Me,” but it’s not terrible, in its raw surveillance-camera monochromaticism. And the song is strong. Shame the Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 album wasn’t among the Grammy nominations that just came out. (Like that could ever happen.) Nice to see Mos Def up there, though. And twice: for best rap solo performance with “Casa Bey” and best rap album with The Ecstatic.

I Think I Smell Something That Smells Like A Bear Video

“The eligibility rules for the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism have been revised, opening the door wider to entries from text-based online-only newspapers and news sites, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced today.”

by Meghan Keane

Have you watched The Office lately? The NBC series has become a microcosm of how depressing this recession can get-and not just because The Dunder Mifflin Paper company may fold in the next few episodes. That, after all, seems a fitting end for a company based on a business model that stopped being relevant in 1992. Instead, the show has taken the story of a man with a promising future and given him an interminable present.

In the last two seasons, our hero Jim Halpert won the girl, got the big promotion and upgraded to a suit. These were all things fans were happy about. It was encouraging. But wanting romantic tension to be relieved is never as satisfying as the relief.

The matrimony of Jim and Pam Beesly seemed the logical conclusion to a show where half the humor comes from unspoken communications between Dunder Mifflin employees and the audience watching their ongoing documentary. After years of silent glances, quiet flirtations and knowing inside jokes, Pam and Jim were finally-finally-doing what we’d be hoping for all along. Gone were Pam’s poorly-thought-out engagement to her lackluster boyfriend Roy and the painful tug of allegiances between Pam and Jim’s one-time girlfriend Karen that tore apart audiences earlier in the show. Jim and Pam won out. Getting those two together at last seemed so right!

Then their wedding day came. The Office pulled out a pretty impressive mid-season episode for an event that usually serves as a finale. There was communal puking. There was an ill-advised group dance down the aisle. There were the secret vows that Jim pulled out to remind Pam-and fans-of Jim’s greatness.

Jim and Pam getting married did more than give Michael and excuse to hook up with Pam’s mom. It expanded the lens of The Office wide enough to reveal a disturbing fact: Jim and Pam don’t have any real friends.

Suddenly, a romance that seemed like the natural progression for two quietly charming people revealed itself to be much more depressing.

All of Jim and Pam’s witty asides and eyerolls in response to their officemates’ antics have stopped being expressions of untapped potential and started to look like passive-aggressive attempts to undermine their peers-who are the only people who will socialize with them.

For audiences, Jim-more so than Pam-has served as a pressure valve for all of the overstimulated personalities on the show by responding to his absurd coworkers the only rational way: with sarcasm and bafflement. The whole point of Jim was that he held the promise that at some point he would get his act together enough to break out of the confines of Dunder Mifflin. He’s the relatable protagonist for anyone (read: everyone) who has ever been trapped in a middling situation and found the only defense to be sarcasm and bemusement.

Now Jim has developed into the most depressing archetype: a mediocre man who has already realized his full potential.

Gone is Jim’s charming lack of enthusiasm for his job. Now he’s proving exactly where a lack of drive is likely to lead you-to the mediocrity of middle management, where one is gripped by the fear of losing whatever corner of inanity you’ve carved for yourself in the workplace.

Rather than rely on the fact that his intellect could capably get him a job at any other two dimensional office space Scranton, PA, has to offer, Jim is now terrified of losing his job-and his pressurized wall of status-at Dunder Mifflin.

In the end, it looks like Karen didn’t fare so badly after all. At least Rashida Jones has lived to sitcom another day, landing on the similarly themed Parks and Recreation, a show that suffers a bit from the same derivative inception as The Office, but has found new areas for humor in the Tracy Flick quality of characters that actually desire their middle management fate.

But on The Office, Jim has always succeeded despite his job. His ongoing competition with Rainn Wilson’s overzealous Dwight Schrute worked because Dwight didn’t care how his coworkers viewed him. The comedy of Dwight all depends on the fact that he is hopelessly obsessive about everything he does, while Jim won us over by trying least.

Now that Jim has some power, we are slowly learning that he doesn’t know how to use it. As Jim struggles to succeed in the workplace, the show butts up against the depressing fact that he is not very good at his job.

While Michael Scott is off in New York being used as a show pony to demonstrate Dunder Mifflin’s successes, Jim is back at home, making one of his underlings work in the supply closet.

Throwing a wrench in the inane procedural drama of office life is funny when you have nothing to gain from it. But overabusing power-or a lack of it-is just sad.

Watching Jim scrape to compete with Michael-a man who previously he had only mocked-brings a deep kind of embarrassment. It’s gotten to the point where Jim pushed his “comanager” into a koi pond to get a leg up with the brass during a lunch meeting. Any self-respecting guy would be embarrassed to put so much effort into embarrassing someone.

The only upside is that, with the building tension between Jim and Pam out of the way, some of the smaller characters are finally able to shine. Ed Helms, Ellie Kemper and Mindy Kaling especially have taken off running with the extra screen time they’ve been given.

And as he uncomfortably settles into his partitioned office, Jim’s story is starting to resemble the worst purgatory of 30-something life. Each subsequent episode now brings with it a reminder of Jim’s failure, the harsh reality that having dreams is no indication that you’ll ever achieve them. If there’s something more depressing than that-and less funny-I’d be hard pressed to find it in prime time.

Meghan Keane is a freelance writer.

The Vatican’s Myspace celebrity playlist “features tracks from artists ranging from Shirley Bassey to rapper Tupac Shakur.”

We get mail! In fact, we are on some crazy email lists, including one run by some guy named Tony Caputo. (He needs a Tumblr, bad!) Today he finds hope for the future in the writings of Ben Stein, who is the only Jew he likes. (Besides Jesus, I guess.) Good work, Ben Stein-your ramblings from 2005, about how Christmas bushes are fine with you, have put you in good company in the (mostly imaginary! Except to crazies!) culture wars.

“There’s a false dichotomy being set up, between ‘nostalgia’ and ‘modernisation’. Nostalgia is the yearning for the loss of an idealised world, whereas modernisation is the grim reality we are faced with, whether we like it or not.” This was actually written about the Royal Mail, but it’s true of a lot of things.

I know you people are obsessed with Bigfoot, so I want to share this frightening report that he was spotted somewhere outside of San Antonio, Texas. His whereabouts are presently unknown, although it is possible he is hiding in Rick Perry’s hair.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Today in The Poetry Section: two new poems by Matthew Zapruder.

GLOBAL WARMING

In old black and white documentaries
sometimes you can see
the young at a concert or demonstration
staring in a certain way as if
a giant golden banjo
is somewhere sparkling
just too far off to hear.
They really didn’t know there was a camera.
Cross legged on the lawn
they are patiently listening to speeches
or the folk singer hunched
over his little brown guitar.
They look as tired as the young today.
The calm manner in which their eyes
just like the camera rest
on certain things then move
to others shows they know
no amount of sunlight
will keep them from growing suddenly older.
I have seen the new five dollar bills
with their huge pink hypertrophied numbers
in the lower right hand corner and feel
excited and betrayed.
Which things should never change?
The famous cherry trees
I grew up under
drop all their brand new buds
a little earlier each year.
Now it’s all over before the festival begins.
The young.
Maybe they’ll let us be in their dreams.

WHITE CASTLE

In Wichita Kansas my friends ordered square burgers
with mysterious holes leaking a delicious substance
that would fuel us in all sorts of necessary beautiful ways
for our long journey eastward versus the night.
I was outside touching my hand to the rough
surface of the original White Castle. I was thinking
major feelings such as longing for purpose
plunge down one like the knowledge one
has been drinking water for one’s whole life
and never actually seen a well, and minor ones
we never name are always across the surface
of every face every three seconds or so rippling
and producing in turn other feelings. Oh regarder,
if I call this one green bee mating with a dragonfly
in pain it will already be too late for both of us.
I am here with that one gone, and now inside this one
I am right now naming feeling of having named
something already gone, and you just about to know
I saw gentle insects crawling in a line from a crack
in the corner of the base of the original White Castle
towards only they know what point in the darkness.

Matthew Zapruder is the author of three collections of poetry: American Linden, The Pajamaist, and Come On All You Ghosts, forthcoming from Copper Canyon in 2010. He has received a William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, a May Sarton Award from the Academy of American Arts and Sciences and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. In Fall 2010 he will be the Holloway Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley. An editor for Wave Books, he lives in San Francisco.

Previously: Three Poems by Monica Youn

You can reach the editors at poems@theawl.com.

Is Israeli organized crime getting out of hand in Los Angeles? They are kneecapping rabbis.