Up In The Air (2009, Jason Reitman)

I've been working my way through the Oscar nominees and finally got to Up In The Air, namely because it came out this past week on DVD/Blu-Ray. It is a very good film with some great performances. This is the kind of movie that is rarely made these days; the mid-level drama-with-jokes. It had elements of classic comedy scenarios; the romance, the business comedy, the misanthrope-who-needs-to-change comedy, set against the backdrop of the current jobless crisis. More filmmakers should be using current events as the backdrops for comedies. The reason this film had the most Oscar-nominated actors this year was because it had clearly defined characters that were each given character moments that helped drive the story, and weren't just shoehorned in for fireworks. Another reason films like this don't get made often; the ending. Bittersweet. Some things don't work out. And the things that do work out for Bingham; they are bittersweet. And that's what made this film rise in its quality to me: the ending.

The Hurt Locker (2009, Kathryn Bigelow)

Yeah. What a loser. I finally caught up with The Hurt Locker. A week after the Oscar. Blah blah blah. What can I say? I'm poor right now. And I tried real hard to watch it the night before the Oscars. No luck. But now I can say I saw the Best Picture of the year.
I loved it. The bomb-diffusing scenes, though almost repetitious, were very suspenseful. That repetition is intentional in the storytelling though, showing how these soldiers are faced with this drama day after day after day after day.
Jeremy Renner is really solid and deserves the attention he's receiving. This role reminds me of Colin Farrell's breakthrough role in Tigerland. The opening shot of the film is a POV shot of a bomb-diffusing robot and that perfectly describes Renner's character.
I noticed that the soldiers all end up inheriting/taking things from the dead around them. From the dead soldiers they take their juiceboxes, artillery, Renner's character takes the dead soldier's job, they take a bomb out of a dead child. I'm still working out what I think this means. If anyone has any ideas, comment away.
The ending was very solid as well. The shots back at home cleaning the gutters, at the grocery store shopping for cereal, the excitement wasn't there for the soldier. I was pissed that 60 Minutes' Bigelow Profile spoiled the ending/suspense for me while I was watching the piece. But when watching the movie, I forgot all about the ending while engaged in the suspenseful bomb diffusion set pieces. They are that well put together.