Sunday, December 6, 2009
Chicagoland / Music Sad Brad Smith: The best thing about Up in the Air
Posted by Whet Moser on Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 5:16 PM
- Sad Brad Smith
I saw Up in the Air on Friday night. It's okay; thematically it's a sort of adult-contemporary Fight Club. For the most part I agree with J.R. Jones's review, especially the part about its "warm condescension toward flyover country." It is better than the book, though.*
My favorite thing about the movie is a song, "Help Yourself," a gorgeous, moving folk tune written expressly for the movie by local singer-songwriter Sad Brad Smith. If you've known anyone who's had some sort of ongoing emotional problems, or had them yourself, it will probably break your heart.
Reitman also chose a song from St. Louis singer-songwriter Kevin Renick; it's a remarkable story.
* When the book came out, I was really excited because I have a thing about airports and air travel. But it turns out the book is more about alienation. I wanted it to be about airports.
Comments (2)
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You thought there was "warm condescension toward flyover country"? I didn't get that sense at all -- unless you mean in the sense that for Ryan, the whole country was flyover country. I mean, he "lives" in Omaha and grew up in northern Wisconsin, and his love interest lives in Chicago. I didn't detect true disdain for any of the places visited, other than an acknowledgment that northern Wisconsin isn't an ideal place to travel in February, and following a boy to Nebraska might not be the best plan if he's the only reason you're going.
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The song is great, but it was really confusing to me when it came on in the film because in my head I started to sing along with it and the lyrics were wrong. Took me a while to figure out why but it's very very similar in melody and style to José Gonzalez' rendition of 'Heartbeats', which gained popularity a few years back due to it's use in a sony commercial.
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