Watch your back Avatar, Up In The Air could likely win best picture because it truly deserves it!

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2010)

Juno director Jason Reitman has done it again. Up In The Air is by far the most enjoyable film of 2009. Bristling with outstanding performances led by George Clooney, this film is rightfully the Oscar front runner, and if the academy is wise, reward this film with the Best Picture Oscar!
Up In The Air, is not only highly enjoyable but it's also by far one of the most relevant Oscar front runners in years. The country is in an economic meltdown not seen since the great depression (all thanks to the incompetent leadership of George W. Bush, but that's another story!) Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney is a guy who works for a company that "lets go" of employees all over the country. He makes it easier for companies to lay off workers who are too timid to do it themselves.
He's so good at his job that he has nearly racked up ten million frequent flier miles. In fact, that's where he feels most at home, "Up In The Air". Bingham's company hires a new employee, Natalie Keener played by Twilight's Anna Kendrick, who has developed a new program of laying off workers from behind a computer screen, making it easier and more cost effective to lay off workers without the high cost of flying and hotel rooms.
Bingham takes Keener under his wing to show her how to do the job correctly, and in the process meets another lay off specialist Alex Goran, played by The Departed's Vera Farmiga, with whom he shares a close relationship. Bingham's philosophy is to have as little attachments as possible, nothing personal, to keep things completely casual.
It's a philosophy he shares at regular speaking engagements. It's the same philosophy that he shares with many of the people he lays off. However during the course of the film, he realizes that personal relationships are the key to surviving a lay off, and that human companion ships are worth having.
Clooney has never been better, Anna Kendick, does a terrific job of playing a hungry Cornell graduate who finally realizes the human toll of letting people go from their jobs, and Farmiga is Clooney's equal in the film.
Jason Reitman is one of America's most promising new directors from his debut in Thank You For Smoking to the great Juno to this.
Up In The Air, truly deserves the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy awards, and there isn't enough praise for it's cast or storyline. Truly the best film of 2009, and far better than the hugely overrated Avatar.