RonVitale.com

Movie Review: Up in the Air

"Make no mistake. Your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations, and arguments and secrets and compromises. The slower we move, the faster we die. Make no mistake: Moving is living."

In Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air,” Clooney’s Ryan Bingham preaches the line above at one of his motivational talks. He is a shark among men, believing that movement and lightening one’s backpack is essential to survival. Not to knock either film, but with ten-foot tall blue aliens (Avatar) and kids’ fare (The Princess and the Frog) eating up the box office, it’s wonderful to have a smart, witty and emotionally revealing film out during the holidays. My wife and I had the pleasure of seeing “Up in the Air,” and I’m glad we did. I’ll skirt away from the in-depth plot points, but here’s the gist: Ryan Bingham flies around the country more than 320 days out of the year, going in to companies and being the heavy. His job is to let employees go. He’s a terminator. Young upstart, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick who plays Angela in the Twilight films) has worked it all out. She has devised a plan to use video/headsets to virtually fire employees all around the country from the Omaha home office saving the company that both she and Ryan work for millions of dollars. The problem: Just as Ryan has crossed paths with a woman just like himself, he’s being grounded.

What plays out on screen is heartfelt and filled with depth of character and emotion. Clooney’s acting chops are a pleasure to behold. His suave attitude as he clashes with Kendrick’s young and inexperienced Natalie is Oscar worthy. Time and time again, characters wonder aloud: What is the point? What is the point of marriage, of our connections, friendships and our relationships? These questions are asked and then juxtaposed against those who are being fired. Who’s had 13 years of service at a company and is fired? Or saved the company millions? Fired. Clooney is detached from the emotional world as he fires dozens of people and sees their deepest selves on display while he glides from kiosk to kiosk with his gold cards and membership perks to remain adrift emotionally.

The heaviest components in our lives are our relationships. Yet the answers we are given in this film are not as simple and trite as you might expect from Hollywood. Sometimes there are no simple answers. Love, trust and commitment are hard work and each of us has a choice. To fly among the clouds, never truly connecting and feeling or--jumping in, getting wet and truly living. What unfolds on screen is light enough to be enjoyable during this holiday season yet filled with enough substance that you’ll be glad you took in this film. For in the end, are we social animals or are we sharks, preying up the world never stopping for lack of movement means death? Do yourself a favor and go see this film. Clooney’s role alone is worth the price of admission. And, if you’re open, you might just learn a little bit about yourself. Who are you: Emotionally detached from people or have you truly embraced the people in your life? Hopefully, you’ll find where you are on the loner/joiner spectrum and question why you’re there.

The Case of the Missing Baby Jesus: Christmas 2009

Do you see this picture of baby Jesus? How He's reaching out to you, wanting to be put in the creche where He belongs? Yeah, it grabbed my heart strings too. There's an injustice that is taking place each Christmas season in my home and I will not stand for it any longer. I am choosing to stand up, revolt and to take matters into my own hand! What am I talking about? Let me explain.

When you are young and you meet the love of your life, there are many discussions the two of you have. You ask each other about your favorite colors, music, foods, movies and even what your blood types are, but there's one question that's never brought up--until it's too late. Yes, I'm talking about what you and your family's tradition is regarding the nativity scene underneath the Christmas tree. You see, if I had been dating a Jewish woman, I would know where she stood. I wouldn't have had to ask the question, but that's the insidiousness of this issue: You can't assume. You just can't assume that the woman of your dreams, who was raised as a devout Catholic, would have the same tradition as your family. I just thought that we would be on the same page. But I was wrong. So wrong.

In my family, we would decorate the house with Christmas lights and after we had put up the tree we would set up the manger. My brother and I would set up Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, the angel, a sheep (taken from an older and cheaper manger set), a cow and, most importantly, we would put the baby Jesus in the makeshift crib. Jesus would be there--where He belongs.

When my wife and I started living together, our first Christmas came to be and we set up our decorations, put the manger up and my wife took the baby Jesus and put him in a drawer to a cabinet in the living room. I was mortified. Shocked. Filled with horror. The Lord and Savior of all creation resting in a drawer during the holiest time of year? I casually asked what she was doing with the baby Jesus and she told me that in her family they didn't put out the baby Jesus until Christmas day as that's when He entered the world. There was a moment of intense emotion that welled up within me and I just didn't know what to say. I tried to explain that Jesus is around all year, that the manger is just a symbol of how God is present in the world and how there's beauty and goodness all throughout the world--all to no avail.

Nearly fifteen years have gone by and each year it's the same thing. Baby Jesus is stolen and hidden in the house. He's hidden somewhere really good but--I always find Him. I take Him out, put Him in the crib, smile and then put Him back where my wife has hidden Him. It's a new tradition that we've started in our household.

Love is a many splendid thing poets say. When you marry, when you give of your life to someone else and you take your traditions and meld them with hers something wonderful and magical happens. Maybe you cut carrots one way and she another. Or I like onions in my salad and she doesn't. Or I am a clean freak and she is clutterly-challenged. It doesn't matter what the differences are, as in the end, you come together as a family and create new traditions, find compromises and find new ways to celebrate the differences we live with. So if Christmas is about God entering the world and joy, love and light, then, in a small way, our cat and mouse game of finding/hiding the baby Jesus is our way of starting a new Christmas tradition. One that our kids find rather amusing. So during this Christmas season, enjoy your family, friends and the true meaning of Christmas: That baby Jesus doesn't need to be in the creche but in your heart.

Why I Love Snow

Back in 1988 my English teacher in High School asked us to look up the front page of the New York Times for the day we were born. In my house, my mom always told the story of my birth: "You came early during a blizzard!" She would explain how my father drove her to the hospital and how bad the roads were and on how my Uncle, who lived in New Jersey at the time, couldn't come to see me at the hospital because roads were closed for a day or two. I rather liked coming into the world in a big way because if you're going to come in, why not come in early and in style?

For me, snow has always been associated with my life and on how I view it. No matter how dirty, how destroyed or ruined the terrain is, snow can blanket it in pure, brilliant white. There's a calmness that washes over me in staying up late, hearing the snow hit the window and seeing it cover the grass, cars and bushes. As I write this, it's snowing now. We might get up to 10" in my area but possibly 20" in others.

There are stories and then there are stories. Around 33 years ago my father took me to Penny Pack Park in Northeast Philadelphia. Winters were winters back then. The creek would freeze over and all the families from the surrounding neighborhood would take their kids to the park to go sledding. Although I love snow, I've never been skiing or snowboarding or worn a pair of snowshoes. I haven't even gone ice skating. But on this particular snowy winter day in January more than three decades ago I remember having a blast playing in the snow at the park and getting on a sled and sliding down at break neck speeds. I was having such fun. The time of my life with my father.

After sledding, my father took me to walk on the frozen creek and I remember him coming to me and saying: "When you see a small pile of snow on the ice, don't walk on it." So we walked and I watched as kids played hockey and my father talked with some other parents. Up ahead, I saw a small pile of snow. I wondered what it was. I was curious. I wanted to touch it and figure out why it was there. Being about 5 or 6 at the time, seeing a small pile of snow on a frozen creek seemed odd. I went over to it and put my foot on it to stomp the snow down and I had the surprise of my life. My foot didn't hit ice and fell through the hole that the snow had covered. A good portion of my left leg went into the freezing water and I must have cried out from shock as my father came running over and he was really angry. He helped me out and brought me to the car and took my boot off and I remember snow and pieces of ice coming out of my boot and how cold I was.

We left for home so I could warm up but I remember his disappointment, frustration and anger at having to leave early--because of me. There are not many good memories I have of my father. Most are tales of duality: Something nice happens in one part of the memory and then there are memories of loss, abandonment and his just plain being absent for much of my life. But the snow. I am 38 years old. I believe I spent 5 or 6 Christmas days in which my father was around. That's 32 without a father. I'd see my friends from grade school, high school and then college have a father to teach them how to ride a bike, play baseball, or even try to teach them about girls. I didn't have any of that.

At Christmas time, I'd see the hole in my family. The unspoken word (father) in which my only proof that I had one was that I was alive and that I had my memories. Pictures of my father had been blacked out (literally. I'm not making this up) so I only had what I could remember. Every year my Uncle would show us 8mm (silent) films of Christmas and holidays gone by. He'd set up a projector and we'd watch it at my grandparents. Dead silence would hang over the adults as a few seconds of my father played out on the screen. And I would wonder, remember and be torn between being happy about being away from him and happy that my mom was now safe.

Seeing snow for me in growing up, enabled me to go out into a white Winterland of newness, filled with a sense of fantasy and wonderment. I could watch the landscape change and be magical, knowing that for that small amount of time the world was young and beautiful and right. That the thought of my father not sending me a Christmas card or birthday card or trying to see my brother and I over the holidays could be ignored and forgotten. The snow, its pureness, would entice me to go play. To forget myself and just be. I could throw snowballs, build forts, play in the woods and even walk knee deep in a near freezing stream (that's a story for another day) and build new memories.

I could not change, grasp or force my father to come to us. To fix his wrongs, to apologize, make amends and set our lives right. How many times have I tried to chase after people to make them stay? Repeating past patterns, knowing that emotionally they were not available to me, but in a desperate attempt to change the past, I'd try to make things right now. How human I am and with such faults. It's laughable, but my pains and quirks make me who I am. And the snow, so white and fresh and clean brings me peace. When life wasn't calm and it was filled with subdued hurt, the snow would be a gift to me.

Decades later I am a father now. Last year I took my son sledding and I told him about the hole in the ice story but I told it from my perspective. I told him that my father never explained WHY I shouldn't step on the snow patch as it was covering a hole into the freezing water and I could get hurt. My son is growing up with me, filled with all the faults that I have, but I am present and do my best to teach him what I know, show him what I love and through my actions and words admit when I am wrong and when I need to apologize for things that I have done. Today it is snowing. My six year old and I (and possibly my daughter if she's feeling up to it as she's been sick) will go out together to shovel, to build snowmen and to go sledding. We will redefine what a father and son relationship was for me and we'll partly do that today with snow. White, cold, fresh and magical.