–Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy spoke out on Friday against the number of games the NBA schedules every Christmas, saying he “felt sorry” for anyone that had nothing to do on the holiday besides watch the NBA. The sentiment echoes that of 95 percent of the country–only they feel sorry for anyone who watches an NBA game on any day.

–In other NBA news, it was revealed this week that Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas has been keeping an unloaded gun locked up in his locker. The irony created by the fact that his gun had no bullets was not lost on long-time NBA observers. But still, what did Arenas need an unloaded gun for in the locker room? The Wizards haven’t run the “pistol whip” since 1997.

–A sampling of some of the gifts received by celebrities this holiday season: Peyton Manning? Some new socks. Dwight Howard? A new suit. Tiger Woods? A tallier normally used by baseball coaches to count pitches. He had recently been complaining that he had been losing track of the, uhh, number of pitches he had thrown during his pursuit of an illustrious Wilt Chamberlain record. So we know what Tiger received, but what did he give? If you’re actually interested in this, Hunter, Buck & Winfield Accounting has created a PDF spreadsheet outlining which woman got what on its website.

–In other relationship news, Alex Rodriguez capped one of the most up-and-down years of all time on a down note, with his relationship with Kate Hudson coming to an end. She was tired of him eating oats in the bedroom.

–Respected baseball writer Peter Gammons was recently quoted as saying Jason Bay would rather play baseball in Beirut than play for the Mets next season. He later apologized to the nation of Beirut for equating them to the Mets.

–Speaking of Beirut, that may be where Adrian Beltre ends up playing in 2010 if he doesn’t lower his asking price. The third baseman, most recently famous for suffering a testicle injury last season because he wasn’t wearing a cup, wants $10-$15 million a season in his new deal. In his defense, the Beirut Banshees are the two-time defending champions of the Lebanon Central League, so a move wouldn’t be that out of the blue.

–Finally, all Colts fans want for Christmas this year is an undefeated season. The rest of the country wants that, too, if “undefeated season” actually means “not seeing a Peyton Manning commercial every time they take a breath.”

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

  Return of the buddy film . . .

Director Guy Ritchie’s retelling of the classic Doyle character Sherlock Holmes is a lot of things, but obviously “traditional” is not one of them.

So there’s really only one question to answer here when it comes to assessing Sherlock Holmes: Does rebooting a traditionally stuffy franchise into an action-packed buddy film automatically qualify said film as “bad”?

Your answer:  No.  Unless you’re a purist, then the answer is yes.  And if you’re a purist, stay away from this one.  You’ve got better things to do with your time, I’d imagine, than watch some upstart actor take Doyle’s timeless detective and turn him into an awesome, wise cracking, loveable hybrid of Bugs Bunny, Sergeant Martin Riggs and a traditional Holmes.

Just stay home and steep in that new Poirot box set you got for Christmas.

For the rest of us, this new Holmes–animated by the currently untouchable Robert Downey Jr.–is quirky, loud, hilarious, over the top, and most importantly, a lot of fun.  And if you assess this Holmes movie on what it’s intended to do (instead of what it doesn’t emulate) you’ll have as much of a blast watching it as Downey Jr. and Jude Law (as Dr. Watson) had making it.

Without Downey Jr. in the lead role this movie would clearly be an epic flop, but his stock is so high right now that if I could make a movie where Downey Jr. watches paint peel for 120 minutes I’d clear $40-50 million on opening day alone.

So the charm of Sherlock Holmes is actually two fold:  First, it’s a great reboot that features Holmes and Watson as one step short of comic book superheroes (because they aren’t wearing spandex and capes) and second, this is just a vehicle for Downey Jr. to show off how awesome it is to be Downey Jr.

But Sherlock Holmes is by no means perfect. Yes, it’s a literal blast, but addictive performances aside the overall feel of Sherlock Holmes is disjointed at times.

There are pretty major jumps from scene to scene with little explanation as to why we’re watching Holmes and Watson root though a certain person’s house, for example, nor is there any kind of continuity in scenes where a character is being chased through the sewers only to end up several stories above London on an unfinished bridge only seconds afterwards.

That sort of thing makes a film feel jerky, and while it’s a perfectly acceptable plot device to keep the audience in the dark as to why Holmes does certain things (it makes the reveal that much more impressive when Holmes puts every detail together at the end) it also leads me to believe that a huge portion of the movie ended up on the cutting room floor.  Probably because they contained scenes where nothing exploded.

It’s also going to take you a little while to get acclimated to the dialogue, specifically Downey Jr.’s speech patterns.  It’s almost as if his vocal coach (assuming he had one) did too good of a job with the dialect. I thought Downey Jr. nailed the accent, but when you combine that accent with Downey Jr.’s mannerisms (acting style) and the fact that his version of Holmes is a fast talking savant, it initially just comes across as mumbling.  It’s fine once you get used to it but it does take getting used to, meaning you’re too busy trying to figure out what’s being said to keep up with any exposition.

Jude Law doesn’t have that problem.  Dr. Watson is the straight man in this duo so he’s a much calmer person with a much calmer speaking voice.  It’s a great compliment to Holmes, and together, Law and Downey Jr. are a great pair that effortlessly exchange one-liners and witty banter we don’t get to see a lot of these days, so thumbs up to Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg for their screenplay.

It’s also very clear that Ritchie wants a sequel and might even have dreams of turning this one into an entire franchise.  The film’s villain, Lord Blackwood (played by London born Mark Strong and is a clear frontrunner for the “Hey, is that Andy Garcia’s younger brother?” award), is essentially a plot device to usher in the presence of Holmes’ shadowy foil, Professor James Moriarty (who’s only listed in the credits as “Anonymous Man”).

In that regard, Sherlock Holmes is a kind of, “I have to tell you this story so I can tell you a better one” kind of movie, and I, for one, hope it does well enough at the box office for Ritchie to run wild with future installments.

I’d like more of this duo, and I’m fine with a resurgence of the buddy formula–especially if the duo is Jude Law and Downey Jr.

I miss the buddy film, and I’m glad it’s back.

–Joey Alfino, Red Editorial Staff

  Hey Molière, we need to borrow this for a minute . . .

How to save a movie, Step one: cast Meryl Streep.  Step two:  cast Alec Baldwin.  Step three: talk Steve Martin into coming out of hiding.  Step four: cross your fingers and hope no one notices how unnoticeable your movie would be without the previous three steps.

This seems to be the path writer/director Nancy Meyers is sticking to with It’s Complicated, not that she’s ever really strayed from it.  Meyers’ past directing credits include the similar feeling Something’s Got to Give and The Holiday.

Uh-oh.  Before my criticism (pessimism?) spirals out of control, I should probably be clear in saying It’s Complicated is actually a really fun movie.  It has its charm and its fair share of irresistible laughs thanks to Streep and especially Alec Baldwin, who steals this show hands-down from his counterparts.

Baldwin is the King of loveable meatheads, and if what Baldwin is saying about quitting acting in 2010 is true, I’ll miss him.

That said, It’s Complicated is really little more than a modern retelling of a late 17th to early 18th century-style Renaissance comedy. You’ve got the penitent rake (Baldwin) trying to woo back his ex wife (Streep), while a suitor (Steve Martin) gets caught in the middle. Meyers even remembers to include the lewd and witty ribaldry.

And that’s fine.  It’s a tested and reliable method of grabbing a laugh, but It’s Complicated might suffer with audiences on account of its insincerity.  Streep, Baldwin and Martin do the best they can with what they’ve been given, but Meyers (who also wrote this one) just doesn’t flesh out her characters very well here.  This is especially true of Steve Martin’s character, Adam.

This role literally could have played by anyone, and as long as that actor was the right age, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.  Adam feels like a plot device, not a person, and it certainly doesn’t feel like it was written (or even tweaked) for Martin to be the performer we know he is.

This is a perfect example of a Hollywood product film, churned out of the machine just in time for Christmas and relying on its big name cast to hide its elitist flaws and disconnecting subject matter.  It’s not enough to drown the movie, but it’s still prominent and impossible to ignore because It’s Complicated is the kind of movie that presents itself to you from a pedestal.

It’s above you, laughing at your puny tax bracket while it tells a story of what a certain set of people in California have to worry about while driving their Porches to their ex-wife’s picturesque house on a scenic hill to continue a tryst that began at a ridiculously expensive hotel in New York and threatens to come crashing down because said ex-wife is also falling for a high-dollar architect that’s planning what has to be a million dollar addition to a multi-million dollar home.

It’s probably just me, but I don’t know who these people are.  I can’t relate to them.  And what passes for a “problem” in their lives hardly seems like a problem to me, and even if it is, I can see by their lifestyles that they’ll be just fine.

It’s not that I didn’t care about these people, but it was difficult to feel any genuine concern for them, either.  Sure, extramarital affairs are tricky, but considering their lifestyles, financial situations and the fact that marital infidelity has happened to every major character in this movie before (and they ended up just fine then, too), I didn’t feel compelled to fret for them.

Now, I admit, it’s not fair of me to point this out and consider it a valid gripe because I doubt Nancy Meyers was trying to elicit mountains of concern from us with this film.  It’s a comedy, after all, and should be seen as such.

And as a comedy–a slapstick, pseudo-raunchy comedy with plenty of awkwardly hilarious situations–it’s a success.  But if this film is being billed as a “romantic comedy” or a “heartwarming story,” well . . . that’s just off the mark.

Molière would love it, though.

–Joey Alfino, Red Editorial Staff

The tree stands festively lit in the corner, piles of wrapping paper and freshly emptied boxes lay scattered beneath. The table is cleared of dishes; that fine roast goose you claim to have shot after peppering the skies with buckshot is no more than a few strands of errant feather and bone left over, and the cheery holiday tidal wave known as Christmas Day is ebbing smoothly into the evening.

It took a while and some very nimble verbal acrobatics after Aunt Edie found the grocery store receipt clearly stating the price of your “freshly” killed goose, but that was earlier in the day and now you sit, slouched in your threadbare easy chair, red velvet smoking jacket two sizes too small, confident in the belief your family once again sees you as the great hunter/provider, and not, as Auntie called you earlier, Ebenezer Stooge.

What more can the Master of his Domain need at this moment? A fine, hand wrapped Cuban cigar, tendrils of exotic smoke curling around that mouse pelt you call a moustache? A dram of fine single malt served neat, poured with care from those small airline bottles of scotch you pocketed on that flight to L.A. last year?

Or maybe its time to press the grown up button on your personal remote control and insist on a snifter of port, that fine fortified wine that goes swimmingly well after gorging yourself all day on rich goose, potatoes and string beans.

How about it, Sparky? Shall we join hands with the ghost of alcohols past and wander the misty halls of history to find out more about these “spirits”? Put down your after dinner shot of Jagermeister and let’s go!

Originating in Douro Valley, Portugal, by the English in search of a non-French wine they could drink during one of their many conflicts with the French, port, as it is called, came from the need to keep wines from souring on long sea voyages.  Brandy was introduced to the wines, which allowed a more forgiving and stable wine with the temperature changes and climate deviations the ships encountered on their voyages.

Today, there are strict rules governing port making. Only 48 varieties are allowed into a port. They are aged for a short time in oak, blended with other vintages for consistency if need be in a process known as the solera system, fortified and allowed to age long term in bottles. The “Qunita’s”, or port houses, decide which are to be the vintage years. Only fortified wines from this region are allowed to be called ports, much like champagne from the region of the same name in France.

There are different styles of port and each demands its own method of storage. Standard ports, including Late Bottled Vintage, are meant to be drank quickly–but easy, Dean Martin, we don’t mean swigged in one gulp. They will maintain their flavor for a few weeks after opening and should be stored upright so the cork has no contact with the port.

Finer ports, such as ruby, have a shelf life of about a month after opening and tawny, about 4 months. These are meant to be aged in the bottle for long periods, stored in their sides and drank within 24 hours after opening. Lucky you.

In ascending order, the qualities of port are as follows:
–white, made with white grapes and either sweet or dry
–ruby, blended but not aged
–tawny, aged in oak for longer periods of time, often years. Richer, more nuanced flavors. The “10 year” or “20 year” on the labels is the average age of the vintages used during the blending.

There are also the Late Bottled Vintages, made primarily for restaurants for a longer shelf life. They are also filtered to remove the sediment that is typical with these wines. Vintage is for the connoisseur. Only the best years are given the title. These are often sold young, made of a single years harvest and bottled with the expectation that you will age it for another 10-30 years, with the average peak at about 20.

The classic image of port is served in a small, half full wine glass held delicately by the stem with 2 fingers while donning a luxurious red smoking jacket in a large, old library full of musty leather-bound first edition books while the butler deftly slices a sliver of fine Stilton cheese and a thickly mutton chop mustachioed gentleman pontificates on his country’s role in some dastardly foreign affair. Not these days, guv’nor.

While you can grow those mutton chops and dazzle the ladies with your “worldy” new look, there is no need for the pomp that port has held in the past.

Port now sits where wine has for years, well entrenched in the arena of pairings and match ups with flavors and foods. There are port tastings that specifically pair cheeses such as Stilton, Cabrales and Valdeon from Spain and other blue cheeses that mellow in the presence of rich ports. Cheddars, domestic and foreign, also mate well with ports, the nutty, berry flavors of the port mingling with the sharpness of fine cheddar.

Chocolate is another vehicle for port. The richness of chocolate is slightly cut with the alcohol of the port and enhanced by the smoky tongue the port leaves behind.

So, back to the living room, Ebenezer. The ghost of alcohol past has finished up the presentation and is scrambling to get away from the raving lunatics that you call family. With a parting “Good Luck to you, pal” shouted over its shoulder, it is off to another household, another clueless swiller of Ripple and another lesson in civility.

Merry Christmas to you all.

–Tim Connors, Red Editorial Staff

Canadian comedian Dave Foley, star of the long running series The Kids in the Hall, plays Glenn, a store manager in The Strip, a movie about a low end electronics store located in a Chicago area strip mall. The script of this independent movie, written and directed by Chicago resident Jameel Khan, brings together Foley with four other actors, all who have  a background in improvisation comedy. 

 Foley, who dropped out of high school to become a standup comedian, spent a year at the Toronto Second City Training Centre taking improv classes.  Following that, he worked as an usher in an movie theater before starring in The Kids in the Hall which ran for about five years.  Foley spent some time with Red chatting about his new movie.

First of all, I read that you drink about 50 cups of coffee a day.  It’s 10:30 am, how many cups have you had so far?

Not a one today because I’m just getting up and doing this interview.  But I’m going to have one really soon.

Do you really drink 50 a day?

Not so much anymore, I’ve tapered off a lot in the morning, but I still drink a lot.

Tell us about The Strip.

It’s a nice human comedy.  There are no big plot twists or crazy premises.  It’s about a bunch of guys who work in a third rate appliance store in a desolate strip mall.  I hope people come to see it, get 90 minutes of laughs and enjoy the happy ending.

What’s your character Glenn like?

He’s a very depressed person whose life is unraveling and it’s something I could identify with as my own life has unraveled many times.

Any examples about your life unraveling for us?

Well, before we started filming I was in the swimming pool with my daughter and decided to move an umbrella to shade her.  It had a 40 pound concrete block which fell on my foot and shattered the big toe on my right foot, breaking all the bones. I had to calmly get my daughter out of the pool and back in her playroom, get on the phone and then waited for my wife to come home to find me bleeding to death in the bathroom.

Wow.  How did that impact your being in the movie?

Well, every time you see me walking in the movie, be aware that I am, at that moment, re-breaking all the toes in my foot all over again.

Sounds like an athlete playing through an injury.

Yeah, it kind of is.  And it wasn’t the first time.  I had done another movie where I tore the ligaments on both sides of my ankle.  But this was worse.  This was the kind of pain that makes you cry.

Could your injury have been written into the script so you wouldn’t have to be on your feet as much?

There wasn’t a real convenient way of doing that, so I just kept a wheelchair at the ready. Then as soon as they called cut, somebody would wheel the chair up, I would sit in it and put ice on my foot, and slowly rock back and forth in pain.

Dave Foley’s character in his new indie movie The Strip is a store manager whose life begins to fall apart when his wife begins an affair. Foley, a comedian, actor and writer who starred in the popular show NewsRadio, talked to Red about his work and his life.

What made you decide to do this movie?

I just got a call from my manager telling me to check out these guys in Chicago which is where the writer /director and a lot of the cast are from. My manager said that they had a good script and they seem like decent people. So check out the script.” My manager is a decent guy, so I trusted him.  And the script was good, it was a really nice little script and I liked that it was all about the characters.

Glenn, your character, sees so much of his life slipping away as he loses everything that makes him feel secure.  Can you relate to that at all?

My dad was an alcoholic and I some crappy jobs and during the first year of “Kids in the Hall” we were told that we canceled and it seemed like that happened every year.  Even with NewsRadio every year we thought we were canceled so we did a series finale every year.

You’re known for your improvisational abilities, how much of the script was improvised?

There’s isn’t a lot of improv, there was a little talking over each other and playing loose with it but we had a very tight schedule which doesn’t give you a lot of time to play.  So there was
just a little ad libbing but mostly we shot the movie that Jameel Khan wrote

I know this is off the subject but what’s your take on the American health care system and how everyone warns it could turn into something like the Canadian system?

It’s baffling to Canadians.  When people threaten that you’ll end up with a system like Canada, we don’t’ understand it because we love our system.  There was a poll recently over who was the greatest Canadian and the winner was Tommy Douglas, he beat out Wayne Gretzky and well known people like him.

Who is Tommy Douglas?

He’s a 1950s politician–and Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather–who introduced universal national health care in Canada.

What do you have coming up next?

Just the onward slow decline. The march of age, the loss of bone mass. Oh and I’ve got a “Kids in the Hall” mini-series coming up in Canada and maybe it will come down to the U.S. too.  And I’m getting in a better mood as we speak because someone’s bringing me coffee.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

–It’s December–that means it’s time for Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys to again be crushing hopes and dreams. In this week’s game against the Saints, not only do they lose 48-21, they also run a play called “There is no Santa,” and reveal to all New Orleans fans that, indeed, their city is never coming back. Also, Drew Brees is NOT a leprechaun.

–In college football news, the Big 10 is looking to add a 12th team. So yes, the conference with 11 teams that boasts of having only 10 will soon have 12. Their search will be limited, however, as the NCAA has said that no Division II conferences can add Division I teams.

–In tangential Big 10/11/12 news, the Charlie Weis era at Notre Dame got its final kick in the groin on Thursday when new coach Brian Kelly fired all but one of Weis’ former assistants. Coach “Dunkin’ Donuts run” was too important a part of the program to be let go, Kelly said. He will keep the same schedule he had under Weis, making runs at 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon and finally 1 p.m. And then 2-4. There are some “:30s” in there, as well. Meanwhile, Weis’ job search is going well. So far, he’s been offered to be a McDonalds’ breakfast taste tester and the man who designs the plays Adam Sandler will run in his next football movie.

–On the college basketball front, Bobby Knight has complained that college basketball now has “no integrity,” pointing to the fact that two-time major NCAA violator John Calipari still has a job as evidence. Yes, Knight longs for the good old days where coaches followed all NCAA guidelines and smacked players upside the head every time they missed a left-handed layup and intimidated the refs from minute one to minute 40. Ahhh, integrity. Those really were the days.

–The New York Mets continued their explosive offseason on Thursday when they signed Japanese relief pitcher Ryota Igarashi. His blockbuster signing comes on the heels of similar deals that netted catchers Henry Blanco and Chris Coste in intense bidding wars that sent shockwaves through baseball. Looks like things are going to be different in Flushing in 2010. Meanwhile, all their arch-rival Phillies have done is land some unknown Canadian hurler named Roy (pronounced ‘wah’) Holliday. The balance of power is rapidly shifting in the NL East.

–Speaking of Japanese baseball players, World Series MVP Hideki Matsui recently signed with the Los Angeles Angels. Yes, Godzilla will now actually be wearing a Halo.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff

  $300 million buys you a pretty movie.

James Cameron’s Avatar is cinematic evolution unfolding right before your eyes in a blazing 161 minutes that cost $300 million (plus?) to make.  Yeah, $300 million for 161 minutes.  That’s $1,863,354 per minute, or roughly $30,000 per second. It is a huge, massive beast of a film that must be seen on the big screen.

And it’s worth every penny, because Avatar isn’t really a movie.  It’s an amusement park.

For those of you who read these reviews regularly (have I said, “I love you” today?), I like to think you do so because you find my taste in movies similar to yours.  So trust me when I say watching Avatar should top your list of priorities as something to do as soon as humanly possible.  The end.

I’ll get to the specifics of why it’s so important shortly, but first, I’d be remiss as a film critic if I didn’t address the one caveat that other critics are getting hung up on when discussing Avatar; the one thing that’s ruining the film for them: the story.

You’ll hear some people accuse Cameron of being an awful storyteller, that Avatar has a campy, corny and weak script.  These people headed into the movie looking for something to hate, and they found what they wanted.  This might come as a shock, but nobody pays $300 million for a script.  Nobody.

I’ll agree that Avatar has a basic and even pedestrian story line, but to call it campy is unfair and misses the point of the movie entirely.  At its core, Avatar is a fairytale that falls well within the boundaries of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth formula.  So does Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter and just about any other mega budget Hollywood yarn that people go nuts for.

Cameron’s script is as solid as it needs to be to make this world believable, and if it helps, this story is exponentially more engaging than Cameron’s Titanic (which, in case you didn’t know, is the highest grossing movie of all time in the history of Earth.)

It’s the way Avatar executes its simple fairytale that’s the point here, bringing me back to why this movie is not only special, but important as well.

James Cameron has never really been known for his writing.  Cameron is known for his diligence in pushing the envelope of what’s even possible in cinema.  Or, to be specific, by the time James Cameron gets done making a movie, the tools and technology the rest of Hollywood uses will be better off for it.

Here’s fact for you.  Did you know that part of Avatar’s budget was used to develop a digital camera that didn’t even exist before Cameron needed one?  In order to give audiences the technological vision he wanted, he had to invent new technology.  And guess what’s going to happen to that technology now?  Others will use it.

Forget about making a good movie, kids.  That’s called “Advancing the medium,” otherwise known as “progress,” and it’s stupefying to see how far we’ve come these days.

Avatar takes place on an alien planet called Pandora.  The human race has landed there to mine a precious metal Earth desperately needs, and they need it so badly that genocide isn’t out of the question when it comes to dealing with Pandora’s native inhabitants, the 10-foot tall Na’vi.

But diplomacy isn’t entirely dead here, and in order to try and coexist with the Na’vi, scientists have cloned Na’vi bodies which are controlled by linking a human driver to it in the same fashion as Neo jacked in to the Matrix (without sticking a shiv into anyone’s brain).

It only takes about six minutes to figure out where this is going and how this one is going to end, but again, twist endings aren’t Cameron’s bag (for example: “Oh, hey, I wonder if the Titanic is going to sink at the end of this movie?”)  Yes, the Titanic is going to sink, yes, the Na’vi are going to war with the humans, and hell yes, it’s going to be the most amazing visual experience you’ve ever had.

In 3D.

And that’s the other thing worth mentioning here.  I screened Avatar on a standard screen in 3D and was blown away.  I’m not sure I could handle it in IMAX, but I’m going to try (yes, I’m seeing it again).  I like my chances.  I like my chances because Cameron’s use of 3D technology in Avatar isn’t an excuse to use every 3D gimmick in the book.

Swords or bullets don’t sail over your head, nor to you find yourself having to “duck” when things seem to fly right at you.  Avatar doesn’t attack you or fly off the screen into your face.  Instead, it retreats.  Yes, images sometimes leap off the screen, but for the most part the world of Avatar begins at the screen and goes on forever and ever–layer upon layer of depth and detail until the horizon, which you’ll swear is miles away.

Avatar is a game changer, folks.  It sets a new technological standard, and in the same way that The Beatles brought chords to America, James Cameron brings the future to you.

And it’s really, really pretty.

–Joey Alfino, Red Editorial Staff.

  You’re in here somewhere.

Director Jason Reitman has mentioned that his new film, Up in the Air, is “the most personal film I’ve ever made,” and it’s not a stretch to see why that’s true.  Aside from Up in the Air being one of the most personal films I’ve ever seen, this film has something in it that movies rarely have anymore: us.

It succeeds in doing what most movies fail to do; it appeals to the here and now, the everyman, the Kevin Kline in all of us.  And because of that, Up in the Air is something better than a movie.  It’s an honest, accurate, relatable and human thought . . . and if the Golden Globe nominations are any indicator (they usually are) it’s also a thought with “Oscar” written all over it.

George “Oscar Nod” Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, who describes himself as a “Termination Facilitator.”  This is a nice euphemism for “the guy you never want to see in your office,” as Bingham’s job is telling people they don’t have one anymore.  He works for a company that deals in mass layoffs, perfect for the boss who needs to make the “hard decision” to let people go but is too weak to be a person about talking to them.

It’s a job that keeps Bingham moving.  He swoops in, delivers the news, and swoops out again.  It’s the “swooping out” part that Bingham particularly loves.  He’s a road warrior, spending more time above the ground than he does on it.  He loves the lack of permanence, lack of commitment, the lightweight lifestyle.

Bingham has an office but he’s never there.  He’s got an address and a depressingly sterile one-bedroom apartment (in the bustling metropolis of Omaha) that’s so sparse it can’t even be considered a bachelor pad.  He believes in stereotypes because they’re faster–face it, Ryan Bingham is an a-hole and he’d really be an off putting character if it weren’t for Clooney’s ability to undercut everything he does with the most irresistible charm in the entire Clooneyverse.

You can’t help but root for the guy, because despite his despicable profession we know there’s a good man under there–he’s just displaced.  But everyone in Up in the Air is displaced in one fashion or another.

It’s not until he meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), his female doppelganger, and suddenly has to deal with an unwanted change in his professional status quo brought on by a young upstart employee, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), that Bingham starts to realize the benefits of stability–or at least consider them.

But instability is the norm for this dramedy, and it’s also the norm in today’s economy.  That’s what makes Up in the Air such an enjoyable experience: it’s timely. Jason Reitman made the choice to cast actual people who’ve lost their jobs in his movie as the random employees Bingham fires during the film.  Word on the street says Reitman was nervous about doing it, but he shouldn’t have been.  Why hire a bunch of actors to portray those emotions when you can shine a light on the real deal?  It doesn’t get more honest than that.

But not only does this choice deepen the film’s honesty, it opens the door for us as well by making the film appear small (in a good way).  Here’s what I mean:

All too often, Hollywood pumps out a “heartwarming comedy” or “quirky romance” that might, if it’s lucky, have a smattering here and there of feelings and situations we can relate to.  Maybe.  This is not to say those movies don’t have their niche, but mostly, they’re hyperbolic narratives that leave us thinking, “Oh, wouldn’t it be great if things actually happened that way?”

See?  It’s nice, but too large.

Up in the Air doesn’t have that problem.  It’s small.  It’s simple.  It’s smart.  It’s sneaky.  It’s believable, thanks to the not-actors opposite Clooney, and modest thanks to the film’s locations.  Up in the Air takes place largely in the Midwest–flyover America.  St. Louis, Omaha and Wichita are all featured in the film, places rarely thought of by those in movie biz.

Where most films alienate an audience, Up in the Air includes us.  Hell, “us” is even in it, and I’m willing to bet a piece of you is in there somewhere, too.

Watch this one before the Oscars, folks.  It’ll be on the quiz.

–Joey Alfino, Red Editorial Staff

Performing in such roles as the father who throws hamsters out of a window to teach his ne’er do well son Earl Hickey a lesson in responsibility on the comedy series My Name is Earl (note to animal lovers–the lesson worked and no hamsters were injured), Beau Bridges shows his versatility in numerous movies and over 80 television shows including such venerable long ago hits as Sea Hunt which starred his father Lloyd Bridges and The Fugitive as well as the very up to date Sci-fi drama Stargate SG-1 where he played General Hank Landry and Desperate Housewives.

Now Bridges, who won a Grammy Award along with Al Gore, Cynthia Nixon and Blair Underwood in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for An Inconvenient Truth, is playing the part of Detective Andrews in the Monday, December 14th episode of The Closer. In the show Andrews comes out of retirement to help with a case that was closed seven years ago.  But there’s a slight difference–back then Andrews was a man.  Red chatted with Bridges about acting in lipstick and high heels.

Were you drawn to acting from an early age? When you were hanging out on the Sea Hunt set, did you know that this is what you wanted to do?

I always enjoyed acting though I did play around in high school with basketball as something that I wanted to do, probably not as a player because I was good but not that good.  But I also realized that being a circus rat, which is what I called us, was lucky break for us. My dad loved what he was doing and since acting is such a hard business to break into and he was willing to help us break into the field, I realized what a gift that was too. And so I decided to go into acting instead.

How did you prepare for your role as Detective Andrews?

I began by stepping into my wife’s high heels. I found a dress that was too big on my wife and put it on. My wife coiffed my hair, so I went in there like that. Everything was pretty cool except for those high heels.

Did you do any other research besides dressing up?

Yes. And one thing that really became true for me is the realization they’re like any other niche of people. You can look at all race car drivers, all mountain climbers–there’s a wide spectrum of individuals who fill that niche. It’s the same with those who have sex operations. I once met a person who was very feminine, quite beautiful in an almost Hugh Hefner-type way, all coiffed, heavily made up. Then I met a person who had been a fire chief: really long hair, very much a woman, but with firm handshake. It eased my mind about this. I also believe men have a feminine side and women have a masculine side. I pick out all my wife’s clothes. I hate men’s clothes and never shop for myself. And high heels are brutal. I told my wife I’m never going to complain again that she has to hurry up.

So do you think playing Detective Andrews will give you more insight into what to shop for next time you buy your wife clothes?

Definitely.

Beau Bridges first started acting at age nine. That was in 1949 and he hasn’t stopped since.  Bridges took the time to talk to Red about the family business.

Your brother Jeff is an actor too and I read that your son Jordan is an actor as well so it truly is the family business isn’t it?

All my kids–and I have five of them–in one way or another are involved in communications. I just finished a new movie, Rush Lights with my son Jordan who just got back from Italy. My oldest son Casey is a soccer coach and is also a documentary film maker.  My son Dylan works in digital marketing, my daughter Emily is an actress, she and I just adapted a novel and turned it into a play.

Tell us about that.

It’s the only book on acting that my dad ever gave us. It’s Richard Boleslavsky’s book, Acting: The First Six Lessons, about the Stanislavski method. As for my kids, there’s only one guy left in the nest, Zeke, who is 16, so we’ll see what direction he goes in.

I met your mother and father years ago and at the time she was talking about writing a book which puts her in the communications business too.  Did she ever finish it?

Yes.  It’s called You Caught Me Kissing and is mostly a collection of her writings.  She was very talented.

She must have been a great mother too because both you and your brother seem very down to earth.

She was certainly at the hub. But dad was a real involved father too, he coached our sports, we traveled with him when he was filming.  He was there for us.

It seems like it would be fun filming with family but that also must have its own challenges too.  What is it like?

Pretty much just the fun. I worked a lot with my dad and my brother.  Acting is just a filial thing anyway, so doing it with family just adds to that filial environment.

You seem like you’re always working, what do you do for fun?

I am pretty busy.  For fun? I love growing things, we had a cold spell in L.A., it froze a lot of my plants so that was bad.  I love anything to do with the ocean and go swimming about four or five times a week and I still play a little basketball in my driveway.

Back to your role as the gender changing Detective Andrews in The Closer. What were your thoughts when you saw yourself as a woman?

I’ve been told I have great legs, for one thing. Although shaving them was kind of weird. It was a bit disconcerting in the beginning to look at myself. I always feel that for any part, that’s a magical time–when you look in the mirror as the character.

I always remember you throwing the hamsters out the window in My Name is Earl.

(Laughs) I’m in a movie with Jason Lee who played Earl.  He was all cleaned up.  He’d shaved and cut his hair. I walked right past him on the first day and didn’t recognize him.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

–Brian Kelly, welcome to Malaysia . . . err Notre Dame. All kidding aside, the Notre Dame meat-grinder is excited for some fresh blood. Brian, at least don’t write your epitaph in your introductory press conference like Charlie Weis did (”You’re a 6-5 football team.”). That’s for smarmy columnists to do.  Leave the soul-crushing to us, too.

–Lane Kiffiin and the University of Tennessee are in hot water after allegedly misusing “recruiting hostesses” to gain an unfair edge with the young, impressionable, testosterone laden minds they were recruiting. While illegal, you have to give the program credit for being more effective than another non-sanctioned NCAA recruiting group, Penn State’s “loud shouting and arguments over games of checkers brigade.”

–In the pros, the Pittsburgh Steelers have now lost to both the Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns in the past five days. Does that actually need a punchline? Al Davis is older than Queen Elizabeth’s mother? Eric Mangini is so inept he regards the Mets as a model franchise? I don’t know.

–In the NBA, Knicks president Donnie Walsh is upset that scouts leftover from the Isiah Thomas era in New York failed to draft Milwaukee Bucks rookie sensation Brandon Jennings last summer. Blaming this particular oversight on Thomas seems a bit rich, but is also quite effective. It teaches a simple lesson: if you blame it on Isiah, they will buy it. North Korea’s refusal to shutdown its nuclear facilities? Thomas’ poor coaching ability of foreign-born players. What you perceive to be runaway government spending? Isiah’s cap management. Global warming? The Hummer H3 Isiah drives around everyday.

–Baseball decided to hold its annual winter meetings in Indianapolis this week. The league’s first two choices, Salina, Kansas and Dustbin, Minnesota were both apparently already booked. One of the main storylines was the Chicago Cubs’ inability to trade malcontent outfielder Milton Bradley. Unless Jerry Jones buys a baseball team before spring training, it looks like they might be stuck with him.

–So there are even more women that Tiger Woods slept with? I forget, has he been chasing Jack Nicklaus’ majors record or Wilt Chamberlain’s, ummm, other, different record?

–So far in 2009, we’ve learned that Andre Agassi smoked meth and wore a wig, Tiger Woods has nailed more women than putts, Rick Pitino forced a woman he had a one-night stand with to marry one of his assistants and that Alex Rodriguez has paintings of himself as a centaur. Can’t somebody just show us the grip on their curveball or something?

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff