UpInTheAirAndPreciousSPOILER2009

 

Introduction/Definition/etc Body Precious Conclusion Discussion Page History Page Statistics Page Views:  since creating on 20091225

 

Introduction/Definition/etc

 

Linked off of BahHumbugAndAllThat2009

making sure you have consented to hear

about trauma in the theatre...

 

Body

 

Saw it during the snow storm digging out.

Saw both, back to back.

Eyes still adjusting from getting out

of UpInTheAir, a neglectful old white

guy Oscar contender

beats up on MonIQue (sp?)

Moriah Carey (thought I recognized her)

as therapist and lots of other people

I probably don't recognize, or can't name

including the enjeneu (sp??) lead girl/ woman/

and double mother by incest.

 

I recall some parts of seeing the movies,

and wrote 11 pages of notes on some

particular situations/ vingettes, and letting it settle

some before writing it up here for others

to hear about...

 

Plus I needed something intense

to get through the holidays,

Home Alone, and preferring it this

way, as I'm Fed Up With People

and digressing back to tech,

where the laws of physics and

my own arrogance and ignorance

make more sense...

 

So Up In The Air, if I can occasionally

stay on topic.  White guy, superstar

Clooney, plays a contract corporate

downsizer flying around the USA

racking up frequent flyer miles,

giving your life packed in a backpack

Tim Robbins type inspriational? speeches,

catches this girl/ woman "who is like

him but with a vagina" to sleep with,

at a bar, sound familiar, it's in the press for

the movie...

 

He gets assigned this young uptight

Cornell grad, wet behind the ears,

and hell bent on automating the

interpersonal humanitarian? interaction of firing

people/ laying them off with video chat

and a work flow chart (sounds good

to me...)

 

She (young coworker) turns out to

be moving to live with this guy,

he breaks up with her by text message,

she falls apart, and falls into counsel/

consoling by the two sleeping together

before their next manaj a duex

(again with the spelling...) in hotel rooms

on corporate expense accounts with

jokes of "just leave the money on

the dresser", prostitute style.

 

It's hyperreal.  It is filmed to move

slow and let it sink in.

The music and stewardess/

flight attendent (in sourthern drawl

"Do you want cancer???  

A Can Sir?")

 

Others pry out of him that he is

in it for the frequent flyer miles,

playing it like a game, can he be

top score or at least on the score board.

 

He has a home that is like a hotel

room.  He's on the road/ in the air

so much, he doesn't have a life,

and frankly doesn't seem to miss it

nor want one.

 

But the little brat changes that some.

She questions his 12 year old mentality

on the dock while he is taking photos

of a Traveling Charlie? (kid photo thing)

type wedding gift photo/ activity.

Basically, take a photo of the couple

arm twisted into mailed to him

by his estranged sister

and doesn't fit in his neat little luggage

baggage size constraints as it pops it's

head out the top, falls into the water

from the dock and needs to be blown

dry...  Basically, family and others

don't fit into his life style...

 

Like Clooney's hair, it's pulled back/

perfectly in place except when he is

in bed with what appears to be a whore,

"call me when you want some fun type

girl/ woman".  Interesting.

 

She's cute in her older, not attachements

type of fuck 'em and leave up,

type of way, a heart breaker,

like Clooney himself, appearantly...

 

Nobody probably enjoys reading / watching

this calloused anger / snark/ bile/ impending crisis

waiting to happen, but the young coworker is/

was a psych student as one of her gold stars

and finally gets the first clients to fire on her own,

with him sitting next seat/ as copilot

team/ coach/ observer/ team player/

whatever.

 

As they are asked, the woman who

said she was going to jump off a bridge,

well, she did what she said she was going

to do.  Committed Suicide. 

 

"Was there any indication

that she was going to harm herself?"

Clooney's character is asked

 

"I fire 20 people per day, you are going

to have to be more specific..." he responds

dead pan.

 

"No, Not that I recall," he probably lies.

Corporations and governments,

at their best.  Gotta love business...

Nothing Personal.

 

 

Well the young girl/ coworker it was her

first real client solo, and she cried outside

about it, so he consoled/ coached her,

that if  you think about it/ "don't go there"

Everyone has a reaction to being fired,

most angry, many crying, he's a cold SOB

by design, unattached and single at

his advanced age.  She excuses

herself for calling him old, he looks in

the mirror and checks if he still has

it, Clooney having been one of the voted

hottest men in America, or somesuch,

I'm straight, doesn't matter to me...

 

His fuck buddy, says she likes a

nce smile, has to make more money,

and debate settling, young brat

coworker thinks she already has,

and the ageism gets really thick,

says the 46 year old,

but most youngins seeing

Clooney probably assume a cute

father figure...

 

But he's competition.  What they all might

want.  Rich & successful, white male,

travels, fucks around, shows the woman

his boyhood home/ high school, she

tops him by breaking in to the school

window.  Takes her on the date

to his sister's wedding.  It's hometown,

small rural America, in Wisconson,

northern Wisconson, or somewhere

heartland (no offense, just a memory thing).

 

Groom is small town, doing real estate

another depressed business,

looks like she has a winner <grin>,

and he is asked to counsel him

when he gets cold feet.

 

He calls it a copilot, as

he's never even been to bat about

getting married, had offered to walk her

down the isle, after his flying disapperance

from their lives, essentially abandoning them,

stumbles on some lame advice at first,

even the sister listening

in from the door window

looks like WTF,

 

He talks groom into it,

can't hurt his sister's feelings

anymore than he already has,

they get married.  He donates

miles to her, as the shit is happening

in his office far away,

they live unhappily ever after,

we would assume.  Another loser

marriage in a family tradition....

 

He visits hotel-room-sleeping-with-woman

at her home address, un announced

discovering she's married with children,

calls him back from a parked car,

saying he's just for fun,

or some typical guy move/ line,

I thought you understand what this was,

no strings attached, just fucking around,

call me if you are adult about it, just a fling,

how dare you visit my real life,

etc...  Should have been to the

theme song Alanis Morrissette's

Hands Clean...

 

Ending ties into a neat bow.

He gets his wish on the rebound

from being told off/ blown off figuratively

by the hotel room woman,

demeaned for who he really seems to be,

and hits the 10 million miles mark / milestone

or some such thing,

Male Pilot (ironically Marlboro Man from

"Thank You For Smoking,"

sitting next to him, as his "copilot",

has his face photo laminated on a plane

and gets a special membership

carbon fibre or titanium/ platinum type

card, his own 800 number,

with sole attendant keeping him

happy, full time, we would assume,

and lives happily, ignorantly

ever after, obviously affected

by who he is, and how he treats

people, as a job. 

Cold Bastard, but that's Just Business

in Today's World.

 

Young coworker girl gets a recommendation

to find employment elsewhere,

tried out the tech stuff in Chicago

where "they don't play" and have

had heavy losses in the auto world/

factory sector/ etc.

 

"I'm fired by a 12 year old girl on video?"

the tough guy says when they piloted

the video system...

 

Isn't That Special...

It's almost how MH people round here are...

Dig.

 

Precious

OK, Precious, that's her name and Movie Title.

[Stage Direction: Speading it up, long posting and writing

and getting hungry]

 

Getting clinical, as second virtual video/

theatre client/ case study / snarky character

assassination of the Christmas day's

writings.

 

Young loveable overweight/ obese black girl,

abused at home by her mother

trying to get benefits from the system,

uses her daughter as her whipping post,

emotiional abuse, physical abuse,

sexual abuse/ incest, her father

was fucking her and that is the first baby,

later discover Down's Syndrome

when dragged into the home by the caring

grandmother to please the beneifts worker

making schedule required a home visit

(one of the "White Bitches")

writing stuff down while there,

she's a case, not a human being,

documenting the facts for the record...

 

Like the therapist, who Precious sees

as mandated to get benes...

and lets slip out presumably by mistake

that she's incested, didn't even know what

that word was, a classmate later calls her

on it saying she said insect.  Not far from

the stereotypical? urban ghettos victims' view

that she is grease on the planet

to be wiped and whipped off...

 

Even guys on the the street bully and

push her down, woken by a dog licking

her face, she assumes/ imagines/

unconscously in a concussion?

is a make believe lover.

 

 

The flights of fancy are well crafted,

as may be disassociation and

flash back, and probably purging when over

eating, but she was forced to eat at home,

abuser asking for kid cooking at home,

it appears while running away

from home to the stressful new situation

of going to school, an Alternative School,

"what this?" or some urban slang.

 

(Note: I'm white and orignally from rural

areas, but moved to the cities when young,

and formally diagnosed dyslexic about that time,

see the UpInTheAir scenarios for compare/contrast)

 

You feel the dread of what is going to happen

next, the "walking on eggshells",

like it is with abuse situations, some of which

I experienced growing up, more verbal/ emotional

than physical/ sexual, but there were covert and

a beating, ironically over responding to a kid

hitting me with what turned out to be her big wheel,

but this movie is Hollywood and craftily edited. 

 

Viewers experience what is is like to  Live In Fear,

Where Does The Next Blow/

Bad News/ World Is Against Me Come From?...

 

Child asks for money to buy food, she's hungry,

and doesn't get it, her mother drinking, drugging &/or

sexing out upstairs,

so she goes out and visits a chicken diner type place

orders a bucket/ 12 peice?, "but hold the fries to keep

her girlish figure",  he's got to be 300 lbs or more already,

I'm guessing,

but still young girl looking to be loved,

dreaming of happiness and a normal healthy intelligent/ sane life,

mostly in TV scenarios/ situations,

replayed to come out right.  Sparkle

added in a video effect magic.

 

Analytically: Fatism/ weight descrimation along with the

race and poverty, abuse, incest and

overtones of being saved by religion,

social services...

 

Video Effects Done for Church Choir

Done for Saviour Teacher,

turns out to be lesbian couple with other woman

a writer (did she polish it into a book?),

but heteros have not treated her well,

so homos must be OK, at least she

has taken her in (presumably not molested/

further abused, [like hinted at with hospital male nurse]

played Scrabble with while the couple drinks wine,

watches those intelligent PBS type shows

she's never really seen,

basically joins the intelligensia class/Oprah world?),

when fought with her mother, got out of there with

her second newborn baby, and break into Alt school,

at night discovered as faculty and staff worker enter

in the morning, no services immediately

available in Harlem's Alternative School

Each One Teach One or similar,

credits list based on the real book Push,

something you could put down, Maybe,

instead of walking out of the theatre to run away,

some reason I don't think anyone did while I wasn't

paying attention to the other viewers...

 

 

And that is part of the reaiily of childhood

abuse, most don't realize to get out of something

that is the only thing they/ we know

 

 

The Short Of It and too many personal/ organizational

parallels to enumerate.  Dyslexic, she can't read for the

pretesting.  Goes into other worlds/ dissociates

while forced to try.  Collapses in school,

has a baby, kids in class are mean, calls

her fat while she writes her F letter

on the board (we weren't sure she would be able

to, must have been learning something). 

 

Street wise, all girls? in that class. 

During opening of class,

She speaks up in class

for the first time, to feel present, and there,

trying something new, after her White Bitch called

by intercom upstairs, mother abusing her

says she is stupid, all she is told/ grew up with,

and a social services (again saviour/

stressed case work type in a bad system

allowing all this and not catching on

i.e. incompetent)

says she is good at math, maybe her

key complement in her young existance

rarely do we see until she does the math on the jobs

she would get with Welfare To Work like

home aid position, with hours (no mention of commute)

to base pay being subsisting/ enslaved in perpetual

poverty...

 

Her teacher is her saviour, teaches her to write,

too tired/ crashing just got diagnosed with HIV,

but the baby is OK.  WRITE, she is told/ instructed.

The class loves you, the world cares,

TELL YOUR STORY...

 

And black baby Jesus lives,

and all is happy in the world.

 

Basically, black or white, abuse / neglect

happens, recognize it, get out of it,

move on. Save yourself and Help others.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Partial Summary of experience or similar

 

My suggestion for anyone thinking of seeing

the Precious movie and possibly Up In The Air,

have a therapy appointment that day, or next

day, and have a trusted friend/ community

nearby, as you will be messed up by the

experience of seeing these opposites,

both Oscar Contenders duke it out,

slug/ neglect/ cold hearted battle

for the finish line of 2009 and beyond

maybe of all time, if your life expectancy

and socio economic status are similar...

 

It's drama, not entertainment,

with a couple of comedy situations

as between bell / rounds as breathers.

 

Not to be enjoyed (if you enjoy hurting

people, you might need some help yourself,

as an abuser, and I've seen a few round here),

but experienced, if you dare. 

 

Like Paul Thorn

(up against Roberto Duran),

see/ study the DVD too.

Crafty at it's finest.

Syrianna Comes Home.

 

 

Black or white, similar experiences,

depends upon where you are from,

where you will land, or just stay up

in the air.

 

Hires people to make a film about firing

people.  Morality play.   Heart warming

Tear Jerkers, Hollywood's Finest. 

 

 

 

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