Movie Review: "Up in the Air" starring George Clooney

Clooney works for a firm specializing in outplacing/firing people through face to face, one on one meetings. He travels constantly, 322 days/year and doesn’t even keep an apartment any more. At home in Omaha, he stays in a hotel on points.

He meets one woman at a bar, who, it turns out, travels a great deal also (Vera Farmiga). They have casual sex several times in various motels where their flight schedules intersect. After several sessions, the woman says to Clooney, Think of me as your soul mate with a vagina.

In the meantime, a younger woman, new at Clooney's firm (Anna Kendrick), broaches the concept of firing by teleconference, thus saving much travel time and money. Clooney's boss wants to experiment with this approach. In one teleconference, the woman who's just been fired says casually to Clooney and Kendrick she will now kill herself. Clooney's young associate brushes this comment off.

At a subsequent airport conversation, in between flights, Kendrick seeks conversation with Clooney and Farmiga. The latter tells the younger woman, as you get on in life, you settle for less in a mate. You just hope, though, that you're compatible. The look she gives Clooney at this point could easily be interpreted as her thinking longingly of him as the one for her.

The problem with the Farmiga character's evident world view is that a soul mate really means one who shares your fundamental, deepest values. If words have meaning, then casual sex, even on a repeated basis, is not the same as a soul mate.

At this point, Clooney has been invited to his niece's wedding. He's never been close to his sister or any portion of his family. His niece surprises him by asking him to give her away.

Clooney has a rendezvous with Farmiga and asks her to accompany him to the wedding. She asks, surprised,You mean, like a date? but agrees. Then, right before the wedding, the bridegroom is getting cold feet. Clooney, the confirmed bachelor, after an urgent request, talks to him about the need to avoid long term loneliness. Somehow, he convinces him to follow through with the ceremony.

Clooney's boss is in a mild panic. The woman who had originally threatened suicide has actually killed herself. Possibly, their firm faces legal action. In any event, the teleconference experiment is over for now and full blown travel to corporate sites and individual firings will resume.

Clooney defends Kendrick and says neither one of them had any inkling that the employee really meant suicide. This incident has caused his associate to quit. Clooney writes a glowing recommendation letter for Kendrick, which enables her to get a new job.

Before resuming his arduous schedule, Clooney decides to do what he has always avoided and embark on a chase. He knows Farmiga lives in Chicago and he finds her home address. He knocks on her door and is shocked to find she is not happy to see him and tells him to leave.

As he goes back to O’Hare, she calls him on his cellphone. He doesn't answer, but hears her message. Farmiga's indignant and asks, Didn’t he realize he was always a “parenthesis? Clooney doesn't bother to return her call.

So he resumes his travel schedule and, presumably, has been influenced by his exposure to family affairs and his talk with the bridegroom. Does he reject Farmiga's argument that casual sex with someone is synonymous with a soulmate? Will he make an effort to find a different kind of soul mate and adjust his travel demands on some basis?

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA
NoraLyn Ltd.
Books By Hills

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Movie Review: "It's Complicated"

It's Complicated, stars Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin.

Meryl Streep is divorced, with 3 grown children, the youngest just graduating from college. She has her own catering business, which seems to be doing well.

At a chance meeting at a party, she gets involved again with her ex-husband, Alec Baldwin. He's remarried, with a much younger wife and stepson, and this wife wants to have another child. He says to Streep that he's not happy in his second marriage. This results in unexpected sex and Streep enjoys it very much.

At the same time, Streep has become attracted to Steve Martin, her architect, who is helping her design an addition to her post-divorce home.

The movie explores some serious themes:

• If Streep is still attracted to Baldwin, but she had divorced him because of his cheating, are there enough values there to warrant a reconciliation?
  

• If he cheated on her originally and now he cheats on his second wife, will he one day cheat on her again?
  

• If they had grown apart before the divorce, was this the real cause of the separation, not his cheating?
  

• Although, in a way, Streep enjoys being the other woman, is this the basis for a serious relationship?
  

• Is Streep's potential new relationship with Martin worth casting aside for an ex-husband?

The script is well-written, including several portions of low-key comedy. Once, when Streep goes from her kitchen to confront Baldwin, her daughter's fiance removes a carving knife still in her hand.

Baldwin's amorous attempts seem to have ended Streep's possible relationship with Martin, who says she needs a new architect to complete the project.

These are the conflicts faced by Streep’s character. The plot of It’s Complicated ends on a hopeful, heartwarming basis.

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA
NoraLyn Ltd.
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Book Review--"Please Take My Heart" by Mary Higgins Clark

Two years ago, a young acclaimed actress is returning to New Jersey from Cape Cod. She is deeply troubled. Several days ago, she saw a man nicknamed "Jess," who seems to be the same man her roommate, murdered 15 years ago, had for a lover. She also may be worried about her ex-husband, who may be stalking her.

When she returns to her house, she sees an intruder, who shoots her several times. Later, a neighbor sees the open door, finds her, but she cannot be saved.

The ex-husband is a person of interest, but the cops don’t have enough to charge him.

Today, however, a convict, in return for a promise of a reduced sentence, says the ex husband offered him money to kill the ex wife. He later refused, but the key is, he says he talked with the ex- husband in the latter's apartment. Even more significant, he describes in detail the squeaky desk drawer from which the ex husband removed the proposed murder payment.

This is enough to charge the ex-husband with the actress’ murder. A jury trial begins.

The protagonist is the assistant DA, who leads the case against the ex-husband. Her DA boss is about to leave his office, since he is up for nomination to be US attorney general. The woman talks to the two cops who originally worked the case of the actress' murder. She dislikes one of them, although he is the DA's cousin.

The key is the ex husband's testimony. During the trial, when he is on the stand, the assistant trips him up. He doesn't understand how the con could have known about the squeaky desk drawer. He gets flustered and looks guilty to everyone.

The jury convicts him and his bail is of course remanded, pending sentencing.

However, a furniture mover in Brooklyn, who often hires men off the books, is urged by his wife to say he and the convict had moved another piece of furniture into the ex-husband's apartment. They dealt with the housekeeper at the time, since dead. He knows he left the con alone for awhile. Since the convict was later confirmed to be a petty thief, he could have examined the desk drawer and known how it squeaks.

In the meantime, the convict complains about his reduced, still 4 year, sentence. He says he wants probation or will provide additional testimony to mess up the assistant's case. There may be a question as to whether the one obnoxious cop had led him on as to what to testify to. But back in jail, before he can make good on his threat, he is poisoned.

Finally, the mover comes forward and shows how he and the convict had in fact been in the ex- husband's apartment. He provides journal entries to show he had hired the deceased felon. This is grounds for letting the ex husband out on bail.

The DA is furious with his assistant at this reversal of the case. He says that, somehow, she should have known about the furniture mover's activities. An acquittal for the ex husband will endanger his nomination. He orders her off the case.

In the meantime, a serial killer, wanted nationwide, has been living next to the assistant DA. He has targeted her as his next victim. Although now on the lam from New Jersey as well, he has returned with the aim of finishing her off.

But the assistant goes into NYC to look at the 15 year old case file on the murdered friend. What she finds is a stunning twist that may enable her to solve the case. In the meantime, she has to deal with threats to her life from two sources.

This latest Mary Higgins Clark provides expected suspense until all conflicts are resolved in a just manner.

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA
NoraLyn Ltd.
Books By Hills

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Book Review--"U is for Undertow," a Kinsey Millhone Novel by Sue Grafton

The "current" date for the protagonist, private investigator Kinsey, is 1988.

Kinsey is hired by a young man, who remembers he may have seen a body being buried back in 1967. It may have been the body of a 4 year old girl, who has long been missing after being kidnapped. First, there was a demand for $15,000, which was paid with marked money. Then, the demand was for $25,000. This too was dropped off, but was never picked up. The girl was never returned or found.

Kinsey investigates and, from her client's remembered locations, gets the cops to dig up a site. They find it was just a dog.

The developing plot and characters shift back and forth between 1963, 1967, and the 1988 present. In 1967, two other young men are part of the plot. The first, Jason, hates his stepmother. When his father and the woman are gone on vacation, he finds his father's gun. The second, Jason's friend, has a motorcycle and deals dope to fellow high school students and visiting hippies.

There is back and forth, between these and other characters in 1963 and 1967. In 1967, a mother is visited by her now-hippie son and his even worse hippie girlfriend. The latter fancies herself as a free spirit. She has a 10 year old (or younger) son, father unknown. They ask for money from the trust set up for the mother’s son, but are refused. Then, furious, they go away on their bus.

Kinsey, as always, is persistent and observant. Eventually, she finds the now-grown son of the hippie girl. Another complication arises when the young man who initially was her client is shot to death. But all these events, when pieced together, play a key role in her unraveling the case.

Several unexpected twists make the latest entry in the Kinsey Millhone series well worth reading.

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA
NoraLyn Ltd.
Books By Hills

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Member: IFWTWA.Org
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Book Review - "Evidence," an Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman

A half built mansion is a question mark that starts the novel. The structure is owned by a fabulously wealthy sultan from a small country very close to Indonesia similar to Brunei. He is Muslim, but also adheres to older pagan customs. It seems his younger brother, while in the US, may have been killed, after killing a girl. Based on pagan custom, the brother's soul needs to have his last home lie fallow, i.e. undisturbed. The half finished mansion seems to fit this strange description.

In the mansion grounds, which have a guard, cops find the bodies of a woman and man. The man has been shot, the woman has been strangled and raped with a gun.

A mysterious woman enters the scene. She is a half sister of the girl the younger brother is alleged to have murdered. In the novel, Delaware and Sturgis find that she first tried to have the house dynamited, to punish the brother's soul. Then, later, she successfully dynamites it.

The first time, she paid $50,000 to the murdered woman and man to do her work. They took the money and skipped LA to go north. This duo, when younger, were found to have been part of an eco terrorist group. Along with two friends, they formed a vicious activist foursome.

At a storage shed tied to the murdered couple, the surveillance camera shows a man taking off with a suitcase. It is believed that the suitcase contained the money taken by the couple. Presumably, they gave up the location of the storage shed under torture.

In the meantime, the woman who allegedly destroyed the structure is arrested. Since she is not strip searched, and is wearing a wig, she removes a vial of poison from the wig and commits suicide. Her mission to punish the brother is complete. Fortunately for Detective Milo Sturgis, Delaware's co-investigator, the assisting FBI agent was responsible for the woman not being stripped searched.

In the meantime, cops find a hanger with several Indonesian planes. In one of them, under a tarmac, lies the corpse of the girl murdered by the missing brother.

This novel continues the tradition of clever and persistent psychological insight and police work expected from Kellerman/Delaware stories. Alex and his Homicide Division partner, Sturgis, tie the dots together to solve a set of sadistic murders.

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA NoraLyn Ltd. Books By Hills

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Movie Review - "Defiance"

Many have asked, how could the Jews of Europe have been so seemingly passive about and resigned to Hitler's annihilation campaign? Right before and during World War II, they seemed to exhibit a sort of fatalism about the Holocaust, even though Hitler had announced his intentions to exterminate Jewry, both in writing and in frequent speeches? Some have said that this was philosophy at work, a philosophy of passivity against aggression in the hope that at least some of the tribes of Israel could survive in a hostile world. Only the brief Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943 seemed an exception, and this was known to be doomed from the outset.

Well, there was one Jewish group that did fight back against the Nazis, and at least in terms of their own escape from death, emerged victorious against them. The movie Defiance shows for the world the little known story of the Bielski Brothers in White Russia. These 3 brothers, farmers at the War's outset, not only avenged the death of their parents, but recruited a sizable group of ghetto refugees who fought back against the Wehrmacht from the White Russian forests.

The Bielski Brothers were farmers, not philosophers. However, their implicit philosophy was surely a strong commitment to justice, combining a passionate desire to live and, to the extent possible, to bring retribution to the Nazis who had slaughtered their loved ones.

Initially, the Brothers had a short term goal, to avenge their parents' murder against the White Russian police who collaborated with the Nazis. However, they wanted a longer term view, which temporarily led to a sharp difference of opinion. Should they join with Soviet Partisans, even though they were not Communist sympathizers, or should they stay and try to recruit more Jews? The second brother, Zus, decided to join the partisans, which caused a short term rift.

The oldest brother, Tuvia, on the other hand, chose the latter approach. He snuck into a near by ghetto and tried to convince its prisoners to join his small band. Here, he had to exhibit his own philosophy and powers of persuasion against the fatalism of the rabbinical leader. The latter preached that the Nazis needed Jewish prisoners as sources of labor. Also, escape would bring immediate retaliation and murder against those who did not choose to leave. Tuvia’s urging won out and a sizable minority did escape to join him in the forest.

His new band underwent the terrible hardships of Russian winters. Men who had been scholars had to join in backbreaking physical labor. Life-saving drugs had to be stolen from German campsites. Once, Tuvia, when recovering from near-death, was forced to shoot a would-be challenger to his leadership role.

After several years of movement throughout the forests and near defeat, the Bielski Brothers were re-united. By then, German reverses in other parts of Russia, such as Stalingrad, meant their campaign in White Russia had to end. This enabled the Bielskis and their band to escape. Many of them, including Tuvia and Zus, made their way to Western lines. Eventually, the two of them, along with their new wives, emigrated to the United States. Their triumph was virtually unknown until a novel and this movie brought it to a wide audience.

The movie is excellently integrated, filmed, and the script fits in perfectly with the action and conflict. Acting of Daniel Craig as Tuvia and Liev Schreiber as Zus are first rate.

Defiance deserves a full five star rating.

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA
NoraLyn Ltd.
Books By Hills

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Movie Review - "Taken"

Liam Neeson gives an absolutely memorable performance as an uncompromising moral avenger. He acts in the tradition of the earlier James Bond series and earlier Mickey Spillane novels. He is confronted by evil and he sets out to overcome the evil with all force, skill, and wits necessary. His revenge on evil is appropriate for the extent and depth of the evil.

No doubt, some admirers of the movie would class it as adventure, cops and robbers or who done it, and think no more about it. But the underlying theme of Taken is far deeper than that. Neeson is placed in a life and death situation that demands quick, REASONED, action. He uses force, even torture, to the extent necessary to get lifesaving information. But all his actions are aimed at an ultimate goal—his daughter's rescue from a life of slavery, prostitution, and, in short order, death.

When my wife and I saw the movie, we both said, We wish young people, especially young women, would see the movie and have the living hell scared out of them. This sentiment was not to be mean or petty. Rather, it expressed our concern that many, especially young people, believe they are immortal and are thus far too oblivious of the evil in the world. The proper reaction is not to be shocked speechless or rendered comatose by the realization of the evil of the movie. Instead, the realization should be that proper actions, reasonable precautions, can usually negate the power of evil.

When people underestimate the potential power of evil, they make the often fatal mistake of not leaving evil to its own devices. This mistake seems more prominent among Americans than other people in the world.

Examples of Neeson's use of a reasoned, logical approach in his quest to save his daughter include:

1. At her apartment in Paris, he retrieves her cell phone. From a phone picture of the daughter and her friend, he sees the reflection of the young scoundrel who took her picture and serves as a shill. He obviously is the one who lets his associates know of residences of intended victims.
2. Even though Neeson apprehends the young man, he escapes and is killed by traffic. Next, from former CIA contacts who have reviewed voices on the daughter's cell phone, they give him clues about the kidnappers. They are from a new, ruthless Albanian gang that has gone big into white slavery.
3. When Neeson finds the gang's headquarters, he initially poses as a corrupt cop, wanting an additional payoff. This ruse confirms that his ex-friend, now on the Paris police force, is on the take with the gang. Next, he fools the gang by asking all of them to help him translate an Albanian phrase. He hears all of them say, Good luck, and realizes which one of the gang taunted him earlier, when the kidnapper spoke into his daughter's cell phone.
4. When Neeson confronts the corrupt cop, he has already removed bullets from the gun in his home.

Neeson kills quite a few of the Albanian gang and the senior gang who auction off the kidnapped victims. Neeson follows through, all the way to the (likely) Saudi arch scoundrel who has purchased the short term sexual services of his virginal daughter. The final scoundrel, the owner of the yacht who won the sexual auction, reacts appropriately like a trapped rat. His cry, while holding Neeson's daughter at knife point, is We can negotiate. For Neeson, the answer is No, we can't, and the would-be slavemaster receives his richly deserved award of death.

If I would have added any section to the script of Taken, I would have had Neeson describe graphically to his daughter the death of her even more foolish friend. I didn't see this inclusion. Again, this would have been for the purpose of stating forcefully the consequences of foolish actions and lack of thought.

To me, the movie Taken richly deserves a 5 star rating.

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA
NoraLyn Ltd.
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Member: IFWTWA.Org
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Movie Review - "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day"

Is it possible that one day's encounter can fundamentally and favorably influence the lives of two quite dissimilar women? The answer from this movie is a laugh-inducing and heartwarming "yes."

The setting is London in September, 1938, where the atmosphere is very tense over Britain's confrontation with Hitler and Czechoslovakia. Miss Pettigrew, a 40ish spinster, is down on her luck. She has lost her nanny's position, apparently not the first time with a similar dismissal. Her employment agency tells her bluntly that they have absolutely no other position for her. By chance, she spots an open position as social secretary to a high-sounding Delysia Lafosse. She goes to the address and says the agency has sent her. Her references will be sent shortly.

Miss Pettigrew is amazed at the chaos in the apartment and life of Miss LaFosse. She is an aspiring singer and actress. Her luxurious digs are really the property of the nightclub owner where she works. Her bed is currently occupied by a hungover would-be show producer whom LaFosse hopes to seduce into starring her in his next production. To complicate things further, Delysia is really in love with a passionate piano player and singer, also employed at the same nightclub.

Thanks to Delysia's urging, and the credit account of the nightclub owner that Delysia is using, Miss Pettigrew also gets a bit of makeover. This makes her look at least more like a social secretary.

In the meantime, before teaming with LaFosse, Miss Pettigrew had stopped at a soup kitchen. In the alley, she had spotted a well dressed woman passionately kissing a man. Now, in Delysia's employ, she attends a function and sees the same woman. She meets the man whom the woman is engaged to. He does not know of the woman's affair, and she threatens Miss Pettigrew with exposure as a soup kitchen vagrant. At the same time, Miss Pettigrew and the man, a wealthy businessman, are taken with each other.

When Delysia goes to her night club, she finds out that the producer has doublecrossed her and has another lead. Her boss, the nightclub owner, is watching her with a jealous eye. Her passionate boyfriend changes the musical sequence so the next song for her is "If I Didn’t Care." Even if the Inkspots didn't popularize this until the 40s, the words fit in beautifully with the plot. Delysia sings it passionately so that her love for her piano player is obvious. Then, the boyfriend and the nightclub owner slug it out and the boyfriend wins.

In the midst of this brawl, a test air raid siren begins and the nightclub empties. Delysia has taken refuge under the piano, with Miss Pettigrew close by. When the young woman cries for advice, she confesses that she is not an aristocrat, but the daughter of a Pittsburgh steelworker. Miss Pettigrew opens her heart as well. Her one true love was killed in World War I, before they could be married. She urges Delysia (actually Sarah) that, even if stage roles and nightclub fame are glamorous, she shouldn't let true love (with the piano player) slip by.

Miss Pettigrew takes her own advice when she has the chance to sit and talk with the businessman. Their affection for each other is obvious. Then, the other woman breaks in and says she is going to expose Miss Pettigrew as a tramp, as revenge for her own affair being exposed. Miss Pettigrew runs off in despair. However, the businessman tells the woman that Pettigrew had said nothing of the affair (tantamount to shooting oneself in the foot).

The next morning, Pettigrew finds that Delysia has taken her advice and is going off with her true love, the piano player. He has secured employment for them on a transatlantic ocean liner as a combined act. The young man calls her, "Hurry up, Grub" (her real name), but it's an obvious call of affection.

Now, Miss Pettigrew is sitting in a railroad station. Presumably, she got a little money from Delysia. Where she'll go now and what she'll do are up in the air. But then the businessman finds her and says he has looked all night for her. He asks her to please stay in London and join him now for breakfast. Although Miss Pettigrew hasn't eaten in over 24 hours, it is obvious that her elation is from much more than mere dietary satisfaction.

Norman E. Hill, FSA, MAAA, Member AICPA, ASCPA
NoraLyn Ltd.
Books By Hills

"Winner and Final Chairman"
Member: IFWTWA.Org
Member: Society of Professional Journalists