I hate it when films make me cry

We saw Up In The Air last night, which I'd been looking forward to since hearing the rave reviews emanating from the US. It was, to put it mildly, fantastic.

It's not often you get a solidly good movie with good writing, direction and acting that doesn't take any short cuts, spoon feed the audience or take the cheap way out. And there's one scene about halfway through that just blew me away (the three way conversation, he says, in as unspoilery a manner as possible).

Plot: George Clooney plays a career transition counsellor (he fires people for companies that are too cowardly to fire their own employees) who spends his entire life on the move - living in hotels and thinking of the airports and airplanes as his real home. His life is turned upside down when his agency decides to start firing people using teleconferencing instead. And that's as much as I can tell you without spoiling it. Let's just say that they needed someone as charming as George Clooney to make the main character likable - and that he really is. I was worried the movie was going to be terribly bleak, but it really wasn't.

Highly recommended.

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 1-26-2010

• Securing Disaster in Haiti - how the US is fucking things up
  (tags: haiti occupation usa)

Today

Have rewired a plug for the first time in my life. Why do we still have slotted screws? Surely we should have all moved to Phillips (crosshead) screws by now? Or are they still patented?

Flat still a mess, but we have a bit of floor to put a mattress on for tonight - no point putting the bed back together as the bedroom is being used to cut flooring to size. After dinner (dauphinoise potates are cooking as we speak) we'll be shuffling stuff from room to room so that the study can be done tomorrow. Sooooooon.