Shell, I don’t think you were discombobulated because you were watching TV while typing. I think it’s because you mentioned RDJ, Clooney and Colin Firth in the same comment.

Dan, why do I get the feeling you just cut and pasted that right off your wikipedia page? Thanks for the additional background info.

EIREGO, yes, definitely worth your money, in my opinion. If you live in L.A. or NY, you can see it next week. If not, it opens everywhere Dec. 25.

Hayley, I hoped the do-over helped those people, too.

lp13, I never saw Stripes but thought Ghostbusters was fun as hell so it’s not necessarily a guy thing.

Julien, you’re quite a Farmiga fan! Have you seen Nothing but the Truth? She’s quite good in there, too.

I also like the idea of real people having been fired and sharing their authentic experience within the movie.
Oh, and Vera Farmiga does deserve some attention! I remember her from “Breaking and entering” (good movie with great casting), “Running scared” (this thriller was an excellent surprise, it’s efficient, captivating and smarter than most action movies) and “Never forever (this film is not very well-known, yet it is a real gem, brilliant, moving… Check it out!).
Thanks for the Q&A extracts too!

Thanks as usual for this behind-the-scenes info, PCN.

FINALLY a decent movie.

While shooting the film in St. Louis and Detroit, Reitman had Joni Tackette place an ad in the paper asking if people who recently lost their job wanted to be in a documentary about job loss. He specified documentary in the ad so actors who wanted to be in the production would not answer the ad. They received a startling amount of responses with 100 responses, 60 people on camera and 22 who made it into the film. They interviewed them for about ten minutes on what it is like to lose their job in this kind of economy and after that they would actually fire them on camera and ask them to either respond the way they did the day they lost their job or if they preferred the way they wished they had responded.

Kevin Renick wrote the song Up in the Air two years prior to knowing that Reitman was working on a film adaptation to the book. He was recently laid off at the time, and is an unrecorded, unemployed St. Louis musician. He handed a cassette to Reitman after the director did a Q&A at Webster University. Reitman found a tape deck, listened, liked the song and placed it midway through the credits.

Up in the Air was the centerpiece for the 18th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival, was held November 12–22, 2009. It was shown November 14, 2009 at 7:00 pm at the Tivoli Theater in University City, Missouri with Jason Reitman and Michael Beugg in attendance. Kevin Renick, a St. Louis musician who wrote the song Up in the Air, performed half an hour prior to the screening. Yukon Jake, who performed during the wedding scene in Up in the Air, provided entertainment during the party held prior to the screening. The party took place at the St. Louis Ballpark Hilton and the Airport Hilton. Both are featured in the film.

On November 14, 2009, Paramount flew 50 members of the press to New York with Anna Kendrick, Sad Brad Smith and representatives of American Airlines to promote Up in the Air. The film was shown on the aircraft’s video monitors during the flight from New York to Los Angeles. American Airlines provided the Boeing 767 gratis. Smith performed a few songs including Help Yourself in the aisle of the aircraft.