It’s hard to imagine a non-war movie capturing the American zeitgeist as clearly as Up in the Air has. Since we appear to be in a time of endless armed conflict, you can shoot a Middle East-based war movie anytime in the next several years and bank on being au courant. But to have a film about a man who makes his living by taking other people’s jobs away from them appear in 2009 calls for simply uncanny timing. I guess if it had come out last spring it would’ve been even more pointedly dead on, but still…
But Up in the Air has much more going for it than timeliness. The very sharp cast, led by George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, the traveling executioner, and brilliantly seconded by Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, takes the film into bumpy (i.e. emotionally complicated) air space—you’ll want to keep your seat belts fastened.
For starters, Clooney’s Bingham is far from the heartless bastard you’d expect. If you personally are looking for a film that will allow you to vent against the bastard who fired you, you’ll have to wait a little longer. Bingham respects his victims’ dignity, and their pain, to the fullest possible extent. He probably isn’t even lying when he tells them that this termination could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Unencumbered by a job, now they can go out and do what they really want.
Bingham’s pitch is sincere because he sees the encumbrance-free life as a Holy Grail—one that he has himself attained. He lives his life as a free man, “on the road 322 days a year,” and sees no need for personal entanglements.
It’s the job of Farmiga’s character, Alex, herself a beautiful but strangely available road warrior, to eventually crack Bingham’s emotional shell. But in Bingham’s case, “cracking shells” turns out to be as painful as it sounds. He allows himself to become humanized, or “grounded” in every sense of the word, but he isn’t careful to check that none of his miles have expired.
Clooney’s performance is a triumph. He’s had plenty of fun with his pretty-boy image, but for him his impeccable cool has always been a tool, and not his reason for being. This time he shows how that image, which he shares with his character, comes up short as an adult way of life. He lives his life in the not-so-great indoors and his good looks are starting to be a memory. He looks physically bruised, even slightly beaten—but his pain comes from the inside.
This is the story of a man who gets the point, who understands that he’s been terribly mistaken, but that realization comes too late. He’s still wracking up the miles when the final credits roll.
If you’re the type of person who has dubstep, Southern hip-hop, and Koji Kondo’s iconic “Ground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. in your streaming-music library, then Squincy Jones has created the perfect playlist for you..
Photo by Dustee Torres
DJ Squincy Jones
Super Nintendub is the name of the mix where the Houston-born-and-bred DJ mashes up all those aforementioned music genres. A capella bars from Houston heavyweights (Megan Thee Stallion, Paul Wall) and other Dirty South MCs (Three 6 Mafia, 8Ball & MJG) gets laid over grooves from underground dubstep artists (Numa Crew, Blay Vision, Hamdi). But we also get music from various Nintendo (Castlevania III, Ninja Gaiden) and Super Nintendo (Super Mario World, Final Fantasy VI) games. Jones also throws in audio samples from commercials and gaming-heavy movies like WarGames, The Wizard, and the Adam Sandler-produced Grandma’s Boy.
Needless to say, Jones has always been a gamer. He’s had his run of game systems: NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, even the old-school Atari 2600. He recalls his days blowing the dust out of such cartridges as Contra, Double Dragon, and Duck Hunt. In the past, Jones has released a series of mashup mixes – titled Blend Pack – with cover art that resembles/salutes classic video games.
“I'm a huge fan of all the eight-bit and 16-bit stuff,” says Jones (government name: Shane Rector), 41. “I play a lot of the new games, or I have played a lot of the new games, but not as much anymore. You know, being a parent and having a full-time job – you don't really have time for video games anymore.”
Super Nintendub is a sequel to Nintendub, a dubstep mix he played during a party way back in 2008. “I added some a capellas, [like] a Bun B a capella,” he recalls. “I had some other Dirty South tunes from the time. I layered them because they're at the same tempo as dubstep. Another friend that does music gave me a folder of Nintendo songs. So, I just randomly layered it on top and kinda slowed down the Nintendo music, and it sounded cool as hell to me.”
The mix picked up fans overseas when he dropped it online. “I've always wanted to make a follow-up to it because I got so much good feedback,” he remembers. “People from all over were writing about it."
Jones decided to release Super on compact disc, sold in rectangular keep cases – packaging that’s very familiar to gamers – with double-sided artwork also by Jones. (A digital link is available upon request to those who buy the CD.) While the limited-edition disc is available for purchase on Jones’s Bandcamp page, the CD mix shouldn’t be confused with the Super mix that’s currently playing on the page.
“I wanted to have them in the mix as well,” he says. “But I'm not entirely, you know, confident with my production skills. So, I just kinda had it on the side to go along with the release of this mix.”
Since releasing Super in September, Jones says he’s gotten good feedback from those who’ve bought a copy. “Because it looks like a video game,” he says, “a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, cool! Is it an actual game or an actual DVD or whatnot?’ But it's always hit or miss because some people are like, ‘Oh, man, I don't have a CD player’ or "Wow, you actually printed a CD,’ because everything's, you know, digital.”
He’s looking into playing a big-screen version of Super, where videos of the rap songs are spliced in with video-game footage and other retro clips, somewhere around here. “I was thinking like either a movie theater or somebody mentioned Aurora Picture Show, or maybe Wonky Power, to do like a viewing or showing or whatever – kind of have a party for it.”
Even though Jones enjoys merging gaming and music – his dual obsessions – he still prefers to be known as more than a video-game DJ. A veteran of the Houston DJ scene for a quarter of a century, he continues to do gigs like his upcoming monthly residency at Eight Row Flint.
“I do open-format DJing,” he says. “I've done raves and dubstep parties. I've played on the radio. I've played at Mid Main, where it’s a mainstream crowd. In this day and age, everybody has their branding or whatnot. I just love video games, so I just kind of take that as my branding, I guess.”
