I'm not as enraged as others about the quiet, evocative poster art not being used on the Blu-ray cover of Up in the Air. It is another example of "check out what a love story this is (though it isn't)" misdirection, but welcome to the marketing world, folks. It's a tale as old as time.
The hated-upon cover art key image. I apologize for the cheap title of this post, but I'm just not feeling very creative today.
I don't think the movie (or any good movie, for that matter) deserved all of the negative press that went with being a Best Picture frontrunner. Jason Reitman took the brunt of the nastiness, deserved or not. Many young directors whose careers fast-track into the spotlight get the kind of "know your place, young man" treatment that Reitman got, but he handled it reasonably well, in comparison. UITA was one of the better movies I saw last year, and it's likely to do as well if not better on home video than in theaters.
The Blu-ray edition features a bundle of deleted scenes that were very wisely trimmed, as I can't picture any of them jiving with the final cut. Eagle-eyed viewers will be glad to know that scenes previously found only in the trailers are available here. The most striking to me were a series of sequences with Clooney in a NASA flight suit. There's optional commentary from Reitman on all of the cut stuff. The deleted scenes made this more impulse-buy-worthy than normal for me.
I've only gotten about halfway through the feature commentary track, which was recorded in December of 2009. Reitman takes point alongside DP Eric Steelberg and 1st Assistant Director Jason Blumenfeld, with Reitman most frequently commenting on favorite lines he wrote that made it into the final shooting script. Other extras include footage of a prank pulled on American Airlines, a music video, and a featurette about Shadowplay, the digital compositing company that did a bang-up job on the opening and other titles.
The Blu hit the street on 9 March. Amazon's got it for $22, but like many big-name Oscar nominees, the price is bound to drop later in the year if you can wait.