By now I was supposed to be married to Elijah Wood,

and we were supposed to be having our first child. Clearly that did not happen, for many humorous reasons, like the fact that we've never met.

I was reminded of this plan that I had created for myself in middle school when I saw Up in the Air this week. In the movie, George Clooney's new young colleague Natalie explains that at 23, she expected to be driving a SUV with a baby, and married to her boyfriend, whom she doesn't really like, but who fits her expectations because he has a one-syllable name. That made me laugh. Marrying someone because his name is Matt or Dave.

Anyhoodle, I really liked Up in the Air. I know, it's crazy! It is the one movie I have seen in a theater this year that I liked. And it only took till December.

* Spoiler alert for those of you who want to be surprised. *

I liked that there were strong, honest roles for women. Of course, all of those roles went to white women who were fairly thin. There was one black woman with a speaking role in the movie, but by the end of the story, she was no longer with us. Also, I did not need the naked bum-bum or side boob in the first hotel room scene, unless that bum-bum happened to be George Clooney's. Alas, it was not. So yet again, as throughout most of film history, the woman with the biggest role in the movie had to be naked in it. And she is 12 years younger than her male counterpart. Well done, sister suffragette. Votes for women, step in time.

In addition to having realistic female characters who were not berated for their life decisions, I also liked that there were not happy endings for most of the characters. This was the kind of movie I had hoped for when I saw (500) Days of Summer, but my hopes were not met.

My favorite part of the whole movie was George Clooney's sister, Kara. She was played by Amy Morton, whom I almost immediately recognized as Thomas Ian Nicholas's mother in Rookie of the Year. I know! The best part was that she has not pulled up her face past her eyebrows like many other actors in Hollywood. She looks like a normal woman living in Northern Wisconsin.

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This reminds me of that South Park episode

when either Stan or Kyle goes the goth kids' table and asks them about death, since they've chosen "the dark side" to define their collective personality. But the goth kids don't really know about death; it's just a trend that they are following to be "different".

Warner Bros. Left With A Major 'Dark Knight' Marketing Problem, from Defamer.

And so, with two days to let the devastating news sink in, Variety now asks the inevitable question of what's to be done with Heath Ledger's final projects--the wrapped The Dark Knight, and Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus . . .

As we pointed out on Tuesday, The Dark Knight's focuses squarely and gruesomely on Ledger's chillingly effective performance as The Joker, providing an unwelcome creative predicament for WB's marketing czar . . .

I am not fully aware of the story being told in this latest installment of the Batman movies. But if I can tell anything from the poster featured in the Defamer article, The Dark Knight is supposed to be super creepy due in large part to Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker. Now the gang at Warner Bros. is faced with the fact that the grotesque, macabre nature of their original marketing plan can't begin to compare with the disturbing reality: a successful young actor dying of a self-induced drug overdose before that actor had even reached his peak.

That said, let's move on to my favorite comments.

JupiterSpaw says:

Nolan in post-production reintroduces secondary villain previously left on the cutting-room floor: The enigmatic Quantum Solace!

which is a reference to this latest casualty of the writers' strike: Producers Decide 'Bond 22' Not Catchy Enough, Decide To Go With 'Quantum of Solace'.

Now for more comments.

Her Royal Empress Dr. Bufflekins III, Esq. says:

Seems like a great opportunity for the project to scale back the Hollywood hard-on for marketing everything within an inch of its life until I can't imagine wanting to see it anymore . . .

BonnieGrrl makes way too much sense by saying:

This might sound crazy -- but why not just put Batman on all the posters again? Too simple?

To see what SteamyMcFirecrotch said to give me the most inappropriate of church giggles all day, you can click here.

FYI, the Batman featured above is George Clooney, circa 1997.

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