Jason Reitman

Anna Kendrick, nominated for Best Support Actress at this Sunday's Oscars, says the statuette belongs to another.

Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures

Anna Kendrick doesn’t expect to win an Oscar for her ferociously perky supporting turn as a corporate terminator in Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air. That, she says, is an honor earmarked for another actress, though she coyly declines to reveal the mystery winner’s identity.

Reitman calls the shots from behind the camera on the set of 'Up in the Air.'

Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures

If there remains any doubt that Jason Reitman has arrived as one of Hollywood’s most gifted young directors, Up in the Air, his incisive new comedy about a corporate hatchet man who flies the friendly skies from one soul-crushing gig to the next, should put it to rest.

Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg battle the summertime blues in 'Adventureland.'

Courtesy Miramax

This has been heralded as the year of the animated movie, and with good reason: Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline and Up, among others, proved as engaging for adults as for children, validating a genre unfairly dismissed as kiddie fare by some critics and too many Oscar voters.

George Clooney and Vera Farmiga enjoy the friendly skies in Jason Reitman's 'Up in the Air.'

Courtesy Paramount Pictures

Ryan Bingham is suave and effortlessly self-assured, a masterful manipulator of even the messiest situations. It would be tempting to dismiss him as a soulless corporate mercenary, but there is real human feeling behind his veil of calm. That he can divorce himself from it to excel at his job – he’s a hatchet man, charged with handing out pink slips and preconditioning his victims for unemployment – is his gift and his curse.

George Clooney plays a high-flying exec who specializes in giving corporate lackeys their pink slips in Jason Reitman's 'Up in the Air.'

Courtesy Paramount Pictures

After an open weekend highlighted by the regional premieres of Lone Scherfig’s An Education and Katherine Dieckmann’s Motherhood, which helped earn star Uma Thurman a festival award, Mill Valley’s annual celebration of cinema from all corners of the globe continues through next weekend.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody ventures into dark territory in her latest comedy, the blood-soaked thriller 'Jennifer's Body.'

Courtesy Fox Atomic

Diablo Cody is living the Hollywood dream.