Telluride Gets High on "Up in the Air"

Last year's Telluride "secret" was "Slumdog Millionaire" (and we all know how that story goes), so this year's selection has big shoes to fill.

"Up in the Air" is living up to its name to the point of self-parody, winning unanimous buzz as the first major studio title to really take off, bolting to the tops of precursory Oscar charts and Best of 2009 lists within hours of receiving rapturous reception by the Telluride crowd.

George Clooney is in rare form, nicely liberated from the politically charged routine of recent roles to play a lonely, privileged business traveler whose extistential crisis becomes a layered with reluctant romance and the personal impact of economic decline.

Basking alongside Clooney and Farmiga under Telluride's showers of praise is 24-year-old Anna Kendrick, a familiar face to the legion of "Twilight" junkies who will recognize her as Bella's BFF from last fall's ludicrous box office phenom. Otherwise, Kendrick remains a stranger to the moviegoing public, who almost unanimously ignored the 2007 art house also-ran "Rocket Science" (one of the final nails in the Picturehouse coffin) and are seriously missing out on a rare high school comedy with a uniquely measured comic bite and just enough quirky intellect to compliment the genre's typically angsty dramatic heft without stealing its thunder.

New Line's doomed boutique division paid $6 million for distribution rights at Sundance, as "Rocket Science" sparked the same obligatory bidding war between indie big guns and the studio boutiques that predicated hitting crossover paydirt for prior Park City hot tickets like "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Garden State." Those few sparks were about it for "Rocket Science," which barely grossed $700,000 before ending its theatrical quickie just four weeks after opening, sealing the deal for Picturehouse.

Still, the lucky handful that actually saw the film handsomely rewarded with Kendrick's dynamite performance the razor-sharp debate team dame. While Kendrick continues to sleep through the franchise as second banana ("New Moon" rises on November 20, with "Eclipse" to follow on June 30), she's on the fast track to a great career.

Kendrick has been a slealth buzz-magnet for Oscar-watchers since news broke last spring that a relative unknown had been cast in the role that every starlet in Hollywood quickwitted counterbalance to the quintessential leading man. She's instantly magnetic and wildly funny, just the sort of Supporting Actress roles voters eat up en masse.

After marking his directorial debut with the snarky social commentary of "Thank You for Smoking," Jason Reitman (son of Ivan, natch) took just one read through the sharp script he'd been handed on the street that afternoon by some stripper named Diablo he knew the hyper-articulatethe cultural phenomenon would becomethinthat was "Juno," something notably grown-up.

It safe to say the youunger Reitman successfully stuck his landing.