its not a personal opinion...many of these small movies arent doing much business in the theaters. Alexander payne has never become a brand that can put butts in seats because his directorial style and the stories he chose to tell never have that intoxicating feeling that some of the other filmmakers' have.
Up in the Air grossed $83 million dollars domestically and $166 million dollars internationally. It has about 310,000 votes on the IMDb, putting it in the top 20 most rated films for the year that it came out. It shares space in that top 20 with films like
Inglourious Basterds,
Star Trek,
Avatar,
Watchmen,
Up, one of the
Harry Potter films,
Transformers,
The Hangover, and
Zombieland. Payne's
Sideways grossed $109 million, while
Descendents grossed $177 million. (And both of those films had a budget of $20 million or less).
I really liked
Up in the Air. It was about someone who has honed both a professional self and a personal philosophy who suddenly has both of those things called into question. If you've made it to your 30s or 40s, this is a common piece of soul searching that a lot of people go through. "I'm good at my job. I've figured it out. But is this who I want to be for the rest of my life?". It's about how shifting priorities can make you suddenly realize that something you've placed importance on isn't anything special, as in the scene where the main character hits the 1 million miles traveled mark on the airline and suddenly that's not something to be proud of. It's kind of sad.
Films are capable of engaging us, as viewers, on a lot of different levels. I watch a ton of action and horror. I know the thrill of immediate, plot-driven stakes.
The Man from Nowhere is one of my favorite films, and there's a whole lot of knife fights and trying to rescue people from bad guys. And there's certainly something to be said for well-made spectacle, like the high-quality stuntwork that you get in something like the
Mission Impossible franchise.
But sometimes the stakes are emotional, and the action that comes along with that isn't as adrenaline pumping.
Two Days, One Night is about a woman who can keep her job if she can convince her co-workers to give up their annual bonus. That's it. Most of the film is just her character having these quietly desperate conversations with her coworkers, trying to convince them to vote to give up their bonus. But I was genuinely on the edge of my seat for the last 20 minutes. As other posters have said before (and it goes back to an old Roger Ebert quote), movies are empathy machines. They let us feel what someone else is feeling and understand their point of view. Letting yourself sink into someone else's point of view--to imagine what it would be like for your job to hang on the whims of your co-workers--can be its own kind of intoxication.