Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air," which stars George Clooney as a corporate grim reaper, presents a thorny marketing challenge for Paramount Pictures, the studio that helped finance the picture and is distributing it. The film's release on Friday comes as the nation grapples with the worst economic downturn in 70 years, and the movie prominently features a theme -- getting thrown out of work because of cutbacks -- that could alienate potential moviegoers too pained to watch on the big screen what they are all too familiar with in real life.

Read more from the Los Angeles Times [1].