Top 5 Movies to Watch When You're Unemployed

If any of you faithful readers have been wishing I would have more time to write blog posts, your wish was my former employer's command! I'm currently unemployed.

Being out of a job isn't all bad. I mean, there are the late night panic attacks about what I will do if I can't pay my rent and have to sleep on a weathered Amazon cardboard box on Hobo's Row on 31st St., and belt-tightening measures like canceling cable and buying wine in a box instead of a bottle- but it's not all bad. Like Burgess Meredith in the famous Twilight Zone episode, I have time enough at last to watch all the movies my DVD collection and Netflix can provide.

Here are my Top 5 movies about folks who are out of work- and tips on how to get by until that next great opportunity arrives:

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Hot shot movie director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is tired of making light-hearted Hollywood fare. He wants to make the great American movie about the great American novel O Brother, Where Are Thou? (Yes, the Coen Brothers paid homage to that fictitious title by naming their Depression-era musical after it.)

Sully plans to tell the truth about America's forgotten man, and promptly gets a costume designer to fix him up in the latest hobo chic to join the unfortunate rail-riding men who can’t get a job or a break. After ditching the press corps and picking up a game starlet (the always well-coiffed Veronica Lake) Sullivan learns that life on the other side of the tracks is a desperate struggle for survival where laughs are as hard to come by as pieces of pie.

Sullivan is writer/director Preston Sturges' most ambitious picture. While he was known as a master of farce, this film questions the very validity of comedy. In a society that had struggled through the Great Depression and was on the brink of the Second World War,  Sullivan's Travels asks, how can we laugh when there is so much ugliness in the world? Sturges' answer- Because that's how we'll make it through.

Unemployment Tip #1- Take time to have fun. It helps. It really does.

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

This movie is one of my favorite dramas. Joe Buck (Best Actor Nominee Jon Voight) leaves his dish-washing gig in po-dunk Texas and heads to the big city to be famous as- well, as a cowboy. It's hard to say what the naive Buck intends to do to make it in the Big Apple so he resorts to hustling with what he thinks is a Park Avenue sugar mama (Sylvia Miles in an Oscar-stealing turn), a religious nutjob (a decidedly non-Disney John McGiver), and a yearning student in a porn theater (a young Bob Balaban).

None of these tricks is enough for him to get by- so he goes back to the condemned building he shares with pathetic grifter Ratso (Dustin Hoffman in a gut-wrenching Oscar -nommed performance- even if he's been a real heel of late.) They are a pair of losers without jobs, but they still hold on to their palm-tree shaded dreams.

Unemployment Tip #2- Friends are super important when you're out-of-work. They can raise your spirits and help you make the contacts you'll need for your next big break.

Tootsie (1982)

I didn't plan on having two Dustin Hoffman entries in this category, but apparently he likes to play guys who are out of work in NYC. Tootsie stars Hoffman as Michael Dorsey, an actor who can't get anyone to hire him. They don't understand his art says Michael. You're a pain in the ass to work with says his agent (Sydney Pollack who also directed). Michael decides to show everyone by auditioning for a role in a soap opera as a woman- a gamble that pays off when he is not only cast, but becomes the next 'It' girl.

Michael gets tired of his double D life when he falls in love with co-star Julie (Jessica Lange who won Best Supporting Actress the same year she was also nominated for Best Actress for Frances.) How he solves his gender conundrum is one of my favorite movie moments and earned the film ten Oscar nominations.

Unemployment Tip #3- Think outside the box. The next great job might not be exactly what you did previously.

Up in the Air (2009)

At the height of the most recent recession, who in Hollywood said, "Let's make a movie about a guy who fires people for a living?" Director/Writer Jason Reitman- and with six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, he was right. Up in the Air opens with a montage of corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham (Best Actor Oscar nominee and all-around suave king George Clooney) canning people. It's hard to say if it's more funny or devastating.

As Bingham flies around the country handing out pink slips like Altoids and pronouncing advice to his new protege Natalie (another Oscar nominee, Anna Kendrick), he begins to see the empty futility of his "What's in your backpack?" life and falls in love with his airport bootycall (yes, another Oscar nominee- Vera Farmiga.) The film expertly walks the tightrope between cynical and schmaltzy, making the point that life is full of chances- whether they come in the form of that uncomfortable call to the HR office, a fleeting airline lounge conversation, or a cinematically-timed epiphany.

Unemployment Tip #4- You're not alone. Lots of people lose their jobs. Talk to some of them and find out what they did to get to their next chapter.

Two Days, One Night (2014)

Marion Cotillard is one of the most thrilling actresses working today, and this dark Belgian gem proves it. Sandra (Cotillard) is a single mother who after taking time off for a nervous breakdown, returns to her job at a solar panel plant.

Unfortunately, her co-workers did such a great job of covering for her, the company has decided her position is redundant and with her gone, they can give a bonus to the remaining workers. Sandra begs for another chance and her sadistic boss tells her that if she can convince her co-workers to give up their bonuses, she can keep her job.

The rest of the film is her desperate quest to connect with her associates over a weekend and save her job. It's heartbreaking. Cotillard is so raw and fragile and frantically compelling. Each small bit of hope she digs up, brings us to the edge of our seats. She earned an Oscar nom for the effort, but that was also a job she lost.

Unemployment Tip #5- Be persistent. Sometimes you can't take 'no' for an answer.

So, if you're out of work (like moi) know that movies can show you how to get your next big break- or at least entertain you in the meantime.