Nebraska (2013)

September 12, 2014 6:58 PM

An aging, booze-addled father makes the trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim a million-dollar Mega Sweepstakes Marketing prize.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (8 comments total)

This is one of those films that was a perfect viewing experience for me: the cast, writing, direction, scenes, and quality of the film was far above what I expected.

I don't want to be too glowing here, but it's definitely the best film I've seen in the last five years, and is an antidote if you're tired of seeing the same teenage-obsessed films churned out by Hollywood. This felt like a real adult film with difficult adult issues, and handled them beautifully.

I wish it had won at least one Academy Award, it certainly deserved it.

Will Forte is just incredible in this film - and does well in playing a character that is angry with his father but not so much so that we lose sympathy for his character. Just an incredible performance and I hope he gets more good roles.

I was never a Stacy Keach fan but my god he's good in this! He has a small (comedic, yet menacing) role. And of course Bruce Dern - probably the best performance of his career.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:55 PM on September 12, 2014

Interesting. I didn't love this movie. Like, it had a bunch of elements I liked, but it just didn't come together or feel true. I didn't believe the story, I didn't love Bruce Dern either for reasons I can't totally pinpoint but somehow I just didn't fully buy him.

One thing I thought was interesting was there were these sort of semi-professional seeming actors (I can't recall if they were actually non-professionals or just came off that way) and their performances were mixed in with these more professional actors and I didn't not like that part, but it stood out as interesting and unusual to me.

This movie reminds me a bit of The Straight Story, I guess because old guy on a road trip. I liked The Straight Story though.
posted by latkes at 10:45 PM on September 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

(jcifa, you're watching a lot of movies right now!)
posted by latkes at 10:46 PM on September 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

My spouse summed this movie up as well as I've seen anyone do it: it's about grace. Grace in the face of stubbornness, small-mindedness, and ill fate. Forte's work was amazing, and the rest of the cast ably supported him. One of the best movies of the decade, and some day it will be rediscovered, and people will be appalled at how little attention it drew in the theaters.
posted by Etrigan at 11:17 AM on September 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

Is this movie on streaming video anywhere?
posted by Mr. Justice at 6:14 PM on September 13, 2014

Mr. Justice - I ran it through Can I Stream.It? and here are the results.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:26 PM on September 13, 2014

A wonderful interview with Bruce Dern in Runners' World; he's a life-long and obsessive runner. On Nebraska:

That was 10 years ago. He couldn't get it made. Couldn't get it made with me. Certainly couldn't get it made in black and white, and you couldn't shoot that in anything but black and white. There's no color out there, first of all. My arch rival in college was a kid from Emporia State University in Kansas. I said, "You come to my gym and we'll run together, and I'll go to your gym and we'll run together." I went out there and it was just a fuckin' wheat field and the wheat was all dead because there was no water. I mean it's bleak.

posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:58 PM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Right as Bruce Dern started ambling down the road in the beginning, before you could even really make out his face, my cousin turned to me and said "look, it's my dad." And I'll be damned if he didn't look just like my uncle will look in about 10 years. That made me so much more sympathetic to his character.

The family dinner was so great.
posted by lyssabee at 5:32 PM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]