"Nebraska" at Durham Library This Thursday, 1:30pm

Movie Notes by Don Bourret (donb41@comcast.net)

I could not have been more pleased when I read last year that Bruce Dern was starring in a new movie and had given an Oscar-worthy performance. I have been a fan of his for decades, through countless TV shows and more than eighty films; and I was happy to learn he still was going strong.

 The film is Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne, who a few years back directed George Clooney in the much acclaimed The Descendants. Dern plays Woody Grant, a senile, alcoholic, cantankerous curmudgeon who is convinced he has won a million dollars. He only has to travel from his home in Billings, Montana to a prize headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his winnings. He will not believe his feisty, long-suffering foulmouthed wife Kate, his older son Ross or his younger son David that he has won nothing, that what he got was just a deceptively-worded promotion from amagazine-subscription agency, the sort of junk mail people toss away by the millions. Knowing Woody is determined to get to Nebraska even if he has to walk 900 miles, David finally agrees to drive him there on this fool’s quest, actually hoping for a sort of bonding in the process.

 Nebraska is not a strong commercial project. It has no major stars, no car chases, no exploding space stations, not an alien in sight; and it is shot in black and white. It is a combination of family drama and road-trip movie. Along the way Woody and Dave encounter various family members and friends, all of whom believe Woody and want a piece of his action, which gets pretty funny at times, sad at others. I won’t spoil the ending, but you will be smiling.

 The film won a host of awards. The American Film Institute included it in its top ten films of the year. Dern won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for six academy awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Dern), Best Supporting Actress (June Squibb as wife Kate), Best Director (Payne), Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography, but did not win any. I would love to have seen Dern up on the Kodak Theater stage receiving the long-overdue accolades of his peers.

 Bruce Dern has been associated mostly with smarmy, unsavory, villainous characters. I think he just looks and sounds the part. He is strangely proud of being the only actor to kill John Wayne on screen, in 1972’s The Cowboys. Wayne had been killed often enough in films, but only by off-screen forces: e.g., Japanese snipers in The Fighting Seabees and Sands Of Iwo Jima; a giant octopus in a sunken shipwreck in Reap The Wild Wind. But only Dern did it in person. But then four years later, as if to make amends, he starred as the hero in Alfred Hitchcock’s last film, Family Plot. Google Bruce Dern and read a charming interview with his daughter, actress Laura Dern, who describes him, in contrast with his usual screen persona, as a devoted, loving father, who doesn’t smoke or drink, even coffee. She tells how upset she still gets when her father loses his head – literally – in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

 Fans of Saturday Night Live will recognize Will Forte, a former SNL cast member, as Dave. The role is as important to the tale as Woody’s, and Forte is excellent,

 Fans of TV’s Breaking Bad will recognize Bob Odenkirk as older brother Ross. Odenkirk played Saul (“Better Call Saul!”) Goodman, Walter White’s sleazy, ethically challenged lawyer. I have heard that a Breaking Bad spin-off is planned featuring Saul Goodman. That will be a hoot.

 Nebraska is a fine, serious drama with much wit and well worth your time.