As usual there isn't a Payne film the NYT won't love or compare to Sturges.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 15 November 2013 12:56 (ten years ago) link
btw Will Forte resembles a less glam gr8080
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 November 2013 13:02 (ten years ago) link
Election is the good kind of smarmy tho; straight satire without pretense to sympathy.
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Friday, 15 November 2013 13:07 (ten years ago) link
God, that movie is genuinely merciless.
the novel is less so, and better for it.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 November 2013 13:09 (ten years ago) link
This ought to be a teaching moment, but no, we'll settle for
http://www.gurl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/west-wing-wrong.gif
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Friday, 15 November 2013 13:13 (ten years ago) link
for a movie in 1999 starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick it's as mean as I want it to be.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 15 November 2013 14:09 (ten years ago) link
Labuza is right that the digital B&W in Nebraska looks wonky... rumors of postproduction conversion from color?
well Eric, you'll just hafta tell me if June Squibb is representative of any sour old Midwestern ladies.
The woman (amateur actor) who plays the owner of the town newspaper is ace btw.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 November 2013 14:51 (ten years ago) link
I'm sure I'll have met and am related to women like Squibb. Hell, I probably am a woman like Squibb.
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Friday, 15 November 2013 15:22 (ten years ago) link
I started out liking her cemetery monologue, then thought it went too far, then felt it went just fine.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 November 2013 15:28 (ten years ago) link
I've had poops like that.
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Friday, 15 November 2013 15:52 (ten years ago) link
you ARE a dirty grandma.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 November 2013 16:02 (ten years ago) link
Byron couldn't have said it more graciously.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 15 November 2013 16:04 (ten years ago) link
Like a nylon lemon poop.
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Friday, 15 November 2013 16:06 (ten years ago) link
the It's his best! It's his worst! roundup:
http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-nyff-2013-alexander-paynes-nebraska
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 November 2013 22:28 (ten years ago) link
Flitted btwn finding this touching and condescending/over-egged, so I guess I land somewhere in the middle. June Squibb steals the movie, no question.
― Simon H., Wednesday, 4 December 2013 16:51 (ten years ago) link
It was handed to her.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Wednesday, 4 December 2013 16:52 (ten years ago) link
i thought this worked, it's not great but i didnt get condescending @ all. payne is good at tone generally imo & framing p base truths w/o harping on them too strongly as to ruin them
― johnny crunch, Friday, 6 December 2013 19:12 (ten years ago) link
boy this was crap.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 December 2013 00:47 (ten years ago) link
this starts incredibly poorly; closely resembles 1990s 16mm student experimentation; is somehow mainly trained on the guy who presumably fills in paul rudd's like ice age 3 voicework while rudd is busy; & yeah is non-stop condescending to the very thing that seems to motivate payne to make films. but i think it overcomes a lot of this, & by the end is i guess fine, failing at what it maybe most aimed to be but succeeding as a kind of '90s Jarmuschian road trip flick. Dern's performance isn't tidy enough to comment about, but there are some very nuanced, kind of masterly moments, like his disengagement at the graveyard. others, like the restaurant applause, rub our face a lil too closely into what could've been affecting. it mystifies me how payne, now, can get so close to the raw material of a good film & fuck it up (the performances are mainly bad, including squibb for the first twenty minutes, & then intermittently good), & even only really tend to his muse in such a boring way - romantic, rolling landscape shots, a bank the only momentarily convincing punctum reminding us of contemporary life. but for the last half i wasn't concentrating on these things, & aesthetic objections shouldn't get too upfront, here, if the thing underneath was penetrating enough.
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Saturday, 14 December 2013 02:38 (ten years ago) link
I don't think I've ever used the cliche "Anybody can play this part." Well, here now I will. Stacy Keach could have played Woody Grant. Will Forte will play him in twenty years; maybe he'll get Oscar notice too.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 December 2013 02:40 (ten years ago) link
and god it's so condescending to film A MOVIE ABOUT NEBRASKA in B&W.
otm. did you read the new yorker profile? iirc he splits his time between somewhere midwestern & maybe l.a., & i am struggling not to imagine him perched at some glossy sidewalk café in california writing broad-brush caricature porn about midwesterners & their dumb conversations. i ought to watch that sweet short he made again, to compare, but i feel like he's so excluded himself from the handful of directors, leigh, cassavetes, van sant, who can confer any humanity or complexity on their working-class subjects. a lot of the characters reminded me of the like "dumb kid" in the descendants - bad performances riding stereotypes with minimal evident purpose.
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Saturday, 14 December 2013 02:55 (ten years ago) link
i liked the gag where the camera pans a little to the right and stacey keach is singing "In The Ghetto"
― Hungry4Ass, Saturday, 14 December 2013 02:56 (ten years ago) link
shittily-sung kareoke as the How Folks Spend Their Time scene felt like the the condescension ne plus ultra here
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:00 (ten years ago) link
discreet shot of Tricuits in aunt's kitchen is the ne plus buttra
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:04 (ten years ago) link
oh it was cheap... but still funny. nice details in the set design too, like will forte's apartment's fridge having a jimmy john's - we deliver! magnet on it
― Hungry4Ass, Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:07 (ten years ago) link
conspicuously large tombstone in graveyard had PAYNE on it. would like to know how much of himself + his family is in this
― Hungry4Ass, Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:08 (ten years ago) link
no that's true & how they gave bruce dern a hat at the end that said CAPITALISM on it & the cartoonist from the onion comic strip popped up in the bottom right to wink
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:08 (ten years ago) link
nice.
― Hungry4Ass, Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:10 (ten years ago) link
this wasnt as good as a kelly comic, i'll admit
just read that cranston auditioned for forte's role and apparently "I don't think he's right for the part," Payne said, "but he's an astonishing actor, that guy." yeah ok homie
― Hungry4Ass, Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:20 (ten years ago) link
thought odenkirk was v good
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Saturday, 14 December 2013 03:23 (ten years ago) link
he and Forte match up as bros, and Odenkirk's "Breaking Bad" mannerisms suit him here.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 December 2013 12:48 (ten years ago) link
can we agree that woman who ran the newspaper was great?
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 14 December 2013 13:00 (ten years ago) link
Yes -- best performance.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 December 2013 13:09 (ten years ago) link
whoever does paynes casting should be lauded imo
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 14 December 2013 16:00 (ten years ago) link
A review.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 December 2013 21:41 (ten years ago) link
uh, Jon Voight is the paraplegic in Coming Home
Dern's signature '70s parts are Smile and Black Sunday imho.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 15 December 2013 05:12 (ten years ago) link
yeah corrected.
I haven't seen Smile in yeeeears and am not confident enough to about my judgment then.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 15 December 2013 05:13 (ten years ago) link
Saw Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte just last week, which all centers around his early exit. He's been around a long time.
― clemenza, Sunday, 15 December 2013 15:13 (ten years ago) link
he is killed in a flashback in Marnie
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 15 December 2013 15:59 (ten years ago) link
Takes maybe half-an-hour to find its footing, but in the end I liked Nebraska fine. I think the obvious complaint against it would be that it was conceived before it was felt; Alexander Payne has seen The Straight Story and Paris, Texas and Harry and Tonto, and he wanted to make a film like that. (He tried once already, right? I forgot About Schmidt the minute it ended--this attempt's much better, I think.) That aside--and maybe the too-ordinary performance by Will Forte; funny people sometimes rein themselves in till there's nothing left--many moments I'll take away from this. High on the list: the last five minutes, the newspaper lady, Dern's wife giving the rest of the family what for. Liked the soundtrack a lot.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 02:23 (ten years ago) link
jeezus, the last 5 minutes is crazy obvious; it feels written by a test screening.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 05:25 (ten years ago) link
I'm not sure what kind of surprise ending you were looking for. It was no more or less obvious than the ending of The Straight Story. (The really obvious ending would have been--well, I won't say, but I'm sure you can fill in the blank there.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 06:06 (ten years ago) link
Would've been OK if the endings for Nebraska and The Last Stand had been swapped.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 06:08 (ten years ago) link
I'd have settled for "I'm not buying you an air compressor, Dad, I don't have the money."
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 06:13 (ten years ago) link
I saw it on Christmas Day with a young Chinese lady. We were trying to see Her, but it was sold out. Afterwards, she asked me, "What is a compressor?"
As a midwesterner with these folks as relatives, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
― tbd (Eazy), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 06:16 (ten years ago) link
Was surprised at how much I liked Will Forte in this, but I think this is Payne's worst by some distance. If it weren't for Kristen Scott-Thomas comparing her son's cocks in Only God Forgives, June Squibb flashing the grave of her ex would have been the most embarrassing scene of 2013.
― MaudAddam (cryptosicko), Saturday, 25 October 2014 18:01 (nine years ago) link
i think the descendants was worse, maybe. neither of them was particularly good or bad IMO. payne mostly inspires shrugs chez moi.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Sunday, 26 October 2014 05:14 (nine years ago) link