Why Nebraska is Not as Depressing as it Looks

I've never thought of Nebraska as a particularly magical place. For one, it's the ninth least populated state in the US. I think they grow a lot of corn there? I'm not entirely sure.  Like most of the middle parts of the country,  Nebraska is merely a pit stop on the way to some infinitely more interesting place.

But it's also the setting for Alexander Payne's latest Oz meets Cervantes addition to his brilliant body of work.

Three minutes, Macgruber!

The premise for Nebraska is deceptively simple. Prickly old alcoholic Woody Grant (Bruce Dern, in an Oscar-worthy performance) thinks he's won a million dollars in a sweepstakes and wants to go to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his winnings. After some convincing, his sort-of-a-loser son David (Will Forte, the guy who played MacGruber),  agrees to drive him. Everyone knows that it's a scam, except for Woody himself, who believes with an almost religious fervor that the money is his to collect. "Why would they say that if it wasn't true?" he asks so earnestly that your heart actually aches for him.

The two men wind up in Hawthorne for the better part of the film, the small Nebraska town where Woody grew up. And, of course, their journey is ultimately more about their own relationship than it is about the prize at the end.

Forget Gosling, Bruce Dern is a real lady killer in this one.

There are many times when the film ventures into predictable territory, but Dern plays Woody with a tremendous sensibility that never fails to be compelling. It's not only his rambling gait and his hunched over posture, but his eyes, which perfectly capture that wide-open, almost child-like naivety that often returns to humans in the twilight of their life. Like Don Quixote, he believes his own delusions so whole-heartedly that, much like the town of Hawthorne, it's easy to get swept up in them. And it's damn near impossible not to root for him, even with all of his obvious flaws. 

Shooting the movie in black and white was, I imagine, a huge risk. But it's a risk that ultimately pays off. It lends the grim, Midwestern atmosphere a haunted, apocalyptic vibe. Particularly in Hawthorne, you feel like you are staring into the ruins of some long forgotten civilization. This isn't a thriving culture, but a way of life that is dying out forever. As Woody tours the house where he grew up, with his two sons and his smack-talking wife, he might as well be leading a tour through a particularly decrepit museum. 

This is exactly what my house looks like on most holidays, plaid and all.

It would get unbearable after a while, if it didn't lead into one of the greatest pay-offs of any movie that I've seen this year. 

Alexander Payne's last film, The Descendants, was full of vibrant colors, beautiful Hawaiian beachscapes, and charming ukulele music (as well as a thoroughly depressing story about a man taking his wife off of life support- but you know). I can't imagine a less likely follow-up than the bleak visuals of Nebraska. But Payne is one of this generations most effortless directors, oscillating back and forth from uproarious humor to quiet devastation. Nebraska has plenty of both. And, at any rate, the film itself is never as bleak as it's stark black and white visuals would suggest. This is ultimately a story about redemption and it's a good one which culminates in the most thrilling, slow-moving truck ride through a Midwestern town that I have ever seen. 

Why You Should Feel all the Feelings with 12 Years A Slave

I wasn't sure that I wanted to see 12 Years a Slave. I knew that it was probably an excellent film and that it was going to be nominated for all of the awards this year, but I just wasn't sure that I could stomach it. I also wasn't sure that I wanted to subject myself to two hours of movie that would ultimately make me feel horrible about a past that I can never truly understand. 

But curiosity (as well as an obsessive need to bite at every single bit of Oscar bait) won out and I wound up spending a Saturday night at the movies, in a theater full of people who were sobbing as loudly as I was. 

And I am very glad that I did because 12 Years a Slave is not only the best film I've ever seen about slavery. It's one of the best films I've ever seen about anything. 

It begins with the familiar text; “this film is based on a true story”. I’ve seen those words so many times that I normally wouldn’t think about them. But 12 Years A Slave isn’t just some approximation of America’s most terrifying institution. It’s the very real, very true story of a man named Solomon Northrop, who lived in Syracuse with his family and woke up one morning to discover that he’d been chained to the floor of a dungeon. It sounds more like a setup for a horror film than a thing that actually happened in the real world. Nevertheless, free men like Northrop were kidnapped from the North and sold into slavery.  Solomon Northrop was lucky enough to escape and wrote a book detailing his experiences, but how many more died quietly in captivity, taking their secrets with them to the grave?

Michael Fassbender is good at making friends.

It's one of the many things that 12 Years leaves you to ponder. 

There are many brutal scenes of people being whipped, raped, separated from their children, but it is the quiet moments in between those things that are even more impactful. Within the first five minutes, Solomon is beaten by a man with a board and it is awful, but not as awful as the moment afterwards, when he removes his shirt and you get just a glimpse of the ripped bloodstains on the back of it. Or the way he pleads with the man to let him keep his clothing because it was a gift from his wife and the man insists that it’s just “rags and tatters.” The violence in itself is devastating, but the existential reality is even more so. Solomon must silence his intellect if he wants to survive. He must hold back his talents. No one can even know that he can read or write.

I can't wait until the awards, when I can finally learn how to pronounce Chiwetel.

Music plays a key role in 12 Years a Slave, from Solomon's fiddle-playing to the aforementioned funeral scene to the cruel taunts of a particularly brutal overseer. So does the actual landscape of the deep South. There are so many extended shots that revel in the Louisiana wilderness where the movie was filmed. The plantations themselves are physically beautiful, which only elevates the more horrific scenes, including one where Solomon hangs from a noose for an entire day, while the surrounding people go on with their lives. 

So much of this is just an incredible accomplishment for Steve McQueen. He shows a remarkable amount of restraint as a director. This is not a film that attempts to lecture or shame anyone. And while there are certainly elements of 12 Years that are shocking, it never succumbs to sensationalism, which is an achievement on its own. It does not feel the need to preach to anyone, because there is no one underlying message here. Slavery is bad? Okay. We all knew that. 12 Years is the first film about slavery that is brave enough to say: “This is the way things were and that’s it.”

Okay, Miss Alfre. I see you. 

By the end, when a man shows up calling Solomon by his actual name, we- the viewers- and Solomon himself barely even register it. Everything but the plantation feels so long ago and so far away. I’m not ashamed to admit that I spend the last twenty minutes of the movie in tears and the very end caused me to sob. I wasn’t the only one. On the walk back to the car, in the freezing cold, my brother said to me, “Why were you crying? It had a happy ending.”

“But it didn’t!” I said and the tears started coming again. Because, yes, Solomon Northrop is a free man. He leaves the plantation, but he also leaves behind countless others who will never know a life outside of slavery. Patsy clings to him like a life raft, but he makes no promises to save her. This isn't Django and Solomon is not going to return and kill all of the white people and Sam Jackson and rescue Olivia Pope from Leo's evil clutches. This is the most painful part of the history of our nation. And like those twelve years that Solomon spent away from his family, we will never be able to take back those atrocities.

I expect that in the coming days and weeks, I’m going to continue to digest this film. I’m going to think of other things that I really liked about it and I’m going to maybe think of things that I didn’t like as much. But I will say this: If you are on the fence about going to see 12 Years A Slave, don’t be. 

Why I'm Canceling My Trip to Space (or, A Review of Gravity)

About halfway through Gravity, after having been pummeled with space garbage for the nth time and knocked around like a tether ball and almost choking to death on her own carbon dioxide, Sandra Bullock says, "I hate space." It's one of those rare instances in film where you know, the moment it happens, that you have just witnessed a moment in cinematic history. 

Gurl, I know. Space is the worst.

Because Gravity is not just a movie. It's one of those Motion Picture Event films, like Titanic or Gone With the Wind or Jaws, that you don't just sit and watch. You let it happen to you.

And also, it's a god damn masterpiece. 

This is a real, honest-to-goodness triumph for director Alfonso Cuaron. It's a visceral film that virtually swallows the viewer in the act of watching it. It's perfectly paced and plotted. It's terrifying. It's visually stunning. And the entire thing is anchored by a career-defining performance by Sandra Bullock (I hate to bring up Oscar already... but seriously). 

For me, it is also the biggest surprise of the entire year. 

Let me back up for a moment. This summer, I went to a midnight screening of Man of Steel (don't get me started on that piece of crap). Prior to the movie, we saw the 3D trailer for Gravity and, I'm not kidding, the entire theater erupted in inappropriate laughter at one point (I think when Sandra Bullock was desperately trying to grab onto the satellite and kept missing?). As we were leaving, in between complaints about Man of Steel, I said, "Can we just talk about that trailer for Gravity?" and everyone agreed that it looked absolutely terrible. 

I've never been happier to admit that I'm wrong. 

Astronauts on leashes: a character study.

It's so unusual to find a movie that works so completely, from start to finish, and in so many different ways. Gravity works as a popcorn flick, full of suspense and external conflict, incredible special effects, and mind-blowing action sequences. But it also works as a quieter, existential examination of the effects of life threatening situations on the human subconscious. It's a sci-fi opera. It's a monster movie where the atmosphere is the monster. But most of all, it's a movie about the remarkable ability of human beings to survive.

Gravity opens with text that reads, "Life in space is impossible." It's so impossible that humans literally have to build machines to house their bodies in order to live.  And those machines have never looker punier than they do in this film. Over the course of the movie, the Hubble telescope is ripped to pieces, the International Space Station completely decimated, and we are left with one tiny human body, pushed to its limits, swallowed by the blackness of space. And that's the true genius of Gravity: this is the first time a movie about space has managed to communicate the enormity of space. And maybe even the futility of human technology.

Cuaron, who has been working on this film on and off since 2006, is nothing short of a wizard. The first shot is an almost twenty-minute, fluid camera shot that would make you say "wow!" if you weren't busy gaping at how utterly fucking real everything looks. From there on out, it's all choreography, like a zero-g ballet with devastating consequences. It's so immersive and wonderful, it leaves you breathless and amazed and kind of in a state of disbelief- a remarkable achievement in the age of CGI fantasy cinema.

This is a space epic that will ultimately be listed alongside 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien and Star Trek. And it's especially hard not to think about 2001: A Space Odyssey, when watching Gravity. But whereas Kubrick's film was about mankind journeying up into space, Gravity is about making it back down to earth. And whereas 2001 was overwhelmingly a film about men, Gravity is a film anchored around the strength of a woman. But instead of getting into feminist theory in Cuaron's movies, I'll use this space to praise Sandra Bullock, who delivers the best performance of her career in this film. With a setting this immense, it is imperative that the actor puts out work that is equally immense and Bullock is up to the task. Entire scenes rise and fall to the rhythm of Bullock's breathing. There are long stretches with no dialogue and no human interaction where Bullock must emote so much intensity using nothing but facial expressions. It's easy to see why practically ever actress in Hollywood turned this role down (including Angelina Jolie... twice). But Bullock doesn't only handle the part, she kills it. And she takes the entire audience along with her, forcing them to feel everything that she feels.

Gravity is only ninety minutes long (and thank goodness, because it's ninety minutes of sweaty-palmed cinematic agony) in an age where most movies seem to tap out at the two and a half hour mark.  It's also absolutely essential to see in 3D and on the biggest screen that you can find. Nothing else would not do justice to this expansive work of art. Do yourself a favor and let Gravity pull you in.  It's nothing like any experience that you've ever had at the movies and you're unlikely to experience anything like it ever again. 

The exact position I was in on the floor of the theater, waiting for this movie to finish.

By the end, you might hate space, too.  But if you're anything like me, you probably be a little in love with it as well.