Film Summary: A bad tempered alcoholic father Woody (Bruce Dern) insists on collecting his $1 million lottery payout in person at an office in Lincoln, Nebraska. Unfortunately, the junk-mail flyer is nothing but a scam and everyone knows it. Humoring father's fantasy and wanting to share some quality time, David (Will Forte) offers to drive hime, where inadvertently they encounter a family reunion and painful secrets are revealed.
Brief Review: Mosey on down in director Alexander Payne's black and white motion picture and never really know where the road is going to take you. Interspersed with a landscape shots and hometown life, the first hour of the film juts along without a direct narrative. Woody is stubborn as hell, his whole family thinks he's crazy, yet David tries with all his might to try grow closer to his father that has remained distant and cold. The timeframe lingers too long reaffirming how much of Woody's fake million is a scam and the heartfelt tenderness David regards his father while others don't - especially his spitfire hellion mother Kate (June Squibb). The second half of the film is where the story finds its footing. Driving through Woody's hometown and reuniting with long distant relatives, skeletons come out of the closet as wind of Woody's fantasy fortune grows into small town glory. A dry mixture of awkward performances and genuine character evolution, Nebraska grows into a film worth rooting for and watching father and son ride off into the sunset.
Best Picks of the Day: Best Supporting Actress June Squibb
Brief Review: Captain Phillips could've easily been a movie not worth taken seriously. Director Paul Greengrass forces you to see differently in the very first ten minutes. Both Tom Hanks and Barkhad Aldi give visceral performances in this stunning thought-provoking drama that aligns itself into a claustrophobic survival tale on the open seas. Quite possibly my most anticipated film of the Oscar season, a seemingly simple hostage crisis morphs into a disturbing quest of two individuals colliding to showcase the very different ways they make their living. This could've been surface-deep Blockbuster takes us beyond action and adventure to create a suspenseful and undeniably gripping nail-bitter where end up pondering the meaning of survival.
Best Picks of the Day: Best Actor Tom Hanks, Best Supporting Actor Bakid Aldi
Brief Review: A dream world of pastel and retro boldness, Her is dynamically set in reality exploring and embracing the wondrous pros and cons of our ever-growing dependence with technology. Director Spike Jonzes' film explores the infinite and finite constructs of relationships between all sorts; person to person, person to computer. 21st century society increasingly constructs worlds of seclusion via social media, video gaming, blogs, and so on. As a non-technological savvy or obsessed person, it was hard for me to identify humankind's love affair with machine. Grounded in Twombley's (or truly any person's) yearning for human connection through a relationship with an exuberant intelligent spirited operating system, Her crafts an unusually timeless romance. Not exactly perfect yet not exactly full of faults, the film exudes as much as style as substance. And, it's one that I fear the jury is still out pondering which one radiates most.
Brief Review: Having previously seen American Hustle, I rescinded my expectations to non-existent so I could enjoy the movie with fresh perspective. Following two hours of side storylines, repetitive monologues and symbolism about cons, I felt satiated by what the 1970s "historical" film was trying to represent within the first half hour: double-crossing and duping others to con and rebuild your American dreams. Wrapped beautifully in dynamic performances by Bale, Adams, and Cooper, gorgeous production design and killer awesome soundtrack, Russell's work is brilliant for everything that doesn't involve his script or "loose" journey of following his characters. Lost in serving all sorts of scenes that make audiences feel warm and fuzzy (i.e. impromptu dance scenes, love triangles, and drug induced frenzies) without a clear resolution to all the stakes the story imposes, the biggest form of fluff is that the film is a crowd-pleaser....
Brief Review: The Oscar race is about films' ability to set the bar with specific passionate storytelling of every and all quest of life in its infinite scope. Quite a big piece to chew off, isn't it? Gravity sets the bar for all-time. When you think everything has been said about the triumph and will of the human spirit on Earth, Hollywood launches us into the outer stratosphere to show that against the greatest of gravest odds we can still manage to make it. Floating in space for two hours reveling in the themes of life and death, it doesn't seem like such a thrilling spectacle to pull off. Yet from the cast of Sandra Bullock, and yes severely underrated George Clooney, to the special effects and script, everything fits together like a masterful puzzle. It's hard to be engrossed simultaneously in hope and terror as every frame shrinks you into your chair imposing the powerful weightlessness and Stone's challenges in space. Not just another set in space mediocre Blockbuster, every little piece of this two hour not-exactly-an-adventure-thriller-drama flick made me think: I can't believe this is happening, I can't this is a real film. Walking out of the theatre, and looking up at the sky, I thanked every deity that my feet are firmly planted on the ground, and for such a movie like Gravity.
Best Picks of the Day: Best Picture, Best Actress Sandra Bullock
