Nebraska

The surprising thing about Nebraska is not Bruce Dern's canny performance as the cranky, old coot. Dern is a revered Hollywood character-actor and odds are the role of a lifetime would come his way sooner or later. What’s truly surprising and new about Alexander Payne’s road-trip dramedy is Will Forte. Comedy, the character-based, SNL type improv, is hard. Forte did his time and practiced his craft, sometimes playing characters you roll your eyes at and jump on the fast-forward button. (see "The Falconer") But as part of an ensemble he learned to listen and to “give and take.” And the give and take between him and Dern as father and son is pure and laudable.  The road trip aspects of this reminded me of Sideways and About Schmidt, two movies I loved. Nebraska was a little to bleak and bitter-sweet for me to fawn over it unabashedly, but it’s the best version of its kind of thing, and well-

worth seeing.