Nebraska
I first remember Bruce Dern from Family Plot, not considered the best Hitchcock, but definitely the last Hitchcock and possibly my first Hitchcock. That was some 40 years ago, and this veteran actor now gets to chew some scenery in Nebraska, which won him the acting prize at Cannes, and is the newest film from Alexander Schmidt. Schmidt has garnered more consistently wonderful reviews over his career than Dern has over his of twice the duration, often for films like Election or Citizen Ruth or About Schmidt that have often been good or had their moments but not really been that good, and in the case of Sideways been downright dreadful. But he is coming of his clearly best film, The Descendants. So Nebraska... It isn't The Descendants. It isn't that good, though I venture to say some the pleasures of Nebraska might longer longer than those of The Descendants. It is much better than his raft of other never-really-that-good movies. God knows it isn't Sideways! This ...