Who wants to be a millionaire? Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) that’s who. He’s a Don Quixote character of “Nebraska,” tilting at windmills, clutching a worthless ticket he thinks is worth a million bucks.
When we first meet Woody he’s walking to Lincoln, Nebraska from Billings, Montana. There’s erasable and then there’s Woody, a cantankerous man who thinks the “You may already be a winner” notification he received in the mail is a ticket to a fortune. But at the rate he’s going it will take him months, if not years to make the journey to claim his prize in person in a city two states away. “I’m going to Lincoln if it is the last thing I do,” he says.
After several failed attempts to hoof it to Lincoln, Woody’s son David (former “SNL” star Will Forte) offers to drive him. He knows the ticket is of no value but sees the trip as a way of spending some time with his father.
As father and son travel across flyover country, through landscape as weathered as Woody’s face, David pieces together fragments of his father’s life to form a fully developed picture of who the man he calls Dad really is. The trip is both physical and emotional.
“Nebraska” is a plain spoken but lyrical black-and-white film about a man grasping at a last chance for a legacy and a son who understands the ticket is worth more than money, it is the thing that gives Woody something to live for.
Sounds serious, and its ideas about how children interact with their aging, ill parents certainly have weight to them, but director Alexander “Sideways” Payne ensures the film is nimble and very funny in places.
The humour doesn’t come in the set-up-punch-line format but arises out of the situations. A scene of Woody’s gathered family—his elderly brothers and grown sons—watching a football game redefines the word taciturn but the subject of the sparse conversation, a 1974 Buick, is bang on, hilarious and will likely sound familiar to anyone with a large family.
Dern hits all the right notes, adopting the blank stare of a man overwhelmed by life for most of the movie. It’s a simple but effective performance in which Dern strips away almost all the artifice and presents a raw, unfiltered take on aging.
Dern shares virtually all his scenes with Will Forte. On the surface Forte’s casting is a strange choice. He’s best known as a comedian and while he has the odd funny line in “Nebraska,” he is primarily required to do much of the dramatic heavy lifting. It took me some time to divorce his most famous character, MacGruber, from what I was seeing on screen but soon enough his straightforward performance drew me in.
Supporting actors are carefully cast. Stacy Keach, who does a mean Elvis Karaoke, is suitably menacing as a former business partner who tries to cash in on Woody’s alleged new wealth and Tim Driscoll and Devin Ratray as thick-headed cousins Bart and Cole will make you long for the heyday of Beavis and Butthead.
Near the end of “Nebraska” there is one shot that sums up the reflective feel of the film. Peg (Angela McEwan), one of Woody’s ex-girlfriends, sees him in town for the first time in decades. They don’t speak, but the wistful look that blossoms across her rugged face perfectly visualizes the movie’s contemplative examination of a life lived.
“It was the idea of connecting with another human being at a deep level,” that attracted John Bourgeois to acting. “I think that is what all artists try to do. We try to penetrate and get through to other people. To feel connected,” says the veteran mainstay of stage and screen.
“I came from a loving but troubled family that experienced the usual catastrophes (drugs, alcohol, adultery, divorce, debt) so there’s wasn’t a lot of support for higher education or culture.”
“That said, when I told them I was going to be an actor they encouraged me to go for it. Both my mother and my father had searing regrets for the roads not taken so they didn’t want me to have the same experience.”
He came across his love of acting quite by accident while studying journalism at Concordia in Montreal.
“It wasn’t until I was in second year university and honestly I needed to do a course where I didn’t need to write a paper,” he says. “So I took an acting course on a Monday night. That was it. I was bitten. I did a scene from Death of a Salesman and it was transformational.
Around the same time he worked as a production assistant on a film called Blood Relatives and for the first time saw how a performance was created.
“I had been around actors in my younger life and I didn’t know what they did until I saw a specific performance. I saw it being created and I went, ‘I see what this person is doing and it is really quite a craft they have going there.’ It wasn’t just showing off.”
That actor was Donald Sutherland. “I was his driver on the movie. Sutherland is a very thoughtful person and his approach to his work was very thoughtful. That changed my view of the craft.”
Despite booking three plays in his final year of university and thinking, ‘How hard can it be to make a living at this?’ he says, “the struggle, at the start, it’s mostly a financial one. There’s always a danger that the hustle will distort your character. That very nearly happened but I was fortunate to meet some very honest and good people along the way who kept me from self-destructing. So yes, I would do it again.
“Being an actor means being a great observer and that’s a great angle from which to experience life. Besides, resistance sharpens the senses and makes us keenly aware of the passing moment. And surely being present and connecting with others is what it’s all about.”
That passion for acting and relating to audiences hasn’t dimmed over the course of 100 plus film, television and stage roles—“You have to wear a lot of different hats in order to make a decent living,” he says—but recently, in addition to co-starring with Whoopi Goldberg in the TV movie A Day Late and Dollar Short, he has discovered a new way to practice his craft.
“I came to teaching relatively late,’ he says of his job as program director of Acting for Film and Television at Humber College. “The biggest revelation to me is that it is as much a craft as any other you can think of. It is a form of performance. You’re standing in front of people, talking. What I have discovered, when you teach you discover stuff about your craft.
“It puts your own relationship to your craft under a magnifying glass and you become fascinated by what it is that frees up creativity in an actor, how you can equip them with the right toolbox to give them that sense of liberation in their work. It is immensely gratifying.”
With a lifetime of experience under his belt he has some great advice for his students.
“Don’t ever wait for the phone to ring,” he says, “That’s a waste of time and energy. Instead act. Anywhere and everywhere. Make your own work. Love the craft and above all protect your talent from the harsh realities of the business. Find ways to practice it. Train with leading practitioners like at Humber. Produce a play. Make a web series. Act. Do. Everything else is gossip.”
SIDEBAR:
In his latest gig Ottawa-born actor John Bourgeois is stepping into some very big shoes. In the dramedy God of Carnage, now playing until December 15 at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto, he’s lawyer Alan Cowan, previously played by Jeff Daniels on Broadway and Christoph Waltz on film.
He’s seen both productions but says neither inspired him. “I’ve been doing this for so long so I don’t find myself as easily influenced as I was when I was a young actor,” he says, his booming voice echoing down the line on a break from rehearsal. “I think young actors are more susceptible to those iconic influences.”
Instead, he drew on personal experience to build the character.
“I’ve known quite a few lawyers who are A type, personality driven, really competitive, hyper focused but sometimes they are a little socially tone deaf and that’s where I picked up Alan.”
In a recent tweet-a-thon to promote Delivery Man Cobie Smulders teased that people should go see the film because Chris Pratt gets naked.
“He doesn’t get naked,” she says a week later, admitting to the fib.
“That was very overwhelming. I had never done that before. There were 9000 tweets and I didn’t know what to do. It was crazy. I was trying to write and my phone was (shaking).”
The Canadian-born How I Met Your Mother actress stars opposite Vince Vaughn in a remake of Starbuck, a popular French-Canadian film about a man who finds personal redemption when he learns he is the father of 533 children.
“I went into watching Starbuck and then reading this script, like, ‘533 kids… from a sperm donor! What’s this going to be?’
“It’s still super funny, but I found myself affected by the way he connected with the children. The way they connected as human beings. Going out and doing a good deed and having it affect somebody in a positive way. I’ve always believed when you do good, you get good in return. That’s when I feel my best and there are many aspects of that in this film.”
The sweet, uplifting message of Delivery Man struck a chord with Smulders who says she “related to it on a parental level. I’m a mom myself and I think it touched upon so many themes of family and of being a parent.”
The story has also resonated with audiences.
The original film was 2011’s most successful homegrown film in Quebec. Smulders thinks the appeal of this very specific story has to do with its universality.
“It’s a blown up version of something that happens in real life,” she says. “You had a relationship when you were younger and all of a sudden a woman contacts the father and, ‘Oh, by the way, you have a seven year old.’ Obviously there is room for comedy there but everyone wants him to step up and be the hero and watch him do that journey.”
“We were so lucky to have [original director] Ken Scott. He did it so well the first time that he was able to do it a second time and have those same sentiments in it and spoken in English.”
Now there’s even talk of a Bollywood remake.
“We should have done a Bollywood song and dance at the end of our movie,” Smulders laughs.
Is Stanley Tucci the busiest actor in Hollywood? This year alone added five movies to his IMDB page with five more in the pipeline for 2014.
This weekend in Hunger Games: Catching Fire, he plays Caesar Flickerman, the elaborately coiffured host of The Hunger Games television broadcasts. Despite being disguised with wild wigs, fake teeth and plenty of bronzer, it is unmistakably Tucci, one of the most interesting actors working today.
He made his big screen debut in the 1985 gangster comedy Prizzi’s Honor followed by several years of dues-paying stage work and movie roles like Second Dock Worker in Who’s That Girl before landing recurring spots on Miami Vice and Wiseguy.
A succession of supporting roles lead to the one-two punch that made him a name actor. Producer Steven Bochco’s television drama Murder One cast Tucci as Richard Cross, a Machiavellian multi-millionaire accused of the strangulation of a 15-year-old girl.
The following year a much different part earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best actor. In The Big Night he plays Secondo, owner of an Italian restaurant called Paradise. The place is slowly going broke but may get a boost from a visit by singer Louis Prima. If Prima shows up the restaurant will have a big night and be saved from bankruptcy.
It’s not only one of the greatest food movies ever made — you’ll want to go for risotto afterward — but it also features what Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers called “an unforgettable acting duet” between Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, who plays his temperamental chef brother, “that is as richly authentic as the food.”
Since then Tucci has played everything from villains — strangling a Supreme Court justice in The Pelican Brief — to a flamboyant nightclub manager in Burlesque, to the God of wine Dyonisius in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters to Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Opposite just Meryl Streep alone he’s played everything from a gay art director in The Devil Wears Prada to Julia Child’s loving diplomat husband Paul in Julie & Julia.
In 2010 he received his first (but probably not last) Oscar nomination for his work in The Lovely Bones. He played the murderous Mr. Harvey, all twitchy movements and squeaky voice; he was Norman Bates without the overbearing mom.
“I don’t like to watch things about serial killers or kids getting hurt,” he said, “but this was something beyond that. It was an exploration of loss and hope.”
This Christmas season Irish actor Chris O’Dowd is on a search for identity.
In two separate projects airing in December on HBO Canada and the Movie Network the charming comedian plays a fish out of water; men whose lives have been turned upside down.
In the improvised series Family Tree he’s the thirty-something Tom Chadwick. Recovering from getting fired and being dumped, he inherits a mysterious box of “bits and bobs” from a dead great aunt. Among the old photos and clothing are hints to his genealogy. “It peaks his interest,” says O’Dowd, “and he has so much time on his hands he decides to explore his family tree.”
Directed by mockumentary master Christopher Guest, and co-starring a cast of comedy vets like Michael McKean, Ed Begley Jr. and Fred Willard, it’s a lighthearted look at Tom’s journey, from England to California, in pursuit of his roots and life’s meaning.
The movie The Sapphires sees O’Dowd on a different trip…
Pick up a copy of the magazine at a newsstand near you to read the whole thing!
From the Canadian International Television Festival at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Nov. 16, 2013. CITF celebrates short form films with a screening of 10 best bravoFACT-funded shorts including Winter Garden, an official selection at this year’s TIFF ‘Stage to Screen’ series, starring Enrico Colantoni.
Have you ever wondered what a Mugwump looks like up close? How about the telepod that transformed Jeff Goldblum from man to insect? If you are a fan of Naked Lunch, The Fly or of David Cronenberg in general, you’ll want to make like the Reel Guys and head to the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto to check out an elaborate and comprehensive exhibit detailing the director’s storied career. The show runs until Jan. 19, 2014, and presents an unprecedented look in to the mind and career of one of our greatest filmmakers. To prime the pump, the Reel Guys suggest some must-see Cronenberg films if you can’t make it to the exhibit.
Richard: I am an unabashed fan of David Cronenberg. I felt like a kid in a candy store — or should that be an entomologist at a larvae convention? — at the exhibition and I regularly revisit his movies on DVD. One that always gets overlooked is Spider, a trip into the mind of a severely mentally disturbed man starring Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes is great in a virtually dialogue free performance but it is Miranda Richardson as several characters — all the women in Spider’s life — who really steals the show. It’s a spooky and cerebral thriller.
Mark: Spider was never one of my favourites although it does have a great twist ending. My thoughts on the Cronenberg oeuvre — and they’re almost all great — is how ahead of his time he’s been on our relationship to technology. When Videodrome came out, it was dismissed by a lot of critics. Now we live its reality every day. Same with Existenz. Both visionary films that prove how far ahead of the curve the director can be. But I think the quintessential Cronenberg film is Dead Ringers — a creepy Hitchcockian thriller that has Third Reich overtones of medical experiments and twins — and also because Cronenberg himself looks like a gynecologist harboring a terrible secret.
RC: I also have a soft spot for The Brood. It’s probably Cronenberg’s most traditional horror film, and I take delight in loving a movie Leonard Maltin rated a “Bomb.” Featuring Oliver Reed as an experimental psychotherapist, Samantha Eggar as a fetus-licking mother and murderous psychoplasmic offspring, it is the very stuff that nightmares are made of. It’s lesser seen than The Fly or Dead Zone and way more down-and-dirty, but for sheer scares it’s hard to beat.
MB: I like the brood but I prefer the Dead Zone even though legend has it that Cronenberg regretted doing a movie with all the incumbent studio interference. Know what? It still works. But Cronenberg will forever be one of my favourite directors if for no other reason than breathing life into Naked Lunch. A book I should have loved but could never get through — until I saw the film.
RC: He’s audacious. He made an unfilmable book filmable and opened a lot of people’s minds to reading author William S. Burroughs.
MB: He did the same thing with Cosmopolis, although I must say I didn’t need to see Rabid to appreciate Marilyn Chambers.
When the nine old friends of “The Best Man’s Holiday” get together for Christmas it’s like a cross between a soap opera and a reality show. Imagine “As the World Turns” as told by Teresa Giudice and Flavor Flav.
In this sorta sequel to 1999’s “The Best Man,” The Sullivans, NFL legend Lance (Morris Chestnut) and wife Mia (Monica Calhoun), plan on a happy Christmas holiday when they invite their closest friends to spend the Christmas holidays at their palatial home.
Here’s a scorecard of the attendees: Former best selling author Harper (Taye Diggs), his pregnant chef wife Robin (Sanaa Lathan), network head (and Harper’s former flame) Jordan (Nia Long), school dean Julian Murch (Harold Perrineau) and his ex-stripper wife Candace (Regina Hall), heavy-lidded party boy Quentin (Terrence Howard) and Shelby (Melissa De Sousa), a reality TV star.
Instead of eggnog and Yuletide carols around the hearth, however, old rivalries rear their ugly heads before a tragedy reminds everyone what friendship is all about.
“The Best Man’s Holiday” is one long cliché. The script telegraphs every plot twist and turn with the subtlety of a kick to the shins and never misses an opportunity to overplay a big melodramatic moment or perform an illegal tonal u-turn mid-scene.
And yet it is a crowd pleaser.
Sometimes clichés are clichés because they’re true and resonate with people, and I guess that is one of the strengths of “The Best Man’s Holiday.” You’ll see everything coming a mile away, you’ll feel manipulated but you’ll also laugh and maybe even shed a tear.
It’s a film built for audiences who enjoy the vulgar rowdiness of reality TV and the comforting clichés of soap opera storytelling.
Is it a good film? Not really, but the better-looking-than-average ensemble cast brings with them loads of charm and the chemistry they share actually puts you onside with the characters despite the paint-by-numbers script.
They’re all engaging performers but Howard stands out in one of his rare forays into comedy.
“The Best Man’s Holiday” isn’t “Best Of” list material but despite being about half-an-hour too long is engaging holiday fare.
Who wants to be a millionaire? Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) that’s who. He’s a Don Quixote character of “Nebraska,” tilting at windmills, clutching a worthless ticket he thinks is worth a million bucks.
