Posts Tagged ‘Charlene Swankie’

NOMADLAND: LET’S MEET author Jessica Bruder AND real-life nomad Bob Wells

Let’s meet we meet Jessica Bruder, author of the 2017 book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” and Bob Wells, a real-life nomad and one of the stars of the Oscar nominated film “Nomadland.”

Watch the whole thing HERE!

NOMADLAND: 4 ½ STARS. “poetic but never cloying & always reaching for the horizon.” 

A blend of fiction and nonfiction, “Nomadland,” the melancholy new Frances McDormand drama, is a timely story of a woman who learns to adapt and survive after losing everything she held dear.

Just as Fern (McDormand) cuts herself off from the norms of regular society, “Nomadland” is not tied to traditional storytelling structures. Its unhurried 107-minute running time is leisurely, not plot driven but utterly compelling. Director Chloé Zhao follows the widowed Fern as she leaves Empire, Nevada, a small company town now bleeding residents after the closure of the U.S. Gypsum Corporation factory. So many people have fled to greener pastures that the post office discontinued the local zip code.

Leaving all that she has known behind, Fern loads up her beat-up old van and hits the road, crisscrossing America looking for seasonal work at every stop. She’s not homeless, just unencumbered, solo but not solitary. “I’m not homeless,” she says. I’m just houseless.”

Along the way she discovers a community of fellow nomads, people who teach her the ropes of life on the road. Here’s what I learned: If you have bad knees you need a taller bathroom bucket for your van.

Fern does what it takes to get by, working at an Amazon fulfillment center or taking on caretaker gigs at rec parks, but her iterant lifestyle isn’t about disconnection or colored by loneliness. Her journey is one of self-discovery, of survival, of serenity. She is gritty, but open and friendly, independent and generous. She’s not an exile from “The Grapes of Wrath,” she’s simply living life on her own terms without a drop of self-pity and McDormand never overplays her. There is an authenticity to the performance, aided by Zhao’s casting of real-life nomads like “van-dwelling evangelist” Bob Wells, and travelers Linda May and Charlene Swankie, that never feels less than real, sometimes almost uncomfortably so.

At times “Nomadland” feels like a documentary. Zhao and McDormand have created a beautiful character study about the flipside of the American Dream. As Fern makes her way from gig to gig Zhao decorates the screen with eye-popping visuals courtesy of Joshua James Richards’s cinematography of the landscapes that form the backdrop to Fern’s journey. The story is poetic but never cloying and always reaching for the horizon.

NEWSTALK 1010: Nomadland interviews + Daniel Lanois + William Shatner

This week on the Richard Crouse Show Podcast: If you love records like Joshua Tree, Wrecking Ball, and Time out of Mind you know my guest’s work. Daniel Lanois has an incredible resume. His work as a producer for U2, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, the Neville Brothers, Robbie Robertson and Neil Young among many others led Rolling Stone Magazine to say, “His unmistakable fingerprints are all over an entire wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

Lanois has moved back to Canada and launched the brand new Maker Series imprint out of his Toronto-based recording studio. First up in the Maker Series is a solo record called Heavy Sun. A soulful, joyous album recorded in Los Angeles and Toronto that fuses classic gospel and modern electronics. He says the intent of the music is to “lift people’s spirits.”

Then, we meet Jessica Bruder, author of the 2017 book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” and Bob Wells, a real-life nomad and one of the stars of the Oscar nominated film “Nomadland.”

Then, the man, the myth, the legend William Shatner. His career is so epic it spans generations. Some will remember him as the iconic Capt. James T Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Others know him as the veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker. Still others think of him as the host of the reality-based television series Rescue 911 or the “Big Giant Head” from 3rd Rock from the Sun or as attorney Denny Crane both in the final season of the legal drama The Practice and in its spinoff series Boston Legal. He’s an actor, an author a singer and now the star of Senior Moment a new rom com on VOD this week.

The romantic comedy focuses on Shatner’s character Victor, a retired pilot whose life goes into a tailspin after he loses his driver’s license, but starts looking up when he finds love with a character played by Jean Smart.

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

Here’s some info on The Richard Crouse Show!

Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.

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