Don't Make a Scene: Nebraska

The Story: Happy Mother's Day!

I love old people, probably because I'm becoming one (am one, actually). There can be an honesty that is brutal, brittle, and uncompromising, as if to set the record straight before it's lost forever. No time for bullshit...because one is made aware that time runs out and it becomes increasingly evident as the bodies start to pile up around you and you find yourself spending more time at funerals than at parties.

I've found out more things about my parents after they died from their survivors than I might have guessed while they were alive, and that knowledge only has increased my appreciation of them for what they went through—The Great Depression, World War II, Eisenhower Suburbia and their rare conflicts with each other—while giving me a greater understanding of their life's journey—and mine—and of the time they intersected.

It's an "old saw" to never speak ill of the dead. But, why? Nobody's perfect. The flaws bring a richness to the canvas, and the shadows only accentuate the bright, making them stand out. Plus, if you believe neuro-scientist David Eagleman, it might be for the good, pushing out his idea of a third death* which is when, sometime in the future, "your name is spoken for the last time." The truth will out, and the truth will outlast us.

Such thoughts did not occur to me when I saw this scene from Nebraska some years ago—for the reason that I was a fan and rare "nodding-at" acquaintance of its writer Bob Nelson—but it was laugh-out-loud funny, extraordinarily relatable, and had that unique quality of being more than merely the words on the page, or the images or performances (although all are excellent elements in themselves—the images having a particularly "John Ford" quality). It resonated, reaching out into the audience and making it that height of communication—art.

Highfalutin' words for a scene that is also something of a gut-buster.

"Mo-om...."


The Set-Up: Old Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) is on a million dollar mission. That's the prize he thinks he's won from a magazine solicitation. So, he's determined to get to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his fortune. He cannot be dissuaded by his wife Kate (June Squibb) or his kids, David (Will Forte) and Ross (Bob Odenkirk) who think it's a scam and are trying to keep him from chasing a wild goose to Nebraska. Finally, David decides to take Woody to Nebraska, stopping on the way in Woody's hometown of Hawthorne, where they are met by Kate, who's taken a bus there, and their first stop is the last stop, the cemetery, to pay something like respect...and fill in some gaps in the family history...with cement.

Action.

47 EXT. HAWTHORNE CEMETERY - DAY 47

Flowers in hand, Kate offers a running commentary as she leads Woody and David slowly past the headstones.

KATE That’s Woody’s mother Sara. She hated me because she wanted him to marry someone who’d milk the cows, 

KATE ...but I said I ain’t fiddlin’ with no cow titties. I’m a city girl. 

KATE  The good lord did not do Sara any favors in the looks department. 

KATE More a man’s face than a woman’s, really. I was pretty, so she resented me. You knew your mother was ugly, right, Woody?

Woody looks at Kate, then stares at his mother’s grave.

DAVID How did she die?
KATE Saw herself in the mirror one day! 

KATE No, cancer. (moving on)

KATE And there’s the old Swede Tolf. A good man, your grandpa. Never said much. 

KATE That farm just ruined him. (to Woody)

KATE You’re lucky I took you away from there. 
Woody nods slightly as he looks at his father’s leaf-covered grave. 

KATE (CONT’D) That’s Woody’s brother David. You were named after him. 

KATE He died of scarlet fever when he was only two. 

KATE Woody slept in the same bed with him but never got it.

David contemplates the sight of his own name on a headstone.

KATE(CONT’D) Here’s Woody’s little sister Rose. 

KATE She was only nineteen when she got killed in a car wreck near Wausa.

Blue (10-12-2012) 42.

 

KATE What a whore. 

DAVID Mom...
KATE I liked Rose, but my God, she was a slut.

DAVID Mom, come on.
KATE I’m just telling the truth. 

KATE She was screwing guys in back of the Hawthorne Creamery when she was only... (a whisper) ...fifteen.
DAVID C'mon, Mom. Jeesus!

DAVID Where’s your family?
KATE They’re over at the Catholic cemetery. We’ll go there later. Catholics... 

 

KATE ...wouldn’t be caught dead around all these damn Lutherans. 

KATE Now there’s Delmer, Woody’s cousin. 

 

KATE He was a drunk. 

 

KATE One time we were wrastlin’ and he felt me up.

 

KATE Grabbed a handful of boob, and Woody was right there and didn’t have a clue, did you, Woody?

DAVID Jesus, Mom.

KATE My goodness, I didn’t know Keith White was here. When did he die? 

KATE Keith White. 

 

KATE He wanted in my pants too, but oh, he was so boring.

Hearing enough, Woody and David head toward the car.

Kate remains at Keith’s grave and pulls her dress up.

KATE (CONT’D) See what you could’ve had, Keith, if you hadn’t talked about wheat all the time?

(chuckles)

Nebraska

Words by Bob Nelson

Pictures by Phedon Papamichael and Alexander Payne

Nebraska is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Paramount Home Video.

* The first two are more well-known—at the point when your body stops functioning and at the time when you are "consigned or put in the grave."

Nebraska's writer Bob Nelson performing an on-going character on television's "Almost Live!"—

a brilliant distillation of children's show hosts, mixed with an unhealthy dose of sardonic reality.

I wanted to show the segment he did on the "Bill Nye the Science Guy" episode on "The Food Web", 

but it doesn't allow embedding. This link will have to do.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3vxhpf

The Green Hornet

Superheroes come in all colors and stripes...and quality. We're all in the $2 billion glow of The Avengers: Endgame right now, but there have been some really lousy ones, too. Someone brought up Seth Rogen today, remembering him as "that funny guy." I brought up the name of Seth Rogen and when they said "yes" I mentioned snarkily that I got confused "when you mentioned that funny guy." Well, I remembered this movie. Wish I could forget...

"BUZZZZZZZZ.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
or
"Girls Are a Drag, Kato.  Thank God We've Got Each Other." 

"The Green Hornet" was a popular radio series in the 40's, and became a brief second tier in ABC-TV's "superhero" programming after the success of the Adam West "Batman" television show. Unlike the campy "Batman," "The Green Hornet" played it somewhat straight, albeit with the gleaming technology, out-there set decoration...and another fabulous George Barris car design. It also featured Bruce Lee, as Kato, Britt Reid's formidable kung-fu kicking house-boy, a couple of years before forsaking Hollywood for Hong Kong super-stardom.

When it was announced that Seth Rogen would be portraying "The Hornet" (as bad an idea, really, as when Jack Black was supposed to star in Green Lantern), I thought this could not come to any good. "The Green Hornet" was a distant lineage of "The Lone Ranger," in the continuity, and Rogen, known for playing ape-neck every-slobs, didn't seem to fit the bill (I couldn't even imagine Rogen throwing a punch!). Compounding the pre-release jitters, the movie was planned to be presented, rather unnecessarily, in 3-D, was delayed until after the Christmas crunch, and in the last couple months, the car has increasingly seemed to be the focus of the promotion. The Green Hornet appeared to be a victim of bad buzz, but cheerily trumpeted its excellence ("dude") at the top of its lungs—par-tay! The previews looked semi-amusing, so one walked in with a certain cock-eyed optimism.

It is abysmal. Starting out with a deadly serious "origin" episode  (de rigueur for all superhero movies, apparently*) where Daddy Reid (Tom Wilkinson) publisher of the "The Daily Sentinel" rips the head off young son Britt's superhero doll, traumatizing him,** the movie goes off-kilter fast. Directed by Michel Gondry (!!), the film soon settles into a un-comic romp with guns, gadgets, and all the cool things that will make the frat-boys spit out their beer in gawping appreciation: rock-themed fights, CSI-orifice-cams, gratuitous babes, "Matrix" slo-mo's, while generally following the "key-ingredient" rules of movie-making from Sweet Liberty.*** Ho-hum. But, the main problem is the lead character.  I like Rogen. I think he's very talented and, on occasion, very funny. Not here.  As played (and written with pal Evan Goldberg) by Rogen, Britt Reid's Green Hornet is a whining ADD cretin, with the slimmest, and dumbest, of character motivations. Rogen's Reid can't keep his mouth shut,**** no matter how inane his attitude or stupid his comment—he is entitlement-dumb, in marked contrast to the parade of millionaire-geniuses who inexplicably become "mystery men" in the genre. Indeed, he is so dependent on Kato (Jay Chou) for...everything...that you wonder why the kid from Shanghai***** doesn't insist on up-ending the billing (Kato with Hornet, the boy-doofus) and keep Reid corralled with a nunchuck leash.

The yin and yang of stupidity/competence continues throughout. Questions begin arising. Why does their super-slick, weapons-festooned car, "The Black Beauty" have rotating license plates, when it has "hornet" emblems all over it—even the gas-cap—making it hopelessly identifiable? Why does The Green Hornet hand out business cards at the scene of his bust-ups...with his internet address and e-mail account? Why does Reid talk about arming The Black Beauty out loud, sitting in a pool of accessory-chicks?

Why doesn't Kato just kick the green-snot out of Reid and be done with him?******

As with the series, Kato is the coolest character. Bruce Lee (who is given a brief homage) was the best thing about "The Green Hornet" show and one anticipated his fight scenes that rose, with considerable hang-time, above the common whiffed fisticuffs of television stunt-men. This Kato builds cars, seemingly from scratch, is an acrobatic master, martial artist, engineer and draughtsman...and...can make the perfect cup of coffee. Hmmm. Chou doesn't have much emotional range, but is loose enough that he can carry off the comedy, and still look like he knows business. However, the relationship between Reid and Kato is so skewed in the millionaire's favor (for no apparent reason) that the character comes off a bit as his "bitch," (which he calls him at one point—Kato is belittled constantly, short of racial slurs). And Rogen and Goldberg throw in a lot of unsubtle "bro-mance" references in case we miss the point.

And, the whole thing is a waste. The final set-piece is an exercise in over-the-top property destruction that reminds one of an unfunny version of the mall-destruction chase in The Blues Brothers. Good actors are squandered—not just Wilkinson, but also Christoph Waltz, who can't seen to decide if he's playing comedy or drama, Cameron Diaz in a "girlfriend" role, who tries to ad-lib with the big boys, but about the second line in a string says something inane, and Edward James Olmos, who looks dyspeptic every time he's on camera (his character is supposed to be frustrated, but I couldn't help but think he might be thinking about strangling his agent: "Hey, don't worry, Eddie, you thought "Battlestar Galactica" was a bad idea, too!")

The final segment begins with The Hornet saying "Everything we've done to this moment is complete and utter crap." Truer words...

What is most upsetting is to see a director like Michael Gondry, whose past efforts have included Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—a favorite of mine—and Be Kind Rewind—which isn't—continue a Shamalamyan decline in quality of work. This thing is a mess, and one can only wonder how cross-eyed it would make one in 3-D. I might actually worry about some form of brain-damage resulting from viewing this film.

Van Williams and Bruce Lee: In Memory, Still Green

* There was a preview of Thor in the promo-clusters before the show, and it appears to be the same story, but in Asgard—daddy issues are everywhere.

** .....o-kaaaay.

*** Those are: 1.) Rebellion against authority; 2.) Violence; 3.) Nudity.  I confess, of the venerable cliches, I didn't hear a "Wilhelm" scream, see a vegetable cart being overturned in a car-chase, but, "The Brother" does "Get It First."

**** There's a lot of post-production voice-over inserts to wedge in one...more...laugh-line, usually inane.  But, they're clumsy...and it feels like it's an attempt to go for a laugh so the audience doesn't think for very long.

***** Kato has always been, traditionally, Japanese...except for that time when he became Filipino after December 7th, 1941.

****** At one point in the film, he does.  But Rogen gets in enough licks, that it reminded me of the nadir of the "Green Hornet" series...in the cross-over with the "Batman" show, when Bruce Lee (Kato) was fought to a stand-still with Burt Ward (Robin, the Boy Wonder).  As if...  Supposedly, Lee was a bit miffed at that scenario.  And, for some reason, Kato is given a weakness that's condescending, not unlike how Jet Li was treated in The Expendables.

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

Written at the time of the film's release...and before Mark Rylance, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Eddie Redmayne became "Big Deals" (and failed to be mentioned).

"Lord help the Mister who comes between and my Sister/
and Lord help the Sister who comes between me and my Man"

"Gettin' tickets for the 'girlie-show?'" the ticket-taker said to me.

*Sigh* If only...

Sadly, there's not much life in The Other Boleyn Girl--either of them. Peter Morgan's script (from the Phillipa Gregory novel and the BBC production) is a bit cut-and-dried---er, poor choice of words---and it doesn't create anything other than a proper colonist's righteous indignation over the way women in prominent positions were treated back then. Now, the sexism isn't so much like horse-trading (as it is in this film), as in just making sure that standards for men are inequitable with those for women, as we do in these oh-so-much-more-enlightened times. I came away thinking Morgan--who's probably set up a script-writing mill by this time--might want to take a script or two off, and sharpen the quill a bit. But it's not all Morgan's fault--he does get some choice words in once in awhile. The direction by Justin Chadwick is flat and staid--even by Masterpiece Theater standards--without even the benefit of some Merchant-Ivory snootiness to breathe life into the thing.

Then you've got the actors. As "the two Boleyn whores," Scarlett Johansson, as younger sister Mary*, uses 1.5 expressions throughout the entire movie and both involve mouth-breathing--no, sorry, that's unfair--2.5, she has a child-birth scene, and Natalie Portman looks like she's going to run away with the thing, having a fine old time as the smarter, more manipulative Anne but her hysterics towards the end have an air of high-school production--when the chords of her neck stand out you begin to worry that the court is going to catch fire like Sissy Spacek did in Carrie.

As for Eric Bana, it's not good to be the King. Henry VIII is one of those characters that most actors relish playing whether its Charles Laughton, Robert Shaw or Keith Michell. Bana, though is a sometime thing--he can be "on" (Munich, Black Hawk Down, Troy), or he can be totally "off" (Hulk), giving nothing up for the camera (or audiences) to grab onto. Here he plays a weak King by giving a weak performance--as if that'll do the job convincingly enough. But it would be better to have this lusty, conscience-less King do his selfish terrible deeds and have a good time once in a while. I mean, why completely sever the ties between England and the Catholic Church if you're not having any fun while doing it? The same point is made, it's just not so spot-on...or so deadly dull.

One looks for any good performance in the thing, seeing how its not an action-piece at all, and Kristin Scott Thomas continually looks like there's a bad smell on-set and is allowed one moment of high dudgeon, and Jim Sturgess, the chirpy "Paul-ish" lead of Across the Universe seems to threaten to belt out another Beatles tune any minute. There is one ray of sunshine in the whole thing and that is Ana Torrent as Catherine of Aragon, speaker of the earlier "Boleyn whore" line. Every moment she's on the screen there is a power and command that every other member of the cast is lacking. She looks and acts like a Queen who belongs there, rather than one merely playing dress-up.

* "Is the story true", I hear you cry. Well, Gregory defends any historical inaccuracies in the book—or agreed-upon inaccuracies—by saying that it's from the character's point of view, in this case Mary's. But nothing is made of the fact that Mary is rumored to have had an affair with another King—of France, leading to her expulsion from the French court—earlier than her time with Henry, and even the most unreliable of narrators might get the fact that Mary was the older of the two sisters correct.