NEBRASKA - 5 Stars

Every year I usually pay close attention to the Oscar movie race and watch pretty much all of them before the Oscar show. However this year was a little different. I didn't really know much about the nominations. I still haven't seen them all but caught a little teaser of this film during the Oscars. So going into this film, I wasn't completely interested. This film completely took me by surprise! I think the best way to go into viewing this film is by not knowing anything about it at all. Even my wife who doesn't like "old movies", liked it. The reason why I say "old movies" is because it is in black and white. She doesn't like movies that look "old" will automatically categorize it in the "old movie" genre.

This movie had everything! It had so much charm than I had seen in a film in a long time. Bruce Dern stars as an aging-alcoholic father who thinks he won a million-dollars in a sweepstakes and takes his family along for the ride. Bruce Dern is brilliant in this role! He reminded me of several older people that have this same mentality. Getting older is something that we all have to do but how we handle it or how we handle those who get there before us, is important. Playing a role like this doesn't seem too challenging to the average person but he brings this character to a vision that most everyone can see. You will find that you know someone that resembles this character. You might even fear that you will become this character one day or that one of your parents will. June Squibb who plays the mother role is fantastic! She had me dying with laughter! At first, she seems to be a mean old woman but then you grow to love her. Will Forte as the son was pretty good as well but the main focus for me was Bruce Dern's character.

The cinematic choice to shoot the movie in black and white was a great move! It was funny because my wife and I were watching the film at first and trying to guess what colors things where. Like I said "I wonder if the car they are driving is red?". And she would say something like "I bet his hat is blue.". After about 30 mins into the movie, we forgot that the film was in black and white. After the movie was over, we watched some of the making of and was like "Oh yeah, the car is red, I forgot all about that."

I felt like the score was composed beautifully by Mark Orton. For majority of the film, you don't even recognize that it's there because it's so subtlety. It blends into the scenes so seamlessly. It really almost brings the film back into the early 30's movie era before music was used so heavily.

This movie to me was exactly what a best picture nomination should look and feel like. A great story with fantastic acting, great direction and great cinematography. 

This movie is 5 stars for me!! I will buy the Blu-Ray!