Beautiful and Bleak: A Review of Nebraska

It's been a long time since we've heard from Bruce Dern. Although he was on HBO's Big Love recently, he's still remembered from his movies from the 1970's. This year, he made an impressive comeback by winning Best Actor at Cannes for a movie about an old man who thinks he's won a million dollars. The movie, Nebraska, has become a winner for Dern, but also for two other actors, Will Forte of SNL and June Squibb.

Although it won't be officially released until Friday, it was shown last week through the New York Film Critics Screening Special at a handful of theaters, including the Crest in Sacramento, and included interviews with Dern and director Alexander Payne.

The movie is short in black and white to show the bleakness and beauty of the setting of the three cities where the action takes place: Billings, Montana, where Woody is trying to walk to Nebraska to claim his prize, Hawthorne, Nebraska, Woody's home town, and Lincoln, where he thinks his prize will be. Woody Grant is 77, an alcoholic who looks like he doesn't undertsnad what is happening.. He thinks he has a sweepstakes ticket worth a million dollars. He doesn't, but his son David (Forte) decides to take him to Lincoln to "claim" his prize. After having one too many at a stop in South Dakota, Woody cuts his head open. For the rest of the movie, he has a bandage on his head which shows him as damaged but not done yet. Another scene where he visits the farm where he grew up is also poignant. Here, he can remember what it was like. There's also a funny scene where he gives an interesting comment about Mount Rushmore.

Despite being best known for his comedy on Saturday Night Live, Forte is just great as Woody's son. Although he says he's on this road trip to humor his dad, he's also getting over a break-up with his live-in girlfriend. Maybe he'll get closer to his dad. He does, in unusual ways, like where David asks Woody why he got married.

When they get to Hawthorne, the town is also fooled into thinking Woody's a millionaire. Since it's one of the small towns that is slowly fading away, populated by mostly old people, it'll take any bit of good news. That includes Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach), who expects Woody to give him a share of the prize that doesn't exist.

June Squibb is also great as Woody's wife Kate. When she arrives in Hawthorne, he gets a chance to reconnect with old friends. You also see why she loves Woody, dents and all. Seeing her visit a local cemetery is a hoot. (UPDATE: Enetertainment Weekly has that cemetery visit in a special video.)

This is a bleak and beautiful film about a part of the country that is slowly fading away, along with the people who live there. Woody is hoping that the "prize" will help him up for his failings, and that he can be a winner in the eyes of his family. It may remind some of The Descendants, which also includes a family trying to heal itself. Payne, of course, directed that movie, too.
Nebraska is a nice little gem to find among the upcoming wave of holiday movies over the next few weeks.

12 Years A Slave: Solomon Chained

American history is filled with chapters that aren't easy to look at. That includes the years before the Civil War, where the nation had to deal with slavery and its treatment of African-Americans.

This chapter hasn't been seen too often: a free Black from New York state meets two men who promise him a job, but actually sell him to slavery. This was the story of Solomon Northup, who was 12 Years A Slave between 1841 and 1853, well before the Civil War and even the Dred Scott Decision. It's the basis of a fantastic drama starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. It's now in more than 400 screens a couple of months after its premiere at Telluride, and may get more later this month.

The movie begins with Northup as part of a gang of sugar cane harvesters. It seems to be a typical day of hard work and little food. Then we see him try to write something. We see he is not a typical slave. He was once a fiddler, a husband, and a father in Saratoga, New York in 1841. He is treated like anyone else. Then, he meets two men, Hamilton and Brown, who promise him a lucrative job in Washington. Instead, he wakes up in chains, and is told he's a runaway slave. He tries to identify himself, but without proof, he has lost his identity and even his name. The movie makes it clear that even a Free Black's status can be taken away by losing his papers, just because of his skin.

The movie, directed by Steve McQueen, doesn't pull any punches on how slaves were treated. Seeing some of the slaves whipped is a painful experience. Showing how they were sold, even nude, to people is even more shocking. When Paul Giamatti as Freeman presents slaves for sale, it's almost as if he's a used car salesman.

Northup, now called Platt, is sold to Shaw (Benedict Cumberbatch), who seems to be reasonable. However, Tibeats (Paul Dano) takes a disliking to Platt, mainly because he's smarter than Tibeats. Platt is later sold to Epps (Michael Fassbender), who is a cruel master, and sometimes has sex with Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), a field slave. How his wife Mary (Sarah Paulson) deals with this fact is even more disturbing. She doesn't like what Epps is doing, but she doesn't really stop him. In her mind, it's also Patsey's fault.

Through the years, Platt does what he can to survive and find a way to escape back north. As the years go by, that determination slowly breaks down. When he's with Shaw, he thinks his experience in building the Champlain Canal may make him a valuable part of the plantation. Tibeats does what he can to end that idea. In Epps' plantation, Platt is slowly broken down. Seeing his face in full despair is something you don't forget.

He does get some hope thanks to Bass (Brad Pitt), a Canadian carpenter. Even if Platt regains his true identity, he may still lose valuable things he'll never get back.

This movie has been touted as a possible favorite for Best Picture come Oscar time, but 12 Years A Slave isn't an easy movie to see. It is still worth watching. It shows a piece of American history that's not discussed very often, but should be to remind us how we've advanced.
Ejiofor is the best. His abilities as an actor has been getting a lot of notice from this movie and the Starz mini-series, Dancing on the Edge. Fans of the sci-fi movie Serenity, though, already know. Fassbender is chilling as Epps, who says he can do anything to his "property", even force Platt to do an unspeakable thing. Nyong'o is also great as Patsey, someone who has made some unpleasant decisions to survive. Cumberbatch is also good, showing that not all slaveowners were bad. At least he recognized Platt was not a typical slave.

It also shows the race for Best Actor might wind up as an endurance race. Ejiofor does through a lot of physical and emotional abuse in this movie. Tom Hanks battles pirates and their treatment in Captain Phillips. Matthew McConaughey loses a lot of weight to be an unlikely AIDS activist in Dallas Buyers Club, and Robert Redford battles disaster on the high seas alone in All Is Lost. It'll be one interesting awards season.

ICWXP: More Bad Shorts, New Eyes, and a New Villain (Update: and a new van!)

It's been nearly a year since we last heard from our heroes known as Incognito Cinema Warriors XP, otherwise known as life in the zombie apocalypse that's not in The Walking Dead.

While Rifftrax just mocks bad movies, and Cinematic Titanic heads towards the sunset, ICWXP reminds us that the host segments, the comedy in between the movies, are very important. That's how we see Rick Wolf, TopsyBot 5000, Johnny Cylon, and Flux Namtari deal with being trapped in a movie theater in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

The episodes are becoming more ambitious, too. When season 2 started, the DVDs ran only 45 minutes. This new DVD runs a whopping 90 minutes, not including extras. In the commentary track, Rikk says mixing a real story with movie mockery, as MST did in the SyFy days, makes it different.

In "Fahrenheit Cine-A-Sorrow", there's some changes, like TopsyBot getting a new head and the lobby getting a new candy counter. The zombies seem to communicate through long moans that are actually profound discussions about existence...or World War Z. However, there's something else, as shown below....



So who's behind all this? We'll get to that later.
Cylon is trying to make a documentary about life at the theater, and tries to set off an argument between Topsybot and Rick. What happens is childish yet compelling, and it's all too much for Topsybot. He goes into an electric stroke, and finds himself in the ultimate Hell: an Adam Sandler film festival. Actually, he got a new head, paid for by fans.
Then Cylon interrogates Birkin, one of the Ludovico lackeys strapped to a chair. There's a mysterious brownout, which gives Spencer, the other lackey, a chance to escape from being forced to see "Soapy the Germ Fighter" over and over again.

Afterwards, we have the first short, "The Haunted Mouth", where Colgate uses the evil voice of Cesar Romero to threaten kids about the dangers of plaque. Here's the first couple of minutes...



Plaque basically dares kids to brush their teeth every day, and in a disturbing fashion that makes Topsy say, "Brush your teeth like a bad girl."

During intermission, Birkin tries to get away, and Cylon tries to communicate with the head of Professor Zedikiah Logan, still a rotting head but now with a teddy bear. It's great they've found a new way to use Zed, who hasn't been seen since "Bloody Pit of Horror" back in 2009. It can only communicate through blinking, but not for long.

The second short talks about the wonders of coal-fired power plants, and how they make life in Ohio wonderful.



There's also riffs that have connections with MST3K. When a storm is brewing, threatening the power grid, Topsy says, "Diarrhea is like Lake Erie raging inside you." That sounds familiar to hardcore MSTies.  Then, when Rikk asks who Jam Handy is (yes, the Jam Handy that gave us "Hired!"), Cylon says he's "someone who gets mad fun of by robots a lot".

Afterwards, they get another brownout, and their mysterious friend, Bottomless Epiglottis, says it's due to a computer virus. It can fix the problem, but it needs the password....from Zed.
After some "negotiation" with Zed, plus a special device that's provided by the late great Dr. Blackwood, they fix the problem. In fact, it gives Zed a new voice, which helps him express a lot of anger through very long words.

However, that's not the end. There's a new set of villains called the Order of Mortis, a cult that wants to take over the theater and lead the world to a new beginning. They've already recruited the zombie that was captured at the start of the show.

So how do they think the theater will help them fulfill their mission? Well, you'll never know unless you get the next DVD, right?

"Fahrenheit Cine-A-Sorrow" includes shorts on the new fan-funded candy counter, Zed's new eye, and a tribute to the Dickinson 6, which was used as the exterior to Cine-A-Sorrow. There's also a feature on how Topsybot got a new head, and was told to thank the fans, individually, who helped pay for them, and a visit to the Transworld Halloween convention in Saint Louis.

As mentioned before, Rikk comments on the action. He had planned two scenes with Flux, and some others, but that didn't work out. He also says creating that cult was needed to develop a major villain for the show. His comments do go all over the place, from how Dexter ended to what could have ended season two of the show but won't. It shows he's devoted to this show and so should we. If there's anyone who deserves a $60 million Powerball ticket, or a cable network, to keep this franchise going, it's him. 

"Fun With Shorts" has a short on Thanksgiving in this DVD. Here's the link to it. This episode will keep you going through Halloween, Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving.
Finally, there are easter eggs in the second (light up the straw), third (popcorn kernel) and fourth (lemonhead) chapter menus.

You can order a copy of "Fahrenheit Cine-A-Sorrow" plus other episodes, through this link.

UPDATE:   Rikk and the boys wanted an old van that they'll turn into the zombie killing leviathan, the "Necrogon". They raised 1500 bucks towards that plan, and early Halloween afternoon, this was added to their website:

They'll need to get the van zombie-fighting ready, and meet other needs in the future. You can chip in by clicking here, and get additional rewards depending on the size of the donation. If the season finale is really going to be two hours, including a whole movie, it'll take a lot of green to get it going.

One more thing, I got Supersonic Man, one of the latest Rifftrax VOD offerings. I wanted to know how bad it is compared to, say, Puma Man. This movies makes Puma Man look like The Dark Knight.



It's a European Superman knockoff with a bland European guy who talks into his watch to be a super hero, an annoying drunk, and Cameron Mitchel (and the guy dubbing him) over-acting. It makes you really appreciate Donald Pleasence, or Krankor for that matter. That's despite a scene where Dr. Gulik (Mitchel) tells a kidnapped scientist, "Today is a great day for science", and Kevin Murphy riffs, "Big Bang Theory has been cancelled".  There's also a callback on The Room, and riffs on Windows 8, "western music", Dog the Bounty Hunter, Charlie Brown, Costco, Kickstarter, Michael Bay and the Wiggles.  Mike also turns Supersonic Man's awful theme into a nice jingle for a local shopping center. Good thing he didn't try it with the theme song from the Spanish version.

Riffrax Live: Return of the Night of the Living Dead

The week before Halloween, the Rifftrax gang presented a ghoulish display of one man’s living nightmare….then showed the classic zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead.

A sellout crowd in Nashville, Tennessee and thousands more at theaters across the country enjoyed a night of cinematic horror, punctuated by funny comments. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett presented an improved print, and also improved sarcasm, of the classic George Romero movie. There were some jokes left over from the original DVD, but they took out the riffs about women, Keith Olbermann, Ron Paul, and the Steelers (since the movie was filmed near Pittsburgh). The new version added jokes about Crocodile Dundee, Game of Thrones, cab drivers who hate to go to Brooklyn, non-alcoholic weddings, Les Miserables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Nancy Grace, Microsoft Zune, Miley Cyrus,  Orville Redenbacher, and Birdemic.

It’s also fun to compare the original DVD  to the live show. Mike starts off with this comment during the long driving scene in  the opening credits: “If they pass a sign that says ‘Valley Lodge’, I’m leaving.” This was followed by…

The first zombie attacks Johnny and Barbara at the cemetery:

DVD: C’mon, lady, ward him off with your giant forehead.

Live: Knock off the fighting. What do you think this is, an Irish wedding?

Ben, the male lead, shows up at the abandoned house surrounded by zombies.

DVD: Apparently the zombies were emanating that weird mosquito noise

Live: Young President Obama, thank God you’re here!

He tries to comfort a stunned Barbara:

DVD: She’s got gonna sing, is she?

Live: Lars and the Real Girl had more chemistry. (TV’s Frank would be so proud)

A naked female zombie is seen from the back

DVD: How come every time a naked chick shows up at your doorstep she’s either a zombie or she just escaped from some lunatic’s basement?

Live: She’s not a zombie. She just likes to par-tay! (No gorilla grams, either)

The Coopers are in the basement, thinking they're safe, but Tom, who's upstairs, says he and Ben found a TV.

DVD:  You're still not allowed to come up. Just wanted to tell ya
Live:  We can watch The Walking Dead. (that was the most inevitable joke that night)

Tom asks Judy why she always has a smile for him

DVD:  I like marshmallows.
Live:  Dianetics

While the riffers are glad the zombies are not Instagramming the human remains they’re eating, they see a zombie enjoying an arm too much

DVD: It isn’t disgusting enough to eat corpses, now they went and got KFC.

Live: Tori Amos has gone feral.

The most tragic line of the show occurred when we see Helen Cooper dead after her zombie daughter Karen stabbed her:

DVD: Finds a spotlight as she’s dying. That’s true show biz spirit, folks.

Live: She’s been spade (or spayed). This got Bill fired for ten seconds.

Once this show is available on VOD, it’s certain to replace the DVD version as the definitive riff on this classic movie.

Before that, fans saw true horror in a new “Norman Krasner” short where he is told by his boss to write a speech and presentation with hardly any time to prepare. Just like the other shorts, everything goes wrong. The cleaning lady vacuums some of the slides then pours coffee on his notes. It ends, quite appropriately, with a sprinkler system pouring water on Norman just as his speech collapses in a pile of failure. These shorts were supposed to teach business people how to prepare for the unexpected, but with so many things going wrong for Norman, the moral seems to be, “we’re doomed, so why bother?” There’s jokes about Transformers 3 and Eeyore, while Norman is left asking the question, “Where the Hell is my dignity?”

It was also announced the first “Norman Krasner” short, which was given to certain backers of the Kickstarter project, will be available to everyone next month. I’ve seen it already, and have this review. It’s black and white and also a horror story.

Rifftrax had its traditional 30-minute “fun facts” show, including haikus, costume ideas like dressing as a Native American dressing as Johnny Depp, and the next great horror flick title: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Milo and Otis.

The winners of a caption contest were also announced. This is the picture…

My entry was: “They’re not only saying Grace, they’re eating her, too.”

It couldn’t compare to the winner, “Steve, the other white meat.”. Second place went to “Subway: Eat Flesh”, which I think should have won.

After Halloween, preparations for Christmas start almost immediately. Rifftrax will be ready on December 5^th to take on, yet again, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. If it can re-riff Manos and Mr. B Natural, Santa on Mars, not to mention Droppo and Tor the Robot, aren’t safe either. 

One more thing: the closing credits included the names of people who donated at least $125 to the Kickstarter campaign. They were supposed to be included  after the Starship Troopers show last August.

One of those names: someone claiming to be Faith Lehane. According to the "Thanks" page, she's listed as "Faith L.", but the credits had her last name, too. It might be her, but you'd also expect Buffy to drop a few dollars to Rifftrax.

Maybe Rifftrax’s next Kickstarter event should be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie….and Nick Brendon is invited to help out. Just an idea.

Cinematic Titanic's Secret Episode: The Heat Blu-Ray

What if you mixed Miss Congeniality with Lethal Weapon, and got the guy who directed Bridesmaids as the cook? You'd get The Heat, a different kind of buddy-cop movie that did very well at theaters.
Now, what would happen if you added three guys mocking it from beginning to end?
You'd get The Heat Blu-ray DVD, revealed as Cinematic Titanic's secret episode...or a secret episode by the original MST3K trio. Either way, all movie riff fans should get this DVD.

Sure, Sandra Bullock as the by-the-book FBI agent and Melissa McCarthy as a wild Boston cop produced a lot of laughs. However, the Blu-ray adds more laughs with a commentary track from director Paul Feig, and from McCarthy's fictional family. The best option, though, is hearing Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein commenting on it.

The riffs start at the opening 20th Century Fox logo ("You know you're a successful company when you've outlived your logo") to the ending credits where the trio explain how they know Feig (mainly because of Freaks and Geeks), which led to this.

They waste no time dissing Bullock, as FBI agent Ashburn leading a raid ("Don't shoot him. I want to adopt him and make him play football"), and McCarthy, as Officer Mullins, claiming she's the love child of a disturbing combination that not even Conan O'Brien could imagine in his "If They Mated" bit. Joel even compares her to the Tasmanian Devil. This is barely scratching the surface, too. They fire riffs on Samuel L. Jackson, They Live, the NRA, MASH, The Deer Hunter and Neil Sedaka. They also wonder how Feig could afford to include Jack White in the soundtrack. They also have classic comments about Bullock's driving, and the scene where both girls finally let their hair down after ordering a "Scotch and Tape".

I thought Bullock was too uptight and nerdy, but she makes up for it in the last 20 minutes or so. McCarthy really goes all out as the wild cop, and once you see her family it explains everything about her.
Even if you're not a fan of the comedy, hearing the original MST3K trio comment on it makes this Blu-ray one of the best entertainment bargains in years.