**Payne Relief** The black and white photography is a nice touch. It gives a kind of Karsh look to the weathered faces of the aging, reflective, yet still yearning cast of characters, and suits the rapidly fading memories of a bygone era in recent American history. The acting was pretty good. Bruce Dern gives an effortless performance as a cranky old coot with one attention-seeking foot in the spotlight and the other half-buried in the shadows of utter dementia. The interpersonal conflicts among family and community, past and present are presented in a simple, linear uncomplicated way. The story seems to want to explore the sad truths of a regressive, bankrupt nation and the ridiculous dreams and delusions people cling to. Life is limited and unfinished. Like the heads carved out of Mount Rushmore. Like the forlorn characters wandering on and off the screen. For even after a lifetime of honest hard work aligned with various fixed Christian principles, a restless, quiet desperation lingers. Lies and illusions are necessary to prevent a lonely, inconsolable reality from setting in. And while Alexander Payne manages to keeps things relatively upbeat to prevent dragging us down into a pit of futile despair, he also fails to fully develop and realize the themes he puts forward. Every time Payne rustles up a movie (Sideways, The Descendants) he gets high praise, and this time he almost deserves it. He's a fairly astute cinematician who wants to make meaningful pictures without getting in too deep. Specifically, road movies on half a tank. Thankfully, he doesn't tread into murky Bergman territory, or puff his stuff up with Goddard-like self-importance, but he doesn't do himself much justice by avoiding or brushing off the potential worth and urgency of the matters he introduces. His concepts are cut short. While I'm watching Nebraska, I can't help but wonder how adept filmmakers like Kieslowski or Cassavettes would have treated and serviced the material. What's almost more disappointing than getting old, losing a presence of mind and attempting to reconcile broken memories, is not being able to fully grasp, much less handle and nurture, your own brainchild.
Jean-Claude Delsart, a 50 years-old bailiff, with his worn-out smile and heart, abandoned a long time ago the idea that life could give him pleasures. Until the day, he dares to push the doors of a tango lesson...
A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.
The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.
Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.
Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.
Reporter John Klein is plunged into a world of impossible terror and unthinkable chaos when fate draws him to a sleepy West Virginia town whose residents are being visited by a great winged shape that sows hideous nightmares and fevered visions.
An insurance investigator begins discovering the impact a horror writer's books has on his fans is more than inspirational.
Skeptical young detective Ichabod Crane gets transferred to the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where he is tasked with investigating the decapitations of three people – murders the townsfolk attribute to a legendary specter, The Headless Horseman.
Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.
Melvin Udall, a cranky, bigoted, obsessive-compulsive writer of romantic fiction, is rude to everyone he meets, including his gay neighbor, Simon. After Simon is brutally attacked and hospitalized, Melvin finds his life turned upside down when he has to look after Simon's dog. In addition, Carol, the only waitress at the local diner who will tolerate him, leaves work to care for her chronically ill son, making it impossible for Melvin to eat breakfast.
A New York radio personality travels to the small town of Fernville to oversee a contest to identify retired safecracker Jimmy Valentine, believed to be living there under an assumed name. The close-knit town of upstanding citizens is understandably upset by this venture, all the moreso when some of its citizens begin to be murdered. The radio personality and the local newspaper's young daughter collaborate on solving the murders while revealing Valentine, who has become one of the suspects.