05 Oct Oscar Bound Bruce Dern Talks Career & “Nebraska”

Bruce Dern in “Nebraska,” from “Thompson on Hollywood”

I do it all the time. Browse the Internet for interesting stories about Telluride and the Telluride lifestyle, a delightful balance of indoors and outdoors, mind and body, and adventures of all kinds, including cultural.

At the center of Telluride’s cultural life are its summer festivals. At the heart of those, the Telluride Film Festival, this year, #40, among the best ever. And one of our favorite films on this year’s program was Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” featuring an extraordinary performance by veteran actor Bruce Dern.

Read here for our review of the Festival, including “Nebraska.”

Read below for a slightly different spin on the subject from Thompson on Hollywood, by Anne Thompson and Beth Hanna, written 9/30/ 2013.

Oscar-Bound Bruce Dern Talks Career and Alexander Payne’s ‘Nebraska’

Bruce Dern in “Nebraska”

Let the Oscar drum-roll begin for 77-year-old actor Bruce Dern, who gives a wonderfully heartbreaking performance as Woody Grant, an aging man on a quest for a dubious sweepstakes reward of $1 million, in Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska.” Woody is as stubborn as a mule as he refuses to go gently into that good night. He represents our aging parents’ lost dreams as well as an America gone to seed. But there’s bedrock too, as Woody takes his wife and kids to visit the old Grant homestead built by his father and brothers. 

Will Forte as Woody’s passive son and June Squibb (Payne’s “About Schmidt”) as his impatient wife–whose depths are eventually revealed– offer superb support, along with Stacey Keach as the villain of the piece. But make no mistake. This is Dern’s show. 

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