Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

Thelma Adams, Oscars, Playdate, Marie Claire, Movie Reviews, Interviews, New Releases, New York Film Critics, Celebrities, Personal Essays, Parenting, Commentary, Women, Women\'s Issues, Motherhood

MENUMENU
  • HOME
  • BOOKS
    • The Last Woman Standing
    • Playdate
    • Bittersweet Brooklyn
  • WRITINGS
  • MEDIA
  • EVENTS
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT

2013 Top Ten List

December 27, 2013 By Thelma 3 Comments

Dern, Forte in black and white (Photo Credit Paramount Pictures)

Dern, Forte in black and white (Photo Credit Paramount Pictures)

I am notoriously ambivalent about top ten lists but I compiled one for the lovely folks at IndieWire and figured I’d share it with you. They also invited me to sound off on something I noticed in 2013, and those short comments follow the list:

1. Nebraska

2 Stories We Tell

3. The Hunt

4. Before Midnight

5. Frances Ha

6. The Broken Circle Breakdown

7. Inside Llewyn Davis.  

8. Blackfish.

9. Dallas Buyers Club.

10. American Hustle

The IndieWire folks also asked me for a random comment about 2013, and I came circling back to my thoughts following this year’s New York Film Festival. Although I often write about women in film, and pine for more women directors, I found inspiration in the work of a number of male directors with an independent spirit. What I wrote to Senior Critic Eric Kohn and company was: 

The most notable trend for me coalesced out of the New York Film Festival and included films mentioned above and some that are being held. It’s the vibrant resurgence of the American independent maverick director, from Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” to the Coens’ “Inside Llewyn Davis” to Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight” to Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” and Spike Jonze’s “Her.”  I would also include Jim Jarmusch’s return to form with “Only Lovers Left Alive,” to open in 2014. I cannot really wrap my head around why James Gray’s brilliant period drama with Joaquin Phoenix, “The Immigrant,” has not been raised up as it should. It is one of my very favorite films of 2013 – and yet it has not opened theatrically.

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: American Hustle, Before Midnight, Best Films of 2013, Blackfish, Frances Ha, Nebraska, Stories We Tell, The Broken Circle Breakdown, The Hunt, top-ten list

Critic’s Pick: ‘Nebraska’

November 26, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Dern, Forte in black and white (Photo Credit Paramount Pictures)

Dern, Forte in black and white (Photo Credit Paramount Pictures)

In Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” Bruce Dern reveals flesh, bone, even DNA, and the kind of screen wisdom built on years of experience, good and bad. It’s a performance that may very well pit him against another sage actor of the same age come Oscar time.

At the center of Bob Nelson’s subtle, funny-sad script is Woody Grant (Dern), a disappointing and disappointed Midwestern father on a quixotic mission to redeem a dubious lottery ticket. The septuagenarian travels from Montana to the Cornhusker State despite the disapproval of his bristly wife Kate (a tartly perfect June Squibb), and with his reluctant son David at the wheel. Along the way, in dribs and drabs, switchbacks and a lost set of dentures, Woody reclaims his dignity and reaffirms the core values of America without waving a single flag.

[Related: Academy Conversations: “Nebraska” with Bruce Dern, June Squibb and Albert Berger]

Dern, At 77, born during the Great Depression in the same year as “All is Lost’s” rugged Robert Redford, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was reelected president, gives the transcendent performance of a very long career that began with playing an uncredited local in Elia Kazan’s Montgomery Clift drama “Wild River.” The man has been around — and won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival last Spring for playing Woody.

It’s as if everything Dern has ever seen, every lesson he’s ever learned (or unlearned), and all the guidance of Payne, who told the actor “don’t show us anything, Bruce, let us find it,” has culminated in this performance, this comic Cornhusker Don Quixote. At his side is Forte, who has flipped the switch from comedy to drama with a still, soulful-eyed performance. And Squibb creates the signature moment of her career when Kate visits her hometown cemetery and lifts her skirt in front of a long-dead high school suitor to show she still has game.

In iconic black and white, the brilliant, empathetic Payne (“Sideways”) delivers another fully realized road movie – and Oscar contender. It’s a homecoming for the Omaha native that drives deep into America’s heartland, and the heart of a single fly-over family, the Grants. The funny-sad film starts shaggy as Woody wanders along the blistered side of a Montana highway on a ridiculous odyssey to his home state, then achieves a deeply moving finish with the realization that sometimes what we want is small potatoes, not millions, a newish truck, and the look of respect, even love, in the eyes of an estranged son.

Bottom Line: Visit “Nebraska” and the great state of Alexander Payne

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Alexander Payne, best actor, Bruce Dern, Critic's Pick, Independent Spirits, June Squibb, Nebraska, Oscars 2014, Will Forte, Yahoo! Movies

Academy Conversations: ‘Nebraska’ with Bruce Dern, June Squibb, Producer Albert Berger & me

November 14, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

I’m loving doing these videos, especially for a movie like “Nebraska” that I absolutely love to support. Thanks to Patrick Harrison at The Academy in New York for inviting me to moderate:

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Albert Berger, best actor, Best supporting actress, Bruce Dern, June Squibb, Nebraska, Oscars 2014, Patrick Harrison, Yahoo! Movies

32-facebook32-twitter

Website design by Will Amato Studios