Nebraska

It's in black and white and it's depressing and Bruce Dern doesn't deserve an Oscar, anything else you'd like to know?

I've been reading about this movie for months. Because that's how you do it these days, you ramp up the publicity so that just maybe, people will go. I had to endure the history of Bruce Dern's career, and road trips with Alexander Payne through Nebraska, and if that had anything to do with this flick, I'd tell you, but it doesn't.

Yes, I went to the movies.

I just felt locked up inside. I'd read the newspapers, caught up on e-mail, the sun was setting and...I had to get out of the house.

That's why we used to go to the movies, to get out of the house, because nothing went on at home, there were no friends and no Internet and only a couple of TV channels, everything that happened was out. As a matter of fact, on the way out of the ArcLight I ran into Larry and Carol, which proves the point.

And it's so different in the dark cavern with the big screen. It's a scenario I know so well.

That's what I used to do in the late sixties and seventies. Go to the movies. I felt I knew the stars, that my life would just work if I could...meet Glenda Jackson, I had a crush on her. I knew all the players, back when you could see everything. And I did.

Movies used to be platformed. They opened in L.A. and New York first. When I first came to Los Angeles I literally went every night. It wasn't unusual for me to see three flicks in a day. I didn't go to become an expert, but that's what I was. Back before "Jaws" and "Star Wars" ruined the paradigm, with all their revenues, the same way Wall Street is ruining the country today.

Wall Street and the techies. They're skewing the entire nation. They make so much money that all that's left for the rest of us is crumbs. You're either a winner or a loser. And you know who gets the losers? The arts. Because it takes a special kind of intelligent, educated person to take the road less traveled, the one with bad odds, known as entertainment. There's no safety net. If you're not starting your career right after college, you've already missed a step.

So what we've got in music is reality TV. The same downtrodden denizens who will do anything to make it. There's not a backbone in the business. Everybody's looking to sell out. Sergey Brin and Larry Page want no press and Kanye West keeps telling us what a genius he is. And I'm sure there'd be musicians who spoke truth to power if only you could make as much money as you can in Silicon Valley, but you can't.

So it's a vast wasteland in music.

Of course I'm overstating the point. It's really just like tech. Incredible winners and losers. Instead of Google, Yahoo and Apple, it's Jay Z, Katy Perry and Rihanna. You can't get traction without hits, and you can't have hits unless you play Top Forty music, and tech is spread virally, built up by its users, and entertainment is still employing the ancient formula of hype.

Which brings us back to "Nebraska."

It's not even the movie they're hyping.

But it creeped me out.

There's are scenes where those with no money and no life are sitting catatonic watching television. This is why I left Utah and Vermont, I could see slow death seeping in everywhere.

Just like the buildings. Your mobile phone may be bright and shiny, but too often the edifices are cracking and need a new coat of paint. Yup, the bridge may collapse but you can get your television via cable, fiber optics or satellite dish. Oh, what a great country we live in, where the penumbra's fantastic and the core is rotten.

And that's what our movies used to be about. This rotten core. Before everybody with a profile was a winner and superheroes ruled the multiplex.

Watching "Nebraska" you're reminded that more people are losing than winning in America. That it's hard to get a job. And you don't really know your relatives until you share an inheritance. Bill Gates may be giving away his fortune, but most are praying for a pittance to get them by.

But no one wants to see this anymore. Everybody's praying at the altar of greed. Greed isn't good, it's the national credo, it's what we base every life choice upon, because if you're not rich, you're a poor loser who just can't get by.

So there's a sea of empty seats at "Nebraska," because no one wants to confront the ugly truth that they got the short end of the stick. That all they've got is drugs and alcohol and the same cronies at the bar.

We want hope and choice and the ability to lift ourselves up.

But the job creators tell us it's our own damn fault.

And now they've taken over the whole damn country. Movie studios are small cogs in giant conglomerates, slaves to the bottom line, just like record labels. That's right, the joke is on you.

But some people slip through. Like Alexander Payne.

His movie doesn't deserve an Oscar, but it touched my soul.


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