Will Forte used to make me laugh on Saturday Night Live. With a certain goofy look or inflection in his voice, he can crack me up. Even though I grew tired of the repeated “MacGruber” segments on the TV show, when I found myself watching the movie MacGruber he made with Kristin Wiig in 2010, I could not help laughing at some of the ridiculous scenes.
Now, I find myself looking forward to a Will Forte performance in a movie that is not a comedy. Nebraska, which will be released in the U.S. on November 22, 2013, features Forte and Bruce Dern in a film directed by Alexander Payne (The Descendants (2011), Sideways (2004), About Schmidt (2002)).
In the movie, Dern portrays a character with mental issues who believes he has won a million dollars. Forte plays Dern’s son, traveling with the older man on a trip to get the imaginary cash. The film has received Oscar buzz since it debuted at Cannes. To get an idea of Forte’s dramatic turn, check out this scene from the black and white film.
On the other hand, the newly released trailer for Nebraska reveals a quirkiness and humor that appear in Payne’s other films. It looks like Forte will fit in just fine with the legendary Bruce Dern.
What is your favorite Will Forte character? Leave your two cents in the comments.
National Arbor Day is this week in the U.S. According to the Arbor Day website, Arbor Day has its seeds in the work of J. Sterling Morton. He was a Nebraska journalist and later Nebraska territory secretary who advocated for the planting of trees.
After Nebraska made the day an official holiday in the late 1800’s, the state eventually selected April 22 as the date because it was Morton’s birthday. Other states also began celebrating Arbor Day in the 1870s.
Today, National Arbor Day always falls on the last Friday of April. But some states celebrate Arbor Day on different dates depending on the planting season. Meanwhile, the holiday celebrating the planting of trees has spread around the world.
The Giving Tree
Planting trees is a nice thing to do for the earth for several reasons. And we humans benefit from trees in numerous ways too. Perhaps the best illustration of our love and destruction of trees is in Shel Silverstein‘s great children’s book, The Giving Tree.
In the 1973 animated video below, Silverstein narrates the book for viewers.
The late Shel Silverstein is also known for many other works, including books and songs recorded by Johnny Cash. Yet, he may be most famous for The Giving Tree, a book that many children grew up reading. For some reason, The Giving Tree was not a book in my childhood home so I came to it many years later as an adult.
I always find it interesting how different people react to the story. Some have very fond memories of the story and see it as a story of a loving tree who gives away everything it has. But others get angry when they think of the tale, seeing it as a story about a selfish boy taking everything from the tree.
Is it a story of love and charity? Or is it a story of selfishness and domination? What does the last line — “And the tree was happy” — signify? One may come up with several theories about the book’s meaning, but the ambiguity is why the book has become a classic. The book allows each of us to see different things, perhaps even understanding the story differently at different stages of our own lives.
No matter what you think of The Giving Tree, let’s take a moment to thank all of our tree friends this Arbor Day.
What do you think is the message of The Giving Tree? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Will Forte used to make me laugh on Saturday Night Live. With a certain goofy look or inflection in his voice, he can crack me up. Even though I grew tired of the repeated “MacGruber” segments on the TV show, when I found myself watching the movie MacGruber he made with Kristin Wiig in 2010, I could not help laughing at some of the ridiculous scenes.
