I'm attracted to those actors that are off centre; if they were action figures and you stood them on the record player, they'd fly right off, hit the wallpaper. Bruce Dern, love him. Went through a Dern streak which resulted in a couple freaky westerns too many. (And Silent Running: if you ever want to witness the euthanasia of a cute anthropomorphic robot, check that one out)! Walter Matthau - ohhh I'd need some time and a coupla drinks to get going on him; we fondly remember the Winter of Matthau in our house (2007) where we watched anything he was in that we could get our hands on, back to back to back to back. Of course Jeff Bridges is on this list.
Went to the local half-price theatre to see Crazy Heart, and it happened to be Closed Caption Night (wtf) so I really caught all the dialogue. Tell me, when you see a guy on screen playing the piano, do you really need the little musical notes to indicate what is going on? I mean, they're not deaf and blind, just deaf.
Anyway, back to Bridges. The first twenty minutes is just Bridges, playing crappy gigs and hanging out in the Land of Enchantment motel watching Hispanic women-in-prison flicks in picturesque Pig Sweat, New Mexico. It was a little strange to see Bad Blake at his first gig: a very Lebowskiesque bowling alley. Even sidles up to the bar and is shot front and centre just like when he was talking with The Stranger. Not sure if you'd want to reference that character, especially when the barfing in the y-fronts and crawling on the tile floor is supposed to elicit pathos/disgust. But I thought I'd just hang in there & see where it was all heading.
Soon enough the story started to take shape, and it dawned on me: this is The goddamn Wrestler all over again! MAN! Let me see... minor celebrity whose best years may be behind him, he's an absentee father, struggling to regain his former glory, he endures a rivalry with young up & comer... (and what a let down Colin Farrell's nervy, intense Tommy Sweet turns out to be, after so much foreshadowing). Yes, it's pretty much The Wrestler, with some Jerry McGuire thrown in for good measure: single mom with perfect four-year-old as redemptive device? I mean, please! When I saw the hot air balloon scene I darn near puked - I thought I was in a commercial for maxi pads. Crazy Heart tells a story that has been told umpteen times in mainstream American cinema about actual living musicians - why now with a fictional one? Terrible, terrible script sincerely exploring all the hackneyed old music biopic cliches that were fully busted by Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story!
Good tunes, though.
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