Crazy Heart (2009)

Title: Crazy Heart (2009)

Director: Scott Cooper

Stars: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duval, Collin Farrell

Review:

Jeff Bridges has never won an Academy Award in his whole career. He has been nominated on five occasions, but never won. Sad but true. If you ask me, he should have won it back in 1991 for his portrayal of Jack Lucas in Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King. But he didn’t. He wasn’t even nominated for that one! Which goes to show you just how much the “members of the academy” don’t know. But here we are, the 2010 Academy Award Nominations are finally in and aren’t we all glad that Jeff Bridges got an Oscar nomination for Crazy Heart? Yes we are! This is his fifth nomination! You know how this Oscar thing goes…sometimes they wont give an award to an incredible actor (even if they deserve it!) just so they can keep him sweating it out for years and years. It’s the academy’s way of saying “we know you are good! Keep cranking out good movies and in a year or two…we’ll think about it!” And then they go and give them an award for their least amazing movie. Which is probably what’s going to happen with Crazy Heart. Its not Jeff Bridges greatest performance to date, but it will more then likely be the one he ends up winning an Oscar for. Still, Crazy Heart isn’t a bad movie, we’ve seen it a thousand times before, but it’s not a bad film.

Story centers on Bad Blake (Bridges) a country singer who has seen better days. He used to be ultra famous, cranking out hit after hit of country songs, until a life of booze and complacency destroyed his former glory. Now he simply exists instead of living the life. This is kind of sad because he is an extremely talented guy, and everyone knows it, except himself. One day, a young female journalist requests an interview with him. This young journalist ends up being Maggie Gyllenhaal, he lets her in and gives her the interview, but only so he can get in her pants! She decides to let him in, and pretty soon old Blake is back trying to redeem himself. Trying as hard as he can to establish a relationship with her. You know, go back to being the man he used to be. But you know how it is, old habits die hard and pretty soon his old habits get in the way. Will he ever make it back from his drunken stupor?

Here’s the thing, I actually despise country music. It’s not that my ears explode when I hear it or anything, but I just don’t like it. Period. I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in this. So why did I end up seeing a movie about the life of a country singer? This movies incredible cast! That’s what drew me to it! Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a very down on his luck kind of guy. Used to have it all; doesn’t have it now because he is a drunk. Bridges wallows in the self loathing and self pity very well. Bridge’s had done it before in characters like Jack Lucas in The Fisher King were he also played a guy who used to be famous, but isn’t anymore. He also played a happy looser in The Big Lebowski. One of the Coen Brothers funniest masterpieces. So he’s no stranger to playing characters like Bad Blake. Characters that have hit rock bottom. Maggie Gyllenhal turns in a solid performance (as usual) but in my opinion, she still needs a film that truly makes her shine on her own. Robert Duvall plays Bad Blake’s bartender buddy, who always backs him up. And finally, Collin Farrell plays it cool as Bad Blakes protégé. The guy whom Bad Blake taught all the secrets of country music to. So a solid cast elevates this movie to higher ground. Higher then this movie had any right to.

The big problem for me with this movie is that it’s nothing original. At all. In fact, my favorite movie of 2008 -Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler- did the same thing a million times better then Crazy Heart ever did. Sadly, what Crazy Heart does is follow the formula set by The Wrestler too damn closely. You almost feel like you are watching the same damn movie! Right down to Bad Blake wanting to reconnect with his estranged son, and getting the cold shoulder while at it. You kind of get the idea that Bad Blake has abandoned writing and singing because of how he ignored his son. Yet the film never really explores this, we never even get to see Bad Blakes son. You also get the feeling that Bad Blake has never really had it bad, he gets payed every now and then, he isnt really hitting rock bottom, he is just being stubborn. So this movie is really about a stubborn dude, who wants to drink for drinking sake. The one big tragedy in his life, having ignored his son his whole life is set aside, like some unimportant side story. When in fact it should be crux of the film. So its like The Wrestler, only not as good.

Much like The Wrestler, Bad Blake tries to make things right, but old habits die hard and you know how it goes, pretty soon, drinking and boozing get in the way of happiness and he messes things up yet again. Problem with this movie is that Bad Blake isn’t half as charming as Mickey Rourke’s Randy the Ram. You watch Randy the Ram going down the rabbit whole and you feel a certain kind of compassion for him, but I have to say I didn’t really warm up to Bad Blake as much as I did to Randy the Ram. All Bad Blake has to do is sit back and wait for the royalty checks and go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. They also compare this movie a lot to The Big Lebowski, saying that this is “The Dude” all over again, but instead of having a weed obsession he has an alcohol obsession. I don’t agree with that either. The Dude is one funny guy, again, he is a looser but he is extremely likable. Bad Blake feels like a character who’s life has been sucked out of him. Save for some scenes where he is being ultra sweet to Gyllenhaal’s kid, he is lifeless and charmless character. Except when he wants to get into a lady’s pants or wants some free booze, then he charms the hell out of anyone. Which kind of makes you hate him a bit. But hey, here’s looking forward to some much deserved recognition for Jeff Bridges! In my own personal crazy heart he isn’t going to win an Academy Award (if he wins) for this movie. If he wins it, it'll be for all the countless other great performances he's given us through time.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Away We Go (2009)

Title: Away We Go (2009)



Director: Sam Mendes


Review:

Sam Mendes’s American Beauty is one of my favorite movies ever. I love how it puts the suburban american family on the spotlight during those moments in life when a couple can get bored with their relationship and forget to keep things interesting, forget about that first love that got things started. The direction is spot on, and the dialog witty and fresh. In his new film Away We Go, Mendes explores the other side of the spectrum, the couple thats just getting started in life, and how they try and find the best way to start down that long path. Sam Mendes usually directs dark films, with serious subject matter and themes. Films like Jarhead, which deals with the woes of going to war, Road to Perdition, a gangster film. All dark films, but, it seems Mendes wanted a break from all the gloom and doom and decided to do a light film. A film where not a whole lot goes wrong.

Story is about a young couple, Burt and Veronna. One day while they are sitting on their couch in the middle of the freezing winter in their humble little home, they suddenly start wondering if they are "fuck ups” because they dont have their own home. They are in their 30s and they haven’t done a whole lot with their lives. They don’t have their own place, and well, things aint going all that well in the money department. The sudden change in perspective comes when they learn that Veronna is pregnant. Now they realize that life isn’t just about them anymore, they have an extra little human along the way, and they gotta take care of it. So off they go in search of the best place in which they can raise their child. Their big plan is to go and visit a lot of their friends, and see which place is the best for them to settle in.

The thing with this movie is that Burt and Veronna are constantly on the move, from state to state searching for the best place in which to raise their child. And with every place they go to, we get to meet a new friend of theirs. Everyone is different, every one of them has children of their own, and they all raise their children in different ways. So this is what the film is trying to show us, how different people raise kids differently, and basically, with every couple we’re supposed to learn what not to do while raising a family.

The movie stars John Strasinsky as Burt, most of you probably know Strasinsky from The Office, where he plays Jim. In Away We Go he plays more or less the same character, but with a beard. You know, the nice guy, doesnt fight, doesnt yell, treats his lady well, with love and respect. Maya Rudolph plays down her comedic side from her days on Saturday Night Live to atone with the movies ultra mellow vibe.

Cool thing is that with every family we meet, we get a different set of actors. First we get to meet Burts parents, played by Catherine O Hara and Jeff Daniels, and basically, we learn not to be selfish assholes who only care about themselves and their fun retirement plans and not about their son, who is just about to have a kid of their own and his gonna need that extra help once the baby is born. Then we get to meet a couple who are foul mouth in front of their kids and have absolutely no connection with them whatsoever. We get to meet Maggie Gyllenhal and Josh Hamilton who are these ultra hippy parents, who are so new age, they don’t know how to connect with OUR age, so they raise their kids to live in an unreal reality. And so on, we keep meeting a couple more of their friends until they finally make their decision.

It’s a nice little film, very light. We get some nice chemistry between Maya Rudolph and John Krasinsky. What I never got about the movie was, if they are supposedly so poor, how come they have so much money to travel from state to state? They are supposed to be so troubled, but they sure don’t look it. They got money to pay for plane tickets and rent cars and hotel rooms, werent these kids supposed to be "fuck ups"? It really didnt feel as if they were in that bad of a situation. Krasinky and Rudolph are very likable characters, they play the ultra normal couple who truly love each other and want to live a normal live in the middle of this crazy world, good idea if you ask me. Still, some might feel as if Burt and Veronna are two self righteous individuals who cant accept others for who they are. So basically, they go through the whole movie saying “lets not do that! Those people are crazy!” And running away to the next ‘crazy’ family. Thing is, were all kind of crazy, and we all raise kids however we think is right, what might be crazy to one individual, might be completely okay with the other and so forth. So some people might get that vibe. But I guess these characters are striving to be as “normal” and good as possible. They don’t yell, they don’t fight, they even have to make believe they are fighting cause they are so good to each other! Which is a good model to follow I guess. Not a bad movie to watch if your in those crossroads from being a twenty something, to being a thirty something and contemplating having kids.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5