Crazy Heart

***1/2 Stars

Crazy Heart is a story we’ve all seen before, but told and acted in a way that is truly original. Jeff Bridges’ portrayal of Bad Blake, a country music star whose hit rock bottom, is a brilliant one, a performance of wonderful integrity and startling emotion. He deserves every award he has already been given, and I’ll be very surprised if someone else other than him takes home the Best Actor come Oscar night. Along side Bridges is a great a performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who surprisingly received a well-deserved supporting actress nomination for her role as Blake’s lover.

The story begins with Bad Blake, who at one point was a high-flying country star with fame and fortune, booze and women. The movie opens with him playing at a bowling alley, so obviously he’s hit some sort of road bump in his career (or perhaps a road block). He has become to care more about the whiskey he drinks than the tunes he plays. When he meets a young journalist named Jean (Gyllenhaal) at one of his shows, the two begin to spark an interest in each other. After Jean asks him what he wants to talk about, he replies, “I want to talk about how bad you make this room look.” Right then and there we know exactly what this character wants, and how open he is in getting it. After they hook-up for the first time, Bad Blake hits the road again to continue his tour, stopping every now and then to see the first women in a long time that’s made him, well, happy.

Colin Ferrell and Robert Duvall offer their fine talents in supporting roles that add a level of maturity and experience to Bridges’ already astounding screen presence. Duvall plays a bartender and Blake’s old friend, and Ferrell plays Tommy, Bad’s old apprentice who is a now a big country star. Tommy hasn’t forgotten what Bad has done for him, and offers him a chance to kick-start his career again. But the effects of alcoholism have already consumed Bad Blake, and it takes a lot of physical and mental pain before he can become himself again.

The movie takes a particular topic that movies seem to overdo and puts in a realistic, contemporary setting with a real character, making it a very down-to-earth story about a man dealing with such a such addiction to alcohol that he literally sleeps with a bottle wrapped up in his cozy arms on more than one occasion. There are no beatings around the bush here. Alcohol is as strong of theme in this film as Bad Blake’s music, if not stronger.

Bridges is one of America’s finest actors, and he proves this once again in Crazy Heart, a brilliantly acted and tragically real tale of one man trying to find a small measure of peace on the road to redemption.

The Lovely Bones

*** Stars

The Lovely Bones does not deserve the hatred it's getting, but it is a disappointment because it was supposed to be one of the best films of the year. Instead, we have a good film worthy of mild praises.

I understand why people aren't into Peter Jackson's screenplay here, but there is a too much talent on and behind the camera to just dismiss the whole film all together. Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) plays Susie Salmon (like the fish), a 14-year old girl who is raped and murdered (but the rape is not referenced here) by her neighbor George Harvey (a mesmerizing performance by Stanley Tucci) and watches over family from heaven dealing with the aftermaths of her death.

For the first timers who didn't read the book (including myself) think What Dreams May Come meets Mystic River. Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz are fitting as Suzie's grieving parents (although Weisz's screen time is very limited), and there are some moments in Director Peter Jackson's film that are almost poetic (especially nearing the climax) but screenwriter Peter Jackson and company disappoint.

I know I sound like a broken record here, but this is another film that falls victim to the MPAA. This shouldn't be a PG-13 film because it needs to be darker, and it shouldn't be a dark R-rated movie because it doesn't need to be. What The Lovely Bones needs is to be unrestricted from money worries and ratings to tell the story we the audience wanted to see. If that occurred, we could have been looking at the Oscar frontrunner everyone was expecting.