Crazy Heart (2009)

Tags

Colin Farrell, Crazy Heart, Drama, Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Movie, Robert Duvall, Romance

you're one cool...Dude.

R

Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall

Jean: So where did all those songs come from?
Bad: Life, unfortunately.

Bad Blake (Bridges) is an alcoholic country singer who’s past his prime but still touring bars and bowling alleys in small towns across the Southwest.  After meeting – and falling for – Jean (Gyllenhaal), a reporter, Blake writes a new song that could be his ticket to a comeback.

Well, obviously Jeff Bridges got a lot of attention for this one, as well as an Oscar, and I suppose it’s well deserved.  It’s not exactly something we haven’t seen from him before, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a great performance.  I thought Maggie Gyllenhaal did a good job also.  Colin Farrell…eh, maybe a little miscast, but not too bad.

This is a pleasant enough film, well made, with good music and good performances, but the story didn’t exactly blow me away.  I thought some of the turns the plot took were a little contrived and obvious.  I won’t give away the one in particular that I’m thinking of, but I was sitting there watching thinking, “they’re not gonna have that happen, are they?  Come on, that’s too obvious and easy…they’re not gonna do that, right?  Oh…they did.”  Also, something about it just didn’t feel complete.  Like there was more of a story here to tell.

Regardless, it’s worth a watch.  It’s nothing monumental, but it’s an interesting little character study focusing on one of those old school musicians who writes great songs but gets lost in the sea of overproduction and overblown performances that is characteristic of modern country music.  Kind of like T-Bone Burnett, the writer of the Oscar winning song in this movie, “The Weary Kind”.

If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that you don’t have to go to a big concert to find great music.  It could be lurking right around the corner at a small bar or a bowling alley.  Dang, I should’ve saved that for the Lesson Learned section.  Oh well, it’s a point worth making twice.

There’s good music all over the place if you look hard enough for it.

10 – 2.8 because I thought the story, and the turns it takes at times, wasn’t overly compelling or original – .1 for Colin Farrell’s pony tail = 7.1

Four Christmases (2008)

Tags

Comedy, Four Christmases, Jon Favreau, Kristin Chenoweth, Movie, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Vince Vaughn

excuse me, sir! could you tell us about your hat choice please!?

PG-13

Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Kristin Chenoweth, Jon Favreau

Eric: You lie to your families at Christmas time?
Brad: Well, you really can’t spell families without “lies”…try it.

A couple wants to go to Fiji for Christmas instead of having to spend it with their families, but heavy fog delays their flight and forces them to attend celebrations at four different houses.

This is a fairly standard Christmas comedy with two relatively normal central characters surrounded by their eccentric family members.  Fortunately it manages to be somewhat funny at times, and it doesn’t have everything work out perfectly for all the families in the end either.  At least one character doesn’t really learn anything about family and kindness.  He’s bitter till the end.  Not exactly the Christmas spirit, but there’s plenty more movies out there to watch if you want that.

Not that there isn’t a message about family and blah blah blah.  There is.  It’s just usually accompanied by a less serious conversation.  Like when Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon) discuss the positives of having children, which includes all the free labor you get from them.

I’ll admit that I actually like Vince Vaughn most of the time, and he’s alright here.  His rapid, random talking thing works sometimes and doesn’t work other times.  He’s likable though, and he and Witherspoon are good together.

My least favorite part of the movie is the first of the four Christmases.  It occurs at Brad’s father’s house, and it involves a lot of yelling, slapstick comedy, a crying baby, and general destruction.  Once that segment was done, the movie became more watchable.

I guess that’s the level of praise I’ll give it.  It’s watchable.  You can have it on in the background and get a few laughs here and there and maybe a smidgen of Christmas spirit.  But if you want a funnier movie about people dealing with crazy relatives, just watch Christmas Vacation.

Sometimes it’s okay to avoid your family around the holidays.

10 – 2 for that whole first Christmas segment – 2.1 for not being consistently funny enough = 5.9