In Contention

Tag: Crazy Heart

  • ‘Crazy Heart’ gets a release date

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartFox Searchlight Pictures has settled on a December 16, 2009 release date for Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” which I wrote up yesterday.  Here’s the synopsis from the studio.  Nothing you don’t know, but at least it’s “official” verbiage:

    Four-time Academy Award® nominee JEFF BRIDGES stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film CRAZY HEART from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart.

  • ‘Crazy Heart’ has the goods

    (from left) Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartIt’s not just Jeff Bridges who leaps onto the Oscar landscape with Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart.” It’s possible in a few months that we’ll be talking pretty seriously about Maggie Gyllenhaal in the supporting actress race and, most certainly, T Bone Burnett’s contributions as the film’s music supervisor.

    Fox Searchlight screened the film this morning to a handful of press and will do so again this evening, looking to gauge reactions to what could be a big boost both on the awards front and commercially.  With “Amelia” losing money at the box office and a dwindling slate of product for the Oscar push, it seemed almost inevitable that this little mid-summer pick-up would find its way onto the 2009 schedule.  More and more, that’s looking to be the case.

    But back to the film.  I would rather not offer up a proper review for a movie that hasn’t been color-timed, still has some sound mixing work to be done and, on the whole, just isn’t finished yet, but I feel comfortable calling it a slow burn that settles warmly in the tradition of “Tender Mercies” or “Nobody’s Fool.” While it might be unfair to reduce it to a “country-music ‘Wrestler’” (as The Hollywood Reporter’s Steven Zeitchik did yesterday without having seen the film), that is nevertheless a pretty streamlined way of describing the narrative.

    More importantly, however, that “performance of a lifetime” from Jeff Bridges that Fox Searchlight was on about when the studio bought the film nearly four months ago?  I think it could be this year’s Oscar-winning lead actor turn walking away.

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  • Fox Searchlight looks to salvage season with potential 2009 release for ‘Crazy Heart’

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartJust when you thought last year’s Best Picture victor was down for the count, Fox Searchlight goes and shakes things up in November. First, some background…

    When we kicked off our coverage of the 2009-2010 Oscar season a year in advance, one of the more anticipated titles was Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” based on the novel by Thomas Cobb about an alcoholic country music singer on the road to redemption. The film stars Jeff Bridges in the leading role, along with Colin Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall.

    In July, Searchlight picked the film up, touting Bridges’s “performance of a lifetime,” but the studio slated the release for the spring of 2010. It seemed a shame at the time given the fact that the film was shaping up to be a potential awards vehicle for Bridges at the very least, perhaps more. But with “Amelia” on the way, a (so we thought) potentially major player in the race with its typical AMPAS tropes. But that ship has sailed, leaving the studio with only the animated “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and Marc Webb’s summer entry “(500) Days of Summer” to hawk for awards consideration.

    Until now. Maybe.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Comic-Con, a taste of ‘Avatar’ and ‘Alice’

    Comic-Con• Comic-Con was the week’s big story, with 25 minutes of footage from “Avatar” its major talking-point so far.

    • Meanwhile, the rather less glitzy sci-fi of “District 9” wowed the crowds.

    • And Gary Oldman slipped some unexpected news about the next Batman installment.

    • Good week for trailers, as both “Alice in Wonderland” and “Bright Star” offered a crazyglimpse of their goods.

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  • Jeff Bridges: due for Oscar

    Jeff BridgesYesterday Guy kick-started the Best Actor conversation on “Crazy Heart” star Jeff Bridges.  The film, recently acquired by Fox Searchlight, is currently scheduled for a Spring 2010 release but seems to be all but begging for an autumn awards run given the buzz circling Bridges’s performance.  I imagine similar discussions are happening at Searchlight, and without any real muscle in the lead actor race so far (I’m not sure Joseph Gordon-Levitt can survive the year), it would make some sense to jerk it into a qualifying release pattern.

    Bridges, of course, is well overdue for some Oscar glory.  He’s cranked out worthy performance after worthy performance, going all the way back to his first nomination for “The LAst Picture Show” and his first leading bid in “Starman.”  His work in Rod Lurie’s “The Contender” (another nomination) still stands as my favorite presidential depiction on film yet.  Nathaniel Roges over at The Film Experience is thinking along the same lines today, but offers sound reasoning for the actor’s consistently bleak Oscar track record.

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  • Searchlight backs Bridges’s “performance of a lifetime”

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartWhen I first began compiling my Oscar nomination predictions back in May, I took a wild-card Best Actor punt on Jeff Bridges in a little, then distributor-less indie called “Crazy Heart.”

    In truth, I had little basis for the guess other than the strong reputation of the 1987 source novel, and the fact that Bridges is surely one of the most sorely Oscar-overdue actors in the business. Like Ed Harris, he’s one of those dependable American stalwarts, well-liked by all, who you think must win at some point, but rarely land roles showy enough for the winner’s circle.

    “Crazy Heart,” however, gives Bridges the opportunity to play a washed-up, alcoholic country singer seeking to get his life and career back on track — now just count the Oscar hooks in that sentence. How can he lose?

    So I was interested to see my idea given at least some credence by Fox Searchlight, who recently acquired global rights to the film for a seven-figure sum.

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