In Contention

Tag: The Weary Kind

  • Bingham wins a Grammy, set for Bonnaroo

    I didn’t see the Grammys this weekend.  In fact, I tend to avoid them like the plague.  But it was nevertheless an impressive slate of winners, so that’s a unique start.

    In any case, it’s worth pointing out that Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett’s “The Weary Kind” wrapped up a long awards march by taking the award for Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media.  So add that to a list of accolades that includes an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Critic’s Choice Movie Award, and the Americana Music Association “Song of the Year” honor.  A great ride indeed.

    “It’s incredible,” Bingham said to press backstage at the Grammys. “It’s been a hell of a ride. All this stuff flies by so fast and happens so quick. Afterward you look back on it, let it soak in, and see what it’s all about.”

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  • Bingham at The Mint

    Hate to be an advocate, but last year’s Best Original Song winner Ryan Bingham hit the stage for a modest private showcase last night at The Mint in West L.A. and just nailed it.

    The new album, “Junky Star,” hits shelves September 7 and was produced by T Bone Burnett, as mentioned previously.  It’s like a Springsteen album, focused, intense, but free-wheelin’.  It’s exactly the kind of music you want to hear this guy turning out.

    Bingham spent some years in Austin and made his way as a country artist.  He’s been here in Los Angeles for four years now, but his sound isn’t country.  It’s quite progressive, actually, with an awareness, respect and even dedication to traditional melodies and sonic sense.  But it retains an authentic sheen that makes it quite unique.

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  • If YOU had a ballot

    Colin FirthTonight’s the big night, and as we close in on the final hours of the 2009-2010 film awards season, I thought I’d offer up this list (another one!), which reflects how you, the readership, would like the night’s festivities to go.  These are the results of the daily polls that accompanied our Oscar Guide series during the second phase of the season.  Thanks for participating.

    Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”
    Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
    Best Actor: Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
    Best Actress: Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
    Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
    Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: “Up in the Air”
    Best Original Screenplay: “Inglourious Basterds”

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  • Nut up or shut up: final predictions

    Jeremy Renner in The Hurt LockerAs I look over my final predictions for tomorrow night’s Oscar ceremony, I notice that I’ve made only one change — in the Best Live Action Short category — since taking my initial stab the day of the nominations.  And I haven’t made a single change since I started the Oscar Guide series.

    Am I that confidant in my picks?  Not really.  It’s a very unpredictable year all of a sudden (the AP chimes in on that here), even if conventional wisdom would have us believe much of this is a foregone conclusion.  But nothing has really moved the needle during the bulk of phase two and the one controversy that popped up may not be as detrimental as some suspect.  Regardless, I’m frankly bracing myself for having an off year.

    And it kinda sucks because I set a pretty high bar for myself last year, a personal best, as I nailed down a web-leading 21 of the 24 categories (23 of 24 if you count alternates).  That included a call for “Departures” that left me exposed to plenty of “You’re just trying to be different” heckling.  Ahem.

    If I even approach those numbers this time around, I’ll certainly be surprised.  I frankly don’t expect to hit 21 ever again, but who knows?  Many areas of this race are coming right down to the wire.

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Music (Original Song)

    Nora Arnezeder in Paris 36Year after year, the original song category tends to prove that something is broken in the music branch of the Academy.  But to be fair, that’s a bit of a half-truth overall, as the original score field has begun to loosen up a bit and allow for newbie talent to get a foot in the door as of late.

    Still, when it comes to voting on the songs with a seemingly arbitrary system, not to mention a rash of rules that feel made up along the way (and overtly subjective at that), the branch certainly makes a given tune earn it with one hell of an uphill climb along the way.  That having been said, the category nailed down a decent slate of nominees this season.

    The nominees are:

    “Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Randy Newman)
    “Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Randy Newman)
    “Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36”     (Reinhardt Wagner; Frank Thomas)
    “Take It All” from “Nine” (Maury Yeston)
    “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” (T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham)

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  • Calling the longshots

    Sharlto Copley in District 9So this Steve Pond piece, titled “How Oscar Could Surprise — and Scare — Us,” is what we like to call hedging our bets.  It’s a chance to address some bubble matters so that we have something to point to and say, “Look, I toldja!”

    (Is that officially trademarked by Nikki Finke yet?)

    Anyway, I do like the guessing game fun, and Pond touches on a couple of things that I would likely mention if I were to do a similar piece.  One we can all understand is his #10, the potential snub of “Invictus” in the Best Picture category.  It has kind of been in the water for a few weeks now that the film just isn’t as strong as it could be, likely lacking passionate top tier votes.  It is, frankly, in the #10 spot on my list of final predictions.

    I do like Pond’s mention of Sharlto Copley as a potential Best Actor spoiler, but failing to even make the longlist with BAFTA (a group that wasn’t shy on the “District 9” love) makes the actor (who gave the year’s best lead actor performance in my book) the darkest of dark horses.

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  • Reaching the populace with ‘Crazy Heart’

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartWith “Crazy Heart” expanding more throughout the country and expecting, no doubt, a bit of an exposure bump after Tuesday’s Oscar nominations announcement, Fox Searchlight is stepping up its game and doing a nice job of getting the music out there.

    I stumbled across TheWearyKind.com last week, a nifty bit of social networking that allows musicians (of any level of talent, believe me) to upload their cover of Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett’s theme from the film.  The first video on the grid is Bingham performing it at the Los Angeles press day, but the second one I hadn’t seen.  It’s Jeff Bridges performing it in front of Peter Travers (I think).  The rest are user entries.

    Meanwhile, RecordStoreDay.com is offering up a contest whose winner I’d be incredibly jealous of.  The prize: an Epiphone AJ-200S acoustic guitar autographed by Bridges, Burnett and Bingham (suddenly I’m aware of the alliteration on this project).

    We’ll see tomorrow if the film can manage surprise nominations for Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and/or Best Picture, but for now, the road is pretty well paved for Bridges (who showed up at last night’s Grammys to introduce a performance tribute to Les Paul).

  • Official video for Ryan Bingham’s ‘The Weary Kind’

    Because, well, I’m glad of any excuse to bring up this track. Is there even a contest for Best Original Song? Even the Academy’s wilful music branch can’t screw this up. Surely.

  • Ryan Bingham performs ‘The Weary Kind’ on Letterman

  • December winner predictions

    Meryl Streep in Julie & JuliaI gave this an initial stab nearly two months ago.  I thought I might as well re-visit things.  (And hopefully there won’t be anyone getting their panties in a twist over something as harmless as this.  You know who you are.)

    Best Picture: “Avatar”
    Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
    Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
    Best Actress: Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
    Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
    Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: “Up in the Air”
    Best Original Screenplay: “Inglourious Basterds”

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  • Best in show: the year in superlatives

    Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock HolmesWrapping up my perspective on the year today, a personal list of superlatives, Oscar categories and other silly nonsense.

    Swing back around on Monday for the ultimate wrap-up, my list of the best films of the decade.

    Best Picture
    “A Serious Man” (Focus Features)

    Best Director
    Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, “A Serious Man”

    Best Actor
    Sharlto Copley, “District 9”

    Best Actress
    Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

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  • Talking ‘The Weary Kind’

    Speaking of original song contenders, we featured Ryan Bingham’s “The Weary Kind” a few weeks ago, but the New Mexico-bred crooner sat down with music consultant T Bone Burnett and “Crazy Heart” writer/director Scott Cooper at the film’s press day two weekends back to discuss the process of writing the soulful track.  Much of this you probably already know from reading my interview with Bigham and Burnett, but it’s nice to hear the two discussing it with Cooper.  Fox Searchlight recently made this video of the chat available, so take a look:

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Original Song

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartOver the last five months, Gerard has diligently canvassed and re-canvassed the various crafts categories here at In Contention.  The one category we have held back on all this time, as contenders have slowly fallen into place, was Best Original Song.  Today, it’s time to dig into the field.

    This has turned into something of a banner year for original songs in feature films.  We’ve had the great pleasure of bringing a number of hopefuls to you via our “listen to” posts, and look forward to continuing that into the new year.  But inevitably, frontrunners are bound to show up, and I think we can successfully narrow the field now.

    Before diving in, it’s worth reiterating the voting process in this category.  I’ll simply let the Academy’s rule book speak for itself:

    “An original song consists of words and music, both of which are original and written specifically for the motion picture. There must be a clearly audible, intelligible, substantive rendition (not necessarily visually presented) of both lyric and melody, used in the body of the motion picture or as the first music cue in the end credits.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The music of ‘Crazy Heart’

    T Bone BurnettThis marks the first of this year’s Tech Support interviews series with below-the-line crafts personnel, an annual feature at In Contention.

    When Scott Cooper’s adapted screenplay “Crazy Heart” was making the rounds a few years ago, it had the kind of soul a guy like T Bone Burnett wants out of a country-western film. But as far as musical accompaniment was concerned, it was a blank canvas.

    A close friend of actor Jeff Bridges dating back to their time together on Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate,” Burnett was the selling point when the actor began toying around with the idea of playing Bad Blake in the film. With Burnett came longtime friend and musician Stephen Bruton. With Bridges came his own longtime friend, John Goodwin. With a modest writers’ table assembled (including, of course, Cooper himself), the task then became searching for a voice with an array of original songs for the film.

    “There’s a Nashville voice that comes really from Lefty Frizelle,” Burnett says. “And then Merle Haggard was the next, and there’ve been hundreds of people who’ve learned to sing from Merle Haggard and Lefty. Most of the country singers are essentially in that tambour. Jeff is a whole different thing. So we began looking for prototypes, so to speak, and the first prototype to me was Leonard Cohen, who’s a great writer and sang with a deep chest voice like Jeff did. Don Williams as well, who was a big country star in the 70s, big and good, too, and very much an individual. So we started looking for those kinds of voices that could be country music.”

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  • Ryan Bingham’s first live performance of ‘The Weary Kind’

    From yesterday’s press day for “Crazy Heart” in Beverly Hills, courtesy of Steve Pond at The Odds (who has an interview with the youngster up now).  Watch for our Tech Support interview with Bingham and T Bone Burnett later this afternoon.

  • Listen to Ryan Bingham’s ‘The Weary Kind’ from ‘Crazy Heart’

    Ryan BinghamOne of the first things I mentioned when I stumbled out of that dark theater on the Fox lot a few weeks ago, following a screening of Scott Cooper’s last minute awards entry “Crazy Heart,” was that I couldn’t get the final song, “The Weary Kind,” out of my head.  Today I’m happy to offer it up for your listening pleasure.

    The song is prime material for the Best Original Song category because of its implementation in the film.  (MILD SPOILERS) Jeff Bridges’s newly sober Bad Blake character, reflecting on his ups and downs and finally sitting down to pen a new tune, rattles through the chords and comes up with a powerful ditty for his former protege, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell).  Finally we get the full number in a concert sequence that leads into the closing credits.

    In my opinion, this is the frontrunner of the category.  There are a pair of “Nine” songs on its heels, however, and who knows what turf the tracks from “The Princess and the Frog” will claim, but this stand-out from a wonderful soundtrack is sure to prove instantly moving for many.  Have a listen below (in an official version performed by Ryan Bingham, who co-wrote the song with T Bone Burnett).

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