Crazy Heart

Oh, the Oscars - the standard by which seemingly everyone judges excellence in film. Even critics, who are supposed to discuss the actual elements of the film and their merits, are usually reduced to just saying things like, "...deserves an Oscar". It's a shortcut to thinking. It's a dubious goal to be achieved. It's cornball shit. Some movies seem tailor made for the Academy Award. Movies where aging favorites play characters on a desperate path toward redemption. 'Crazy Heart' can't help seeming like one of these movies. Here, Jeff Bridges plays 'Bad' Blake, a 57 year old country legend who's never had the kind of big break to make him as popular as his contemporaries. He travels from town to town, bowling alley to bar, and dazzles everyone in his path who just can't believe he's actually there playing in front of him. Of course, there's a reason he is. He's a pretty serious alcoholic, one who goes into withdrawal after a casual afternoon at the park. One who stumbles off stage mid-song to puke in the trashcan out back. It's pretty clear early on in the film that 'Bad's' bad fortune is his own doin'.

Then a couple things happen to him. His ex-protege, who has become a big star in modern country, wants to reconnect with him, which could prove quite lucrative. Also, his one night stand with a pretty, young reporter turns into a long distance romance with her and her young son. Is he ready to put his 'bad' ways behind him, or is he just 'bad'. Forgive the overuse of the opposite of good, but his nickname gets thrown around in such ridiculous ways that you wonder if they're trying to be funny. Lines like, "That's good, Bad", and, "Hi, I'm Bad". Much in the same way, you can't help wondering if director Scott Cooper is trying to make a movie for Oscar talk and the theatrical trailer. In one sequence, his pretty, young reporter (an over-the-top Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her son run into his arms a-la Cameron Crowe after an exhilarating hot-air balloon ride. It's seems made for the trailers ("Oh, things were SO good back then"), as does the inevitable road trip-country music montages. The direction the film takes are just as easy targets as everything else

That doesn't make 'Crazy Heart' particularly unenjoyable though. Cooper gives us an often unforgiving look at the locales, the dive bars, the empty bowling alleys, and the darkened rooms Bad drinks in as the sun pours through the blinds. Bridges does here, less subtly, what he did in the underrated 'The Fabulous Baker Boys'. It's a bleak performance, but one charmed by his sense of humor, his chops as a musician, and his lived-in feel for heartbreak. I would've given him the oscar for 'Starman' or 'Fearless', but this'll do. Also, I wouldn't say I'm coming around on country, but the songs are effortlessly likable. Good to see Robert Duvall.

Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call: New Orleans

I don't know why Werner Herzog made '...Port Of Call...', and I don't care. The unofficial sequel to Abel Ferarra's 1992 cult masterpiece seems to have almost none of internal turmoil of its predecessor. There's no repentance, no struggles with the lost virtues of catholicism, no pontificating on the theme of revenge. Nope, Herzog just seems to focus on all the good stuff: wild gambling addiction, rampant drug use, twisting the law, prostitution, more drug use. It feels like an exploitation film, and it works. It's a LOT of fun.

Much of this is owed to the more than welcome return of Nicolas Cage. Those who don't hate him for his descent into Hollywood hell hate him for the energetic actor that he was: filled with an absurd amount of manic energy, going out on ridiculous limbs, and not afraid to look really bad in order to make the film around him look better (see 'Peggy Sue Got Married' and 'Wild At Heart'). Here, he has none of Harvey Keitel's lapsed catholic; he's just BAD. As a New Orleans police Lieutenant, he hunts down the local drug kingpin (a surprisingly good Xzibit) and dazzles his peers with the daily progress. Meanwhile, he's pimping out his prostitute girlfriend and drinking and snorting anything that comes into his path. His gambling addiction is about to get the better of him and his superiors are getting increasingly curious about how he comes about his results.

Cage doesn't play his descent as a man forced into a corner of redemption - he plays it as a batshit crazy addict who seems to have always thought the phrase went "Two wrongs make it right". He just keeps double crossing, stealing, and blackmailing until things start to turn back around for him. The results are something resembling the tail end of 'Blue Velvet', and it makes the journey that much funnier. But for me, this is all an excuse to watch Cage work his absurd magic. He paces around the film in an oversized, piece-of-shit suit; sweating, sweeping his thinning hair off of his forehead, and sporting a .44 down the front of his pants (no holster). There's little doubt he's playing it for comic affect, but he injects it with so much energy that there's no time to let the punchline sink in.

It's always good to see Herzog shooting on American soil. He never does it without the romantic eye of a foreigner in love with the terrain. He takes us to centuries-old bayou mansions, Katrina-ravaged slums, cookie-cutter chain hotels, and even occasionally shows us all this from the eyes of the local alligators! This may all be a dramatic tale of an addict's greed gone hilariously astray; but either way, it's about as much fun as you'll get from the movies these days.