Crazy Heart

Everyone’s gone country. From Gwyneth Paltrow promoting new flick Country Strong on Glee with Dixie Chix covers, to fashion on the high-street. Everyone’s in love with the deep south. So it’s high time I publish my thoughts on Crazy Heart – and maybe dig out my cowboy boots.

Scott Cooper’s music-drama features Jeff Bridges as down-and-out country music star ‘Bad Blake’ who tries to turn his life around after meeting journalist Jean Craddock, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

This tragic film is one of uncomfortable voyeurism. We’re introduced to Bad Blake as he orders a drink before his low budget gig, in a tacky bowling alley in the arse end of nowhere-ville. The admiration he receives from everyone ensures we understand he’s fallen from grace, and his smooth talking in the liquor store ensures we know how.

Cooper takes a realistic and inglorious approach to portraying alcoholism – there’s no witty one-liners, no ‘loveable rogue’ when Bad Blake’s been at the sauce. Rather, intimate camera close-ups and unflattering angles help form a sense of confusion and disgust - which accurately reflects Blake’s current state of mind.

The tipsy car-crash, violent sickness and barely intelligible gigs mould an atmosphere of foreboding, which culminates in the shopping mall scene when Jean’s son Buddy goes AWOL. The audience is routing for Blake, but you know it’s all about to go horribly wrong. That scene was more uncomfortable to watch than the drunken bender which followed.

But why? Because, it was a knife-edge moment. If Blake could only keep himself together, then a lifetime of happiness could await him with the lovely Jean and Buddy. But he can’t. And we know he can’t. Addiction is horrible thing – it’ll lead you to water, but leave you twice as thirsty afterwards.

Like all artists, Blake’s talent is open to abuse and waste. While lamenting the loss of Jean he writes some of the best music of his career, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Former protégée Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) is hoping to advance his already successful career by buying the rights, but he offers no solace or help. Neither does his long-standing agent, who’s only priority is Tommy and getting Blake to sell up on song rights.

Sweet’s character is an obvious indictment of the manufactured ‘country’ stars in America. Big on style, small on god-given talent. Blake represents the old, soulful core of country, while Sweet is the clear, commercial future. And we see which one wins, when Blake ultimately sells him his best song, to then donate the money to Buddy. One final act of redemption on his (hopefully) final road to sobriety.

Any Kurk Cobain/ James Dean/ Marilyn fan can appreciate how tragic it is to see talent, more so, a life, wasted – and it doesn’t matter if it’s a music idol, or your next door neighbour.

Coen brother’s favourite, T-Bone Burnett, stamps out another impressive audio footprint with a heart-felt, reflective and entertaining soundtrack (some performed by Bridges and Farrell). Aside from the drama, the music really allows Bridges to dazzle us with this Oscar winning performance – his natural charisma shines out when he sings – especially title track, ‘The Weary Kind’, which stands out for its haunting, choked melancholy.

True Grit

Tron seems to have kick-started a Jeff Bridges revival in my house this week. So, first on the list was True Grit, the Coen brothers remake of the 1969 John Wayne classic.

Not dissimilar to Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges adopts an almost unintelligible accent to play US Marshall Reuben J ‘Rooster’ Cogburn. The audience is introduced to this one-eyed renegade, during a trial where his testimony has an almost Dickensien disregard for the law – pointing out the obvious failings of the legal profession with off-hand, changeable comments.

His slouched, easy stance is kept in shadow by the bright window light behind him – the effect is to produce a distinctive sillouette of this ‘shady character’. To be expected, the humour in the script is typical Coen, and the quick banter between Rooster and the lawyer was reminiscent of the rhetoric between Clooney and the law in ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou’.

Clearly, the way characters use language is something the Coen’s have added to their auteur specifications. And interestingly, it’s Hailee Steinfeld’s performance as Mattie Ross which leaves the strongest impression. In the original Charles Portis novel, 14 year-old Mattie dominates as the first-person narrator. In the film, Mattie’s vocabulary reflects that of the written word, she doesn’t abbreviate, she doesn’t use slang, or mish-mash a sentence. Every word uttered is as considered and precise as her appearance. The obvious contrast in dialogue between Mattie and Rooster, apart from being comic, is a metaphor for their moral stance in life. Retribution versus revenge.

Critically, this film was considered a risk for the Coen’s. John Wayne’s legend as the ultimate American (western) hero speaks strongly to the national identity – mess with it at your peril. Personally, I’m not a fan of Westerns, I can’t think of one (other than No Country for Old Men) which I’ve paid to go and see, so the very fact that the Coen’s can guarantee an audience in any genre must be a sign this film has wide appeal.

I enjoyed it. The cinematography is wild and epic – the final chase scene a refreshing variation on the traditional western shoot out – (horse chases across open plains seems to remind me of LOTR) which makes the more intimate moments more intense (Mattie down the snake pit felt very claustrophobic).

A film with this many ‘characters’ runs the risk of alienating an audience – it could become too difficult to find any of them believable – but luckily we don’t in True Grit. Matt Damon, delivers a hugely understated and excellent performance as the Texan Ranger LaBoeuf.

Over all 3.8 of out 5 (so pedantic I know)

Tron Legacy

Well, I’ve really not been on for a long time. No excuse, just a few lifestyle changes and laziness. Whoops.

So I’ve missed reporting on my favourite views since, well, goodness me about two years. Many things have happened all of them good – Inception, Shutter Island, and it’s not just the Leonardo DiCaprio films I liked last year, up there was Toy Story 3, The Hurt Locker, A Single Man, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and many more I can’t even remember. That’s how good they were.

Summer is almost here which inevitably means a tedious season of blockbusters and kids flicks, so it’s back to Love Film to catch up on some goodies I’ve missed. The first of which is ... Tron: Legacy.

Aside from the jarringly bright and optimistic Disney logo on the film poster, this film is a true dystopian epic. Not as good as Blade Runner, as it’s nowhere near as clever, but up there with other sci-fi adventures like the Matrix.

The best bit, clearly, is the Dude and, as he describes it, the ‘bo-digital jazz’ of a soundtrack – Daft Punk of course. The other thing, is the pure beautiful design of the ‘Grid’ – something which director Joseph Kosinski was clearly keen to promote as something not of the ‘future’ but just the best of current aesthetics.

There’s nothing really ‘futuristic’ as such about the cars, venues, homes, clothes of the Programmes and Users in the Grid – much of it feels like you’ve seen it before, just maybe in an art gallery, or architects webpages. Kevin Flynn’s Japanese inspired minimalist house is an enviable bachelor pad, and the villain ‘Clu’ lives in what could arguably be a top airline’s first class lounge – just with a couple of ominous bikers strutting about in leathers.

Costumes have a clear nod to the previous film, but just like the graphics and even the atmosphere (it rains in the Grid) there’s a sense, that just like in the real-world, live has moved on, progressed and got harder, better, faster, stronger (bad in joke for DP fans). But I couldn’t get past the wetsuit look of them (but maybe that’s because I’ve just back from a week of surfing).

Overall the story is somewhat weak and predicable, but that’s not what makes this film enjoyable – it’s the style and the immersion into a different world. There’s some excellent character performances (Michael Sheen has a real injection of energy half way through) and some fairly terrible (Garrat Headland – Sam Flynn).

I think it’s clear this, like so many of Bridges films, will be a bit of cult hit and a marmite classic, some will cherish and others won’t.

3.5 out of 5