Rollin' Them Sevens

Comments (0) By Noah W. Bailey Thursday, May 20 2010

More About

We've loved Jeff Bridges unconditionally ever since The Big Lebowski, and we've loved country music since birth. So when the trailer for Crazy Heart arrived last fall, it's safe to say we were excited. Amazingly, the movie lived up to almost all our expectations, even if the ending left a little to be desired--the best country songs always leave you in tears after all. Sure, the casting of Colin Farrell as Bad-Blake-protege-turned-superstar Tommy Sweet was a bit of headscratcher, too, but it's easy to forgive, considering Crazy Heart was successful at the one thing 90 percent of country music films have failed miserably at over the years--capturing the true spirit of the music without reducing it to pure caricature. You can thank T. Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham and the late Stephen Bruton for pulling that off. But without Bridges' surprisingly devastating singing voice and tour de force performance as Bad Blake--a dead-on amalgam of Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt and that guy you met once in AA--none of it would have mattered, hence the Oscar. Catch Crazy Heart at 6 and 8 p.m. Friday, 5 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St. Tickets are $8.50, $6.50 for Modern members. Visit themodern.org.
May 21-23, 2010