"Crazy Heart"

Title: "Crazy Heart"

Director: Scott Cooper
Producers: R. Duvall, R. Carliner, J. Cairo, T-Bone Burnett, etc...
Editing: John Axelrad
Composer: S. Bruton, T-Bone Burnett, and R. Bingham
Starring:
- Jeff Bridges as Otis "Bad" Blake
- Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jean Craddock
- Colin Farrell as Tommy Sweet
- Robert Duvall as Wayne Kramer
- Paul Herman as Jack Greene
- Jack Nation as Buddy, Jean's son.

Plot and Critical Review: Otis "Bad" Blake is a 57-year-old alcoholic singer-songwriter who was once a country music star. He now earns a modest living by singing and playing his guitar in small town bars in the southwestern United States. Having a history of failed marriages, Blake is without a family. He has a son, aged 28, with whom he has not had contact in 24 years. He is mostly on the road performing, staying in cheap motels and traveling in his old car alone.

Enter Jean Craddock , a young journalist after a story, divorced and with a four-year-old son, Buddy. She interviews Blake and the two enter into a relationship. Jean and her son become a catalyst for Blake beginning to get his life back on track. In doing so, he lets himself be pushed into renewing a professional relationship with Tommy Sweet, a popular and successful country music star he once mentored, and plays as the opening act at one of Tommy's concerts, despite his initial balking and wounded pride at being the opening act to his former student. He asks Tommy to record an album with him, but Tommy suggests that Blake concentrate on writing new songs that Tommy can record solo, telling him he (Blake) writes better songs than anyone else.

Blake's drinking soon gets out of control, and he ends up running off the road while driving drunk. In the hospital, the doctor informs him that although he only sustained a broken ankle from the crash, he is slowly killing himself, and must stop drinking and smoking and lose 25 pounds if he wants to live more than a few more years. Blake's relationship with Jean makes him start to rethink his life. He calls up his son to make amends, only to have his son tell him that his mother, Blake's ex-wife, has died, and hangs up on him. After a situation where Blake loses Buddy briefly at a shopping mall while drinking at a bar, Jean breaks up with him.

After losing Jean and her son, who were becoming his only family, Blake resolves to quit drinking. After going through a treatment program at a rehab center, and with support from his Alcoholics Anonymous group and his old friend Wayne, Blake finally manages to get sober. Having cleaned up his act, he tries to reunite with Jean, but she tells him that the best thing he can do for her and Buddy is to leave them alone. After losing Jean, Blake finishes writing a song that he thinks is his best ever, "The Weary Kind", and sells it to Tommy.

Sixteen months later, Blake encounters Jean when she calls out to him in a parking lot outside one of Tommy's concerts. The audience sees Blake backstage, watching Tommy play "The Weary Kind" to an appreciative audience while his manager presents another of the large royalty checks for the song. As Blake is leaving, Jean calls to him, saying she has come to the show as writer for a large music publication. He offers her the money from that royalty check for Buddy to have for his 18th birthday, but Jean refuses it. The film ends with a long view of Jean interviewing Blake for a story at a picnic table on the edge of the parking lot. Amid the scenic southwestern landscape, the sound of Tommy's music is heard coming from the nearby concert.

4. That's how many times Jeff Bridges was nominated for either the Best Actor or Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar before he finally received it for his performance as "Bad" Blake in "Crazy Heart". He waited over 25 years since his first Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actor in "The Last Picture Show") to finally hold the coveted gold statue. Some actors hit a home run their first time at bat, but Bridges played the waiting game. It paid off.

"Crazy Heart" was produced on a budget of $7 million dollars. That's spare change compared to some of the other films you might remember from 2009:

"The Hangover" - Approx. Budget: $35 million

"Sherlock Holmes" - Approx. Budget: $90 million

"2012" - Approx. Budget: $200 million

"Avatar" - Approx. Budget: $250 million

"Crazy Heart" grossed just over 10x the amount it cost, but the real value is in the story, not the box office till. Based on the stories of several famous country music superstars ("bad boys", all), "Crazy Heart" boldly presents the dark side of country music (musicians in general, perhaps) and does so without apology. No matter how powerful or popular a person becomes, they're still haunted with the same ghosts we all face day after day.

My Rating: 8/10

Content to Caution:
V-1 - No comment.
L-3 - Cursing throughout.
DU- 4 - Blake is almost always smoking or drinking.
RT-1 - No comment.
H/S-0 - No comment.
CH-2 - Some crude joking.
S/N- 3 - Two sex scenes, but suggestions of at least four sexual interactions. No blatant nudity.

The "Reel Revelation": "My Compass Reads..."

Have you ever used a compass? Maybe you were taught how in Boy/Girl Scouts, science class, or got to use one on a wilderness trek. Even if you've never used one, you probably have a fair sense of what a compass is supposed to do; give you a clear sense of direction relative to the magnetic poles of our planet. Simple enough. We all have internal compasses, too. In "Mere Christianity", C.S. Lewis described a "universal law" which governs all things and places within each person a sense of right and wrong. That compass helps us to discern ethical situations and make moral decisions. Lewis went on to suggest (proclaim, really, but suggest is more fitting during that part of the book) that it was the Creating God who placed that "universal law" within us from the beginning, and it is by His will we have a sense of right and wrong. Thus, all human beings are given a compass by which they can not only make good decisions (decisions of righteousness, and for justice), but will in fact be led back to the Creator and come to know Him personally.

But wouldn't you know it, not everyone follows that compass. Some people never learn to read it. Others set out to master it and follow it faithfully. Some, through what must be utter self-destruction, replace that compass with someone else, and it is by the direction of that second guide they choose to live. This happened once in the Bible, and God was not very pleased:

"Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, "Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt." Then the LORD spoke to Moses, "Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves." They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, 'This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!' It came about, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses' anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it. Then Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you, that you have brought such great sin upon them?" Aaron said, "Do not let the anger of my lord burn; you know the people yourself, that they are prone to evil." For they said to me, 'Make a god for us who will go before us; for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' Then the LORD smote the people, because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made." (Exodus 32: 1-4, 7, 8, 19-23, 35)

I've obviously shortened the story for the sake of space, but I encourage you to go into your own Bibles and read Exodus 32. This is a prime example of how we manage to replace God's compass with our own, and the reasons for doing so.

Israel had become weary and tired. They were fed up with Moses, full of Manna, and sick of walking in circles. Have you ever felt the same way? Does it ever seem like you've been walking in spiritual circles? Sometimes we do, but even when we think we're lost our compass still points us back to a loving God, not a taskmaster who's leading us about for His own pleasure.

"Crazy Heart" tells the story of a man who made alcohol, tobacco, women, and country music his compass. Even if one of those things failed him, Blake could always turn to something else and find (momentary) satisfaction. And then suddenly Jean entered the story and he realized how far off the map he was. He did the only think more difficult than getting lost in the first place...getting back on track. Even though he lost the girl, he gained his own life because he turned from what was leading him astray.

What's your compass? When you discover you're off course, where do you go to check your bearings and set things straight?

Every day we're faced with the opportunity to place our trust in things, people, and worldly promises. You can choose to do so - you wouldn't be the first - but you'll soon realize that trusting in the needle of that compass will only cause you to go the direction of destruction. I do not think that is too much to say, for that is the way all things of this world shall go. But if you look to Christ and set the compass of your life on him, behold, He will lead you by His own light; the radiance pouring forth from Himself at all times, and you will arrive safely at home.

Israel followed a pillar of cloud. (Exodus 13:21)

The Magi followed a star. (Matthew 2)

We follow the Savior. (Luke 5: 1-11)

See you tomorrow- E.T.