Pbenjay's Blog

I just came home after seeing Crazy Heart and am more convinced than before that Jeff Bridges truly deserved the Best Actor Academy Award.  He was convincingly the aging, washed up, alcoholic country singer.

The best actors take the risks.  And they make it look easy, so easy in fact that you don’t even think they’re making it look easy. Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake was an outstanding example of an actor willing to let it all hang out, both figuratively and literally.  At 60 years old, he was brave enough to take off most of his clothes and let’s be honest, he wasn’t exactly sexy in his tighty whities.  Actually it was the scene in the movie where he vomits and lays down on the bathroom floor wearing only his underwear – that was when it really hit me….he was a drunk, moaning and then passing out.  Every expression, every movement of his body…. and then I realized, he’s NOT ALONE in this room; the cameramen, the lighting people, the grips, and the electricians, the script reader, set decorators, make-up and on and on are all around him – it’s almost unbelievable that he was so …. vulnerable!

And then as I said in my previous Oscar-related blog, when you compare his performance to that of his competition, there really wasn’t any competition.  That’s not to say that George Clooney and Morgan Freeman and Colin Firth aren’t great actors – they are.  The role and the depth of your character certainly plays a huge part in your ability to bring an Oscar home.  Even though you often read in a review the statement that the actor brought depth to the role , there are some roles that just don’t allow an actor to stretch. This blog is not about criticizing the other nominees or their roles; it’s only about singing the praises of Jeff Bridges in what surely was his best role ever.  Best Actor – Jeff Bridges Indeed!

Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake