It's their turn, common wisdom says. Jeff Bridges has attended the Oscars four times before. Sandra Bullock's running on the Whaddaya-Know card. Tonight, they will likely take home statuettes for their 2009 work. At least for part of it; Bullock just picked up a Razzie for her other film last year, All About Steve.
Sandra Bullock hocks DVDs of All About Steve in person at the 2010 Razzies.Be reassured: both are fine in their nominated performances. If commerce and marketing had less pull over the Oscars, Michael Stuhlbarg or Jeremy Renner would take Best Actor, and Meryl Streep or Carey Mulligan Best Actress. But I won't denigrate the gravy train they're riding. Bullock, in particular, is the saving grace of her film: an inspirational but inert "true story."
The Blind Side sticks closely to the journey of rags-to-Ravens football star Michael Oher; sometimes life works better as life than art. Actual reported dialogue, as seen in this excerpt from Michael Lewis's book, makes it onto the screen, but every line, lifted or invented, comes across with the manufactured sugar of a Fruit Roll-Up. "You're changing that boy's life," says a sweet, suspicious Memphis wife. "No," Bullock responds. "He's changing mine."
Country singer Tim McGraw has screen presence to spare, and Bullock musters up enough spit-and-vinegar to ride through the saccharine. Taking in over $200 million at the box office, The Blind Side has become the highest-ranking sports movie yet. So why doesn't a compelling life story translate better to film? We never see Michael as a character, for starters. The great biopics manipulate true-life events in search of subtext, of a person's inner workings. Michael has all his decisions made for him by rich white restaurant-chain owners: the suburban Christian elite. His path seems entirely based on the kindness of strangers, not any passions or emotions of his own.
In Crazy Heart, Bad Blake's passions are more immediate: booze, broads, and ballads. Cue every down-and-out wunderkind film of the last twenty years. The Wrestler comes to mind; with all due respect to Mickey Rourke, we expect great work from Jeff Bridges. Crazy Heart, which fought for a distributor, has gained everything from awards season; and good for it. Best of all is T-Bone Burnett's surefire score, and the actors corralled into singing (Bridges, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall).Crazy Heart feels more indie, less Hallmark, than The Blind Side, though both were made on tight budgets. But you can check off the familiar landmarks the film drives by: Washed-up musician. Scruffy motel room. Music journalist in lust. That one song that paves the way to recovery. Sunrise, sunset. The women in these male comeback sagas never get much to work with (Walk the Line being one recent exception), but Maggie Gyllenhaal does her darnedest. Bridges and company find a gentle rhythm and don't tug too hard on the heartstrings. It's a movie we've all seen before, but hey, it's Jeff Bridges's turn. Unlike Bad Blake, he's still in his prime.
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