jeff bridges poll!

i dont know whether to go for best bridges perf. or best movie--hes the best thing in a bunch of mediocre movies

The best American actor of the last 35 years?

Chose Fearless over half a dozen possibilities: Last Picture Show, Fat City, Cutter's Way, Wild Bill, The Contender.

Morbs and I once fantasized about Brokeback Mountain starring a young Dennis Quaid and Bridges.

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/050609/123545__critic_l.jpg

^probably watched this film once a year, every year since it came out.

This is easy: The Big Lewbowski

I do like him as a baddass liberal president (in The Contender) better than most actors trying on that role, but Bridges and the Dude were made for and ennoble each other. The visionaries, naifs, villains, victims, and opaque blanks in the other movies are a pretty amazing assortment though.

The best American actor of the last 35 years?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, November 30, 2008 11:18 AM (11 hours ago)

chris walken is pissed

used to be super-dreamy. this is difficult!

anyway, fucking impossible, so i'm going with the boring choice of Lebowski cuz it's one of my faves ever

i really love the fabulous baker boys even though nothing really happens in it.

"used to be"??

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2008_Iron_Man/2008_iron_man_010.jpg

i dunno, the most recent thing i saw him in is Stick It and he finally looks like a dad. not a hot dad; just a dad.

one of the best speaking voices.

When all those cover stories praised Robert Downey, Jr.'s comeback in Iron Man a few months ago, I was a little pissed that no one mentioned that the movie's also Jeff Bridges' highest grosser.

he looks like billy joel in that iron man picture :-/

one of my favorite actors. kind of splits the difference between paul newman and harrison ford (cooler and more detached than ford, shaggier than newman). lebowski ftw, but i voted fearless. could have easily gone for last picture show, baker boys (just watched that again last week), maybe tucker. he's really good in starman. and against all odds too. and jagged edge. never seen american heart, been meaning to for 16 years.

American Heart is really good. This is a tough poll.

could have easily gone for last picture show, baker boys (just watched that again last week), maybe tucker. he's really good in starman

this

Dude Runner.

short list:

The Last Picture Show
Fat City
Cutter's Way
Starman
Tucker
American Heart
Wild Bill

Never seen American Heart.

he's also funnier in Hearts of the West and Nadine than in you-know-what.

max takes out Hearts of the West and Rancho Deluxe & leaves in THE LAST UNICORN

(hint: always drop the recent crapola and voiceovers)

hint: no

then just watch Rancho Deluxe.

no

W'happen, someone steal your inauguration minicamper?

Jeff looked bloated and coked up in Kong '76.

W'happen, someone steal your inauguration minicamper?

i think he's taking a boxcar

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Finally saw The Last Picture Show since this thread started, and what an amazing erotic movie--except Bridges hasnone of it! His sexuality is so non-aggressive or traditional in film that maybe it's been neglected.

yeah this poll is impossible. He is a great actor and has played like every character, even though a lot of times its "jeff bridges as a ___", it doesn't matter -- cause its Jeff fuckin' Bridges!!! That said, I have to vote for Tron, because I have vote for Kevin Flynn, my inner 10 year old would hate me if I didn't.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Tron in second!

woah wait Jeff Bridges is in Tron? I have vivid memories of that film, and that face belongs to Jeff Daniels...

and that, folks, is how eyewitnesses have put thousands of people in jail for crimes they didn't commit

Tron is no crime!

I saw him on Rollins' show a couple of years ago. He talked about Moondog and how he wouldn't be averse to playing him. . . .

another five years or so and he'll be able to!

next Bridges poll w/ all '70s films so Lebowski and Tron can fuck right off

Lebowski is a truly great performance (and I saw that as a skeptic of the film at large), but Tron in second is some prime ILX/fanboy bullshit.

this dude is basically the only guy who could get me to sit through a movie about a washed-up country singer and his late in life redemption

I'll be seeing that FOR MY CONSIDERATION. didn't you see Rip Torn's washed-up country star movie?

(forgot to do the poll of the films max left out)

i clicked to make sure lebowski won and morbs got mad itt. as u were :)

American Heart is some excellent performing, from Bridges and one of those Edwards I always confuse (Norton? Furlong? one of them) Good luck finding it, though.

Lebowski is excellent, but Fearless is underappreciated, so my vote, if I'd voted, would have gone to it, just as a shout out to a great film and great performance.

woulda voted last picture show

really, watch Cutter's Way

he could certainly win the Oscar for Crazy Heart, and it wouldn't be a disgrace.

Can't believe Arlington Road got no votes!! Amazing movie, amazing performance.

I CAN believe ILX hasn't seen any JB '70s films except King Kong and Fat City.

voted cutter's way

voted arlington road too, great performance

He seems very much like a broken-down Kris Kristofferson in Crazy Heart. He and Maggie Gyllenhaal make the film, and the songs are decent.

leaving los nashville

was i the one person who voted for tucker? i'd like to think i was

i want to see Crazy Heart

why is jeff bridges so hot?

I immediately thought Tender Mercies II when I saw the preview to Crazy Heart and lo and behold Robert Duvall is in the movie!

great charlie rose interview right now

wow, he just took it there. started talking about fear and shit. color me impressed.

This is a bit less Horton Foote-somber than Tender Mercies.

c. rose interview was fantastic

<3 so much after they showed the clip of robin williams talking abt bridges and they cut back to him and he's smiling so big and is all "eahhhhhh robin..."

^probably watched this film once a year, every year since it came out.

― DavidM, Sunday, 30 November 2008 16:29 (1 year ago)

Oh snap, don't think I've watched FBB this year! So far, anyway. There's still time. It's a good Christmas movie, tbh, so I'd better get right on it.

xpost YES!

^probably watched this film once a year, every year since it came out.

― DavidM, Sunday, 30 November 2008 16:29 (1 year ago)

Oh snap, don't think I've watched FBB this year! So far, anyway. There's still time. It's a good Christmas movie, tbh, so I'd better get right on it.

― DavidM, Friday, 18 December 2009 18:33 (1 week ago) Bookmark

Nothing on telly so I watched The Fabulous Baker Boys. It's a good Christmas Day movie, if subdued, slightly melancholy movies fit your Christmas Day. They do me.
Whatever happened to Michelle Pfeiffer btw? She's so good in this; so acerbic and deadpan, matches Jeff Bridges scene for scene.

doin a q&a at the walter reade, JB fans

read that as duane reade, didnt think twice

maybe he'll do it as Duane

http://ticketing.filmlinc.com/single/EventDetail.aspx?p=18639

Cool interview with him here: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2009/12/14

Also: I watch FBB yearly too!

I've recently been alerted to the existence of Cutter's Way (after reading Cutter and Bone) and Winter Kills (by the Onion AV Club book), both of which would sound fantastic even without the involvement of Jeff Bridges. Are they? Whet my appetite. I don't know anything about either of them beyond the plot synopsis.

Cutter and Bone (orig title) is one of his best films.

What's the mood of the movie? The book's like a wasted, post-Vietnam/Nixon take on the weary, everything-is-corrupt despair of Chandler's Long Goodbye, so I'm hoping it's something along the lines of Altman's film.

Obviously I could just rent it now and find out for myself but I'm trying to get some anticipation going.

Ivan Passer directs rather more conventionally, in the classical style, but the mood is close to what you describe.

Winter Kills is like a slapsticky goof on JFK conspiracy culture.

Cheers. Excited about both but expecting more from Cutter's Way now.

Saw Crazy Heart today...JB is so great. I don't know if anyone else can do washed-up, drunk, belt-undone pathetic AND so handsome you want to beat yourself on the head with your shoe. He kills me. Every time. The music is fantastic.

Totally disagree about the music.

is this movie better than payday? i do want to see it. i heart JB. it's amazing how many of his movies i've seen. and a lot of them aren't even in this poll.

is it better than tender mercies? the new one. payday and tender mercies being my standard for washed-up county singer pics.

Tender Mercies is superior.

My thoughts.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)- I think this is one of Clint Eastwood's more under appreciated movies as he plays a bad guy with Jeff Bridges in his partner. This one used to be on TV all the time when I was a kid, so I saw it a bunch. Looking it up, I never realized this was directed by Michael Cimino. It definitely is not as slow as his later movies can be.

Against All Odds (1984) - This is one that was a pretty decent hit at the time that has kind of fell through the floor. It's an 80s noir love triangle between Jeff Bridges, James Woods and Rachel Ward and is a remake of the 40s film Out of the Past. I thought it was alright for such things and really liked it a bunch when I was a kid. It's kind of in the same file as Body Heat making a 40s style noir films in the 80s.

body heat is waaaaaaay better than against all odds. as much as i love the cast of against all odds its a nothing movie. and is pretty poorly made/done all around.

It's great camp though -- that Aztec (Inca?) pyramid?

it's okay camp. not great camp. not howlingly bad. just...bad.

great theme song though.

no one believes a beautiful woman like Gyllenhaal would fuck, much less love, a man as scuzzy — twenty years (at least) her senior! — as Blake.

The flaw in your argument is HE IS PLAYED BY JEFF BRIDGES.

WHO SMELLS LIKE A DONKEY.

hung like one too from what i hear

It's one of the ten best American non-animated films of the year, even WITH Colin Farrell.

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201003/jeff-bridges-dude-abides

Bridges takes us into his office. There's Lloyd again, staring down at us from a painting on the wall. Bridges shows us his desk, the digital tablet where he draws the pictures on his Web site—the message up there now says HOLY SHIT, I'M 60.

http://images.wolfgangsvault.com/images/catalog/detail/RS231-RS.jpg

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)- I think this is one of Clint Eastwood's more under appreciated movies as he plays a bad guy with Jeff Bridges in his partner. This one used to be on TV all the time when I was a kid, so I saw it a bunch. Looking it up, I never realized this was directed by Michael Cimino. It definitely is not as slow as his later movies can be.

nah this is pretty bad altho i did lol that a pretty crucial part of the plot involves jeff bridges in drag

i also watched 8 million ways to die recently -- bridges seems really miscast imo & the plot & pacing are a wreck

cutter's way is a weird little movie

so odd that cutter is the dad from home alone

John Heard gets most of the acclaim, but Bridges is really terrific.

I hear Home Alone is a weird little giant piece o shit

Glad to have rented Cutter's Way because of this thread, though I don't love it. Feels like a New Orleans movie and a '70s movie even though it's set in Santa Barbara and came out in '81. Too scripty, and the last couple lines are absurd, but great performances go a long way.

"too scripty"

Didn't care much for Cutter's Way either, which I watched for the first time a few months ago. Didn't it have some kind of troubled history in getting a release?

From wiki:

United Artists did not like the ambiguity in what was then titled Cutter and Bone. When U.A. executives David Field and Claire Townsend, the film's biggest supporters, left for 20th Century Fox, the studio felt that they would get no credit if the film succeeded and no responsibility if it failed and so there was no interest in it. Cutter and Bone became a victim of internal politics. U.A. senior domestic sales and marketing vice president Jerry Esbin saw the film and decided that it did not have any commercial possibilities. Passer did not see his film with a paying audience until the Houston International Film Festival many weeks later. He said in an interview, "They didn't do any research. I was supposed to have two previews with a paying audience. It was in my contract."

United Artists spent a meager $63,000 on promotion for the film's release in New York City, New York, in late March 1981. There all three daily papers and the three major network critics gave Cutter and Bone negative reviews. Vincent Canby in The New York Times wrote, "It's the sort of picture that never wants to concede what it's about. It is, however, enchanted by the sound of its own dialogue, which is vivid without being informative or even amusing on any level." The studio was so shocked by the negative reviews that it planned to pull the film after only a week.Unbeknownst to them, the next week Richard Schickel in Time, David Ansen in Newsweek, and New York City's weekly newspapers would write glowing reviews. Ansen wrote, "Under Passer's sensitive direction, Heard gives his best film performance: he's funny and abrasive and mad, but you see the self-awareness eating him up inside."

The positive reviews prompted United Artists to give Cutter and Bone to its United Artists Classics division, whch changed the film's title to Cutter's Way (thinking that the original title would be mistaken by audiences for a comedy about surgeons) and entered it into a number of film festivals. At Houston, Texas' Third International Film Festival it won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor (John Heard). A week later, it was given the closing feature slot at the Seattle International Film Festival. With a new ad campaign, Cutter's Way reopened in the summer of 1981 in Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, California; Boston, Massachusetts; and New York City, New York. Passer was bitter about the experience, commenting in an interview, "You can assassinate movies as you can assassinate people. I think UA murdered the film. Or at least they tried to murder it."

Yay for Houston!

On a related note, steven Bach mentioned in Final Cut (the Heaven's Gate book) that CW was one of the first films U.A. mother henned after the Cimino fiasco (insisting on daily screenings of the rushes, constant reports from the set etc.)

Bridges >>>> Heard in Cutter's Way

Truthfully, Heard was what bothered me most in Cutter's Way--and usually I like him.

Feel sorry for anybody who tried to get a film made in the aftermath of Heaven's Gate.

Love him.

Watched Crazy Heart recently which wasn't very good overall but he was excellent.

How did Thunderbolt and Lightfoot not get a single vote?

nowhere as bad as max leaving off Hearts of the West and Rancho Deluxe

the motherfucking LAST PICTURE SHOW got no votes, and it's what put him on the map.

Tangentially related in my mind, I guess because it's the same year as Rancho Deluxe (which I've never seen): I've been trying to find a copy of 92 in the Shade forever. The best that I can do is a $60 VHS on Amazon. Think I'll pass, Amazon.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_le41aqgdRk1qarprc.gif

The American Success Company aka Success now streaming:

http://williamrichert.com/movies/success/watch-restored-success-streaming-complete-uncut/

"the motherfucking LAST PICTURE SHOW got no votes, and it's what put him on the map."

And forty years later I still don't like it much.

That Bridges documentary on PBS was fun, what I saw of it, especially John Goodman cracking up describing the marmot scene in Lebowski, which somehow makes the scene funnier.

Really wish "Jeff'd" was a show - dude's rolodex must be huge

finally saw American Heart--that is a bleak fucking movie.

i watched King Kong this week which is kind of dumb but Bridges is awesome in it

stick it deserved some votes

sad Bad Company didn't get any - really underrated movie imo

tried watching bridges kong recently, couldn't get more than 15 mins into it - too much grodin

i just pretended charles grodin was actually burt reynolds

like too much Grodin is a possible thing. (see The Heartbreak Kid, the good one)

for some reason i watched kpax last week. and i know now why it was probably omitted from this list

Meanwhile...

JEFF BRIDGES SIGNS WITH BLUE NOTE RECORDS/EMI MUSIC GROUP

OSCAR-WINNING ACTOR AND MUSICIAN IS RECORDING HIS MAJOR-LABEL DEBUT ALBUM WITH OSCAR- AND GRAMMY-AWARD WINNING PRODUCER AND CRAZY HEART COLLABORATOR T-BONE BURNETT

BRIDGES APPEARS ON THE COVER OF ESQUIRE MAGAZINE’S MAY MUSIC ISSUE (SEE BELOW)

April 19th, 2011 — New York, NY — Having earned an Academy Award for “Best Actor” for his portrayal of a grizzled former country music legend in the 2009 film Crazy Heart, actor and musician Jeff Bridges has signed a recording deal with EMI’s Blue Note Records, which will release his major-label debut album in late summer.

Inspired by their collaboration on Crazy Heart, Bridges has chosen to record the album with his long-time friend, the multiple-Grammy Award-winning songwriter, musician, and producer T-Bone Burnett, who is known for his work with Allison Krauss and Robert Plant, Elton John and Leon Russell, and the Grammy-winning soundtracks to O Brother, Where Are Thou? and Walk the Line. Bridges and Burnett met more than 30 years ago when Kris Kristofferson introduced them during the filming of the 1980 motion picture Heaven’s Gate. The relationship has continued over the years as Burnett selected the songs that appeared on the soundtrack to the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, starring Bridges, as well as co-writing several songs for the soundtrack to Crazy Heart, including “The Weary Kind,” which earned Burnett his second Oscar nomination and first win (along with songwriter Ryan Bingham) for “Best Original Song.”

Bridges’ album for Blue Note is an organic extension and culmination of his personal, professional, and now musical friendship with Burnett. As Bridges told the Santa Barbara Independent: “It’s a relationship that’s really inflamed my music.” Burnett has assembled a number of his key repertory players to perform on Bridges’ album, including Keefus Ciancia, Mark Ribot, Dennis Crouch, and Jay Bellerose, and guest vocalists Rosanne Cash, Sam Phillips,
and Benji Hughes. Bridges will contribute several of his own compositions as well as perform material by a collection of world-class songwriters, including Burnett’s Crazy Heart collaborators the late Stephen Bruton and John Goodwin, as well as Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, Tom Waits, and others. More details will be announced in the coming months.

Bridges is fueled by a life-long passion for music, as can be seen on the PBS American Masters program that aired in January 2011 (watch the piece here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/jeff-bridges-the-dude-abides/watch-the-full-film/1771/). Next month, the guitar-playing thespian appears on the May cover of Esquire Magazine’s music issue, which hits newsstands on April 26th.

http://i.imgur.com/EV9xX.jpg

Boy, is he terrific in American Heart. Wish Edward Furlong was up to the challenge.

Anybody checking out the Jeff Bridges season at the BFI? I'm seeing Fat City tonight.

Yeah!

ha, stephen colbert: "it is relaxing just to look at you"

It's true!

he is p smoking in cutter's way. he looks sorta like michelangelo's david

Took me a week, but I finished Rancho Deluxe. (Music by Jimmy Buffett; I had a pre-cog vision that the Buffett Rule was on its way.) Not good, but if you have a very high tolerance for '70s meandering, not bad either. Wouldn't know how to describe it. After I finished I took a look at the original trailer, wondering how they could possibly try to sell this movie. They didn't have any more of a clue than I would have--the trailer is as puzzling as the film itself. Wish Charlene Dallas had made a few more films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_p4NsgH05E&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

Jefftro in NYC for max to catch up on (Rancho come n' gone unforch):

http://www.92y.org/Tribeca/Film/Jeff-Bridges.aspx

clemenza, if I read "Took me a week to finish a film" again, there will be consequences.

I'm hopeless at home. Unless it's something completely mindless like Disclosure, or maybe a favourite I know by heart, I just can't finish a film in one night.

Hearts of The West is alotta fun.

major Young Jeff vehicle showing in Tribeca tonight:

http://www.92y.org/Tribeca/Event/The-Last-American-Hero.aspx

Even better than digital jazz.

looking fwd to Hearts of the West tonight, haven't seen it in 30+ years.

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/hearts-of-the-west-slither

unavailable on DVD either

well yeah that's why im going, w/ a cold

You can get a dvdr of HotW from Warner Archive.

picture quality could be better, especially since they claim it's been "remeastered"

yea, also "rent"/stream-able from amazon for $2.99

yeah, I don't stream. Saw a decent 35mm print.

Alan Arkin: "You're fired, pissant, fired!"

whenever i can't figure out what to watch, i watch cutter's way.

only seen it once

I watched The Last American Hero the other night for the first time in 30+ years. (It played on TV here regularly through the late '70s.) It's good, but I don't think as good as Kael writes ("The casting, the acting, and the milieu seem effortlessly, inexplicably right"). I think Heart Like a Wheel, where she wasn't especially enthusiastic, is the much better film. I wouldn't doubt that Tarantino's use of "I Got a Name" in Django was partly a nod to The Last American Hero.

W'happen, someone steal your inauguration minicamper?

― Dr Morbius, Monday, December 1, 2008

yeeesh - can't believe someone voted for anything having to do w/ the American remake of The Vanishing (aka Spoorloos!)

http://www.dreamingwithjeff.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-bridges-met-wife-photo_5661ef65e4b072e9d1c61223

that is fantastic

http://www.fubiz.net/en/2015/04/02/pictures-taken-by-jeff-bridges-on-the-set-of-his-movies/
This is widely known already, I assume? Not?

Some seriously amazing shots in there.

Cutter's Way Bluray has come out

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/cutters-way

woo

Bridges seems to be trying to outgrizzle Old Kristofferson in HoHW, but it goes beyond that, esp in the last 20 minutes. Chris "Nu-Kirk" Pine is the revelation here, as it's a less showy role than Ben Foster's; Pine has the slump of a beaten man throughout.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/08/hell-or-high-water.html

thoroughly enjoyed

i wanna see this

"hell or high water" is great btw, prob deserves its own thread

probably at least David Mackenzie's best film

Ok (I haven't seen it yet), but has anyone seen Perfect Sense?

this was indeed a pretty excellent film, and pine was a surprise, although i suppose i could have done w/o the fashionable roots-rock that the characters would probably not have been caught dead listening to (except for waylon).

Rather good.

Agree that the final scene's tops. My review.

I'm a bit surprised to see Bridges getting so much awards season notice for Hell or High Water, mostly because it seems like the kind of movie whose critical love was as much a result of it having been released in the slim pickings of summer than anything else. I thought it was reaching for No Country For Old Men but landed a lot closer to Shotgun Stories--hicksploitation cliches delivered with a straight enough face to convincingly fake Significance. Possibly the most overrated 2016 release I've seen so far.

You're right about everything except the hicksploitatin part. It's smarter than that.

Stay Hungry is one odd duck of a movie

Bridges v RG Armstrong brawl at the end outshines any of the laidback Schwarzenegger scenes

Aw man

As the Dude would say.. New S**T has come to light.

I have been diagnosed with Lymphoma. Although it is a serious disease, I feel fortunate that I have a great team of doctors and the prognosis is good.

I’m starting treatment and will keep you posted on my recovery.

— Jeff Bridges (@TheJeffBridges) October 20, 2020

I’m profoundly grateful for the love and support from my family and friends.

Thank you for your prayers and well wishes. And, while I have you, please remember to go vote. Because we are all in this together. https://t.co/6sAU4MYixl

Love, Jeff

— Jeff Bridges (@TheJeffBridges) October 20, 2020

Mr. Jeff Bridges has heretofore led something of a charmed life, but he has always repaid this inestimable gift by being, in return, endlessly charming. I wish him nothing but the best.

well shit

Love this dude. Morbs was right: he and Dennis Quaid star in my slash fic version of Brokeback Mountain.

You know what movie always gets overlooked? "Starman." It's a John Carpenter film from his peak years, it got Bridges an Oscar nom, and yet ... afaict totally forgotten.

nice run-down, but no Fat City?

Starman was only available on a shitty pan'n'scan DVD for the longest time.

Bridges and Karen Allen were terrific together in it.

nice run-down, but no Fat City?

― Neil S,

It's fine, sort of repeating himself that era.

Starman is on Netflix and is as wonderful as ever.

Died @ Alien Bridges saying goodbye to Charles Martin Smith. Had completely forgotten that it happened the way it happens.

They've also got Against All Odds.

Should I? I've seen Out of The Past.

He's getting a well-deserved Chaplin Award:

https://www.filmlinc.org/about-us/chaplin-award-gala/jeff-bridges/

Have not seen Against All Odds but I don't think I can watch a remake of Out of the Past, one of my favorites (and one by a really great filmmaker).

Cutter's Way may be my favorite Jeff Bridges film and performance though it's hard to pick a favorite when he's delivered a wide range of great performances. I really love him as Lebowski - it's not like playing Richard Bone demands similar qualities from Bridges, so it feels absurd to say either is better than the other.

Baker Boys was real hard to find on blu ray until last year when it was reissued. Copies were going for $100+. This article by a Seattle local sums up how I feel about it, it’s so crazily underrated. Shame that Kloves had to get involved with Rowling but at least it made him rich I guess.

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/movies/the-fabulous-baker-boys-at-30-elegantly-captured-a-bygone-seattle-even-as-weve-moved-on/

I think about Fat City all the time since seeing it a year or so ago

Should I? I've seen Out of The Past.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain),

It has a schlocky charm. Bridges is illegally hot all pumped up. James Woods steals the show, as he often did during this era.

xps Baker Boys is really good. I'm not sure why the director hasn't made a lot of films, but at least he's had a lucrative career as a screenwriter. I'm sure the Harry Potter films alone made him comfortable for life but he also adapted Wonder Boys for Curtis Hanson, which may be my favorite film from either.

Fat City is great too - John Huston's had a very uneven filmmaking career, but that's definitely one of the gems from his later years.

I bought Fat City on Blu-Ray a few years ago and never got around to watching it. I have a copy of Cutter's Way, too. That one rules. (It's currently on Tubi.) I should watch Starman. I've always heard really good things about his performance in that.

Just about every time I go to Lincoln Center these days, which has been a lot recently, I enjoy seeing the trailer for him and his award.

A terrific Bilge Ebri essay:

From the start, there was always something likable about Bridges. With those pleading eyebrows and that broad smile, he has a face that hovers between bafflement and acceptance, which is probably an attitude more relatable to the average viewer than the brooding turmoil of so many leading men of his generation. He moves with ease, but we can sense a halting indecision behind the eyes. Many of Bridges’s best films mine this tension, and part of his appeal as a movie star over the last 50-plus years is rooted in familiarity and openness. When we watch Jeff Bridges, we see, and understand, ourselves a little better.

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/jeff-bridges-the-wanderer/

*Ebiri

He rules.