Jeff Bridges - What an Actor

[John Picard]

Jeff Bridges won an Academy Award this year for his film Crazy Heart. I haven't seen the film yet; however, I've enjoyed many of his films growing up, the earliest of which I remember seeing was the utter shit-fest called King Kong (1976). I particularly enjoyed his portrayal of Obediah Stane and decided to pack my Netflix queue with some of his movies, both previously viewed and ones I've never seen. Here we go:

TRON: Wow. Great FX considering when it was made, and a particularly good story. I'm very much looking forward to the sequel.
The Last Picture Show: Interesting coming of age story of teens in far west Texas. Cybil Shepard's debut.
Starman: I first saw this on HBO in the 80's and loved it. Watched it again last night and was blown away by the FX and John Carpenter's brilliant direction. Karen Allen, lovely as I've always remembered. Too bad there was never a sequel. Jeff Bridge's portrayal of an alien trying to communicate and understand humans is utterly brilliant, original, and believable.
Tucker, The Man and his Dream: A film about a man far ahead of his time. The helicopter engine powered vehicle that is light years of even today's cars.
The Fabulous Baker Boys: Jeff and brother Beau give a fantastic performance as a sibling piano playing act.
The Moguls aka The Amateurs: Bridges plays a divorcee who always concocts one scheme after another, which the folks in his small town go along with. This time, the townsfolk band together to make a porn film. Utterly hysterical with a brilliant ending.
The Big Lebowski: I'm the Dude
The Fisher King: Bridges and Robin Williams play fantastic off of each other.
Cutter's Way: Plain men going after the suspected killer of an innocent girl.
King Kong: Crappy remake of the 1933 epic. Bridges is brilliant as the anti-establishment hippie.
Iron Man: Bridges plays the role of a mentor turned self-serving businessman. The bald look is a shocker for those of us accustomed to his many roles of long, flowing locks.

I have a few more of his in my Netflix queue and am looking forward to them. He has more acting chops than the vastly overrated Jack Nicholson and Al Pachino.

 

[JonathonWally]

Don't forget The Contender, great shit.
Blown Away too.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Not to mention that he's also a pretty darn good singer, photographer and cartoonist.

Bridges should have won an Oscar for either The Fisher King, The Big Lebowski or Starman. I really can't wait to see him in that remake of True Gritt.

My favorite thing in The Amateurs is Ted Danson as the closet gay. There's another guy who's a lot more talented than he sometimes gets credit for.

 

[T'Baio]

FLYNN LIVES!

 

[Deckerd]

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

 

[TheBrew]

Not to mention that he's also a pretty darn good singer, photographer and cartoonist.

Bridges should have won an Oscar for either The Fisher King, The Big Lebowski or Starman. I really can't wait to see him in that remake of True Gritt.

My favorite thing in The Amateurs is Ted Danson as the closet gay. There's another guy who's a lot more talented than he sometimes gets credit for.

Besides how awesome Bridges is, I want to second Ted Danson. Guy is really talented and it shows in the interviews he gives.

 

[iguana_tonante]

You forgot Iron Man.

 

[John Picard]

You forgot Iron Man.

D'oh! Fixed!

 

[Harvey]

He's definitely a great actor.

Though I thought he was shown up by John Heard in Cutter's Way.

 

[1001001]

He deserved a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Contender. He was brilliant in that. A great film and a great performance.

 

[stj]

He was a striking villain in The Vanishing, US version.

But he was fantastic as the convict father of Edward Furlong in American Heart.

And he was equally fantastic as the plane crash survivor in Fearless.

 

[John Picard]

He was a striking villain in The Vanishing, US version.

But he was fantastic as the convict father of Edward Furlong in American Heart.

And he was equally fantastic as the plane crash survivor in Fearless.

Oh yeah, Fearless was one I forgot to add to my list. Another brilliant performance, especially the way his character bonds with Rosie Perez's character.

 

[Dream]

TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!

 

[ATimson]

TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!

Well, I'm not Tony Stark.

 

[Too Much Fun]

He has more acting chops than the vastly overrated Jack Nicholson and Al Pachino.

I was in total agreement with you until this unnecessary cheap shot. You didn't need to insult two of my favourite actors just to praise Bridges. I love "The Big Lebowski", "The Last Picture Show", and "Starman" so much, probably each my favourite movie of the year for the year during which I saw them.

TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!

As much as I love all of the stuff with Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr.'s performance, I still think that's the best part of the movie.

 

[barnaclelapse]

TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!

Love it.

 

[John Picard]

He has more acting chops than the vastly overrated Jack Nicholson and Al Pachino.

I was in total agreement with you until this unnecessary cheap shot. You didn't need to insult two of my favourite actors just to praise Bridges.

Nicholson and Pachino play the same character is most every one of their films. Sorry, but Jeff Bridges has more acting range in even his worst movie than those two over their respective careers. I've never seen Scarface, yet I've noticed recently that a lot of people no longer revere it, but are now laughing at it and Pachino's acting.

 

[T'Baio]

It's truly amazing how great that one line in Iron Man is, how wonderfully it's performed, and how it's caught on.

It's even kinda' meta, what with poor little Ralphie and his shaved bald spot!

 

[Too Much Fun]

Nicholson and Pachino play the same character is most every one of their films. Sorry, but Jeff Bridges has more acting range in even his worst movie than those two over their respective careers.

It's definitely true that Nicholson and Pacino have screen personas that you can see coming through in a lot of their performances, but to say that they have no range is just ignorant. Look at Nicholson in "About Schmidt" for example, where he successfully buries all of his Nicholsonisms like the smarmy voice and cocky, swaggering facial expressions (especially in the eyebrows) to play an extremely sad, vulnerable, bitter, self-loathing, and melancholy character beautifully.

I've never seen Scarface, yet I've noticed recently that a lot of people no longer revere it, but are now laughing at it and Pachino's acting.

Pacino has been a bit of a caricature of himself since the 90s, but if you look at his work in the 80s and earlier, it's clear that he has an incredible range. The movie you mentioned is actually a good example. If you compare his monstrously fiery performance in that movie (which was intentionally hammy, and rightfully so) to his subtle, low key acting in movies like the first two Godfather films, you see how many layers he has.

His performance in "Scarface" is my favourite performance ever in my favourite movie ever and one of the biggest reasons is that I appreciate it on a comedic level, which was done on purpose. Pacino felt he needed to inject some humour into the performance of such an awful person so people wouldn't be totally alienated. I am laughing all throughout that movie and not because I find the performance pitiful and impossible to take seriously, but because it's supposed to funny.

It's a perfect portrayal of a larger-than-life psycho who is shamelessly, endlessly, hopelessly arrogant and self-obsessed. There's no other way to play a character like that. It has to be way over-the-top, because to be so selfish is ridiculous. For what it's meant to be, it's a masterful performance. But back to the original point, there really was no logical reason for you to bring up Pacino and Nicholson in a post about Jeff Bridges. It's not like he lost a well-deserved Oscar because they won instead of him for inferior performances.

I was criticized similarly for my review of "Far Beyond the Stars" because someone thought I was being petty and off-topic for insulting the acting of Avery Brooks and Sylvester Stallone during the review, but at least there was a point to my criticism. I brought up Brooks because he was in the episode, and Stallone because Brooks's performance reminded me of Stallone in "First Blood". Your potshot, on the other hand, had no relevance to the topic at hand and was just a mean-spirited insult.

 

[John Picard]

Nicholson and Pachino play the same character is most every one of their films. Sorry, but Jeff Bridges has more acting range in even his worst movie than those two over their respective careers.

It's definitely true that Nicholson and Pacino have screen personas that you can see coming through in a lot of their performances, but to say that they have no range is just ignorant. Look at Nicholson in "About Schmidt" for example, where he successfully buries all of his Nicholsonisms like the smarmy voice and cocky, swaggering facial expressions (especially in the eyebrows) to play an extremely sad, vulnerable, bitter, self-loathing, and melancholy character beautifully.

I've never seen Scarface, yet I've noticed recently that a lot of people no longer revere it, but are now laughing at it and Pachino's acting.

Pacino has been a bit of a caricature of himself since the 90s, but if you look at his work in the 80s and earlier, it's clear that he has an incredible range. The movie you mentioned is actually a good example. If you compare his monstrously fiery performance in that movie (which was intentionally hammy, and rightfully so) to his subtle, low key acting in movies like the first two Godfather films, you see how many layers he has.

His performance in "Scarface" is my favourite performance ever in my favourite movie ever and one of the biggest reasons is that I appreciate it on a comedic level, which was done on purpose. Pacino felt he needed to inject some humour into the performance of such an awful person so people wouldn't be totally alienated. I am laughing all throughout that movie and not because I find the performance pitiful and impossible to take seriously, but because it's supposed to funny.

It's a perfect portrayal of a larger-than-life psycho who is shamelessly, endlessly, hopelessly arrogant and self-obsessed. There's no other way to play a character like that. It has to be way over-the-top, because to be so selfish is ridiculous. For what it's meant to be, it's a masterful performance. But back to the original point, there really was no logical reason for you to bring up Pacino and Nicholson in a post about Jeff Bridges. It's not like he lost a well-deserved Oscar because they won instead of him for inferior performances.

I was criticized similarly for my review of "Far Beyond the Stars" because someone thought I was being petty and off-topic for insulting the acting of Avery Brooks and Sylvester Stallone during the review, but at least there was a point to my criticism. I brought up Brooks because he was in the episode, and Stallone because Brooks's performance reminded me of Stallone in "First Blood". Your potshot, on the other hand, had no relevance to the topic at hand and was just a mean-spirited insult.

Mean-spirited? I swear, that phrase is such a crutch to the easily offended. Based on my observations it's how I see both Nicholson and Pacino. I'm not impressed with either of them and that's how it is. If you don't like it, then that's your problem. Sorry, but Jeff Bridges really, really impresses me with the more of his work that I view.