Don’t get me wrong, I love Jeff Bridges. Then again, most of that love is directed towards “the Dude”. Crazy Heart just meanders along and doesn’t really go anywhere. You end up hobbling along with it and waiting for the inevitable.

Is Portia Doubleday related to Abner Doubleday?

For those of you who don’t know, Abner Doubleday was rumored to be the inventor of baseball and sports one of the most awesome hairstyles of all time.

Anyone know of a relation? I couldn’t find anything online.

One of the factory workers is getting ready to wrap a pallete of “Reynold’s Extract”. As he enters the frame, there are two corner supports on top of the product. He is carrying the other two. In the next cut there are no corners on top, but still two in his hands.

In the next shot, three corners are covered, with one in his hand. Then he does a fancy spin with what should be the last corner.

He must have then dropped the corner (not seen) because in the next shot he’s seen placing the corner and almost gets whacked in the face by (mysteriously reappearing) fourth corner.

The only reason I noticed this is because it looked like the guy was going to get smacked by the reappearing corner. So there you have it…

A few sentences into the article and I see they use the (very academic) term “kvetchy/funny” to describe Mr. Allen’s typical protagonist. Go EW! I obviously like this because our site is called Film Kvetch. In case you weren’t aware, “kvetch” is a yiddish word which more or less means complain. We kind of like to think of it as criticize.

Love to see the word “kvetch” in a major publication, hate to see “Whatever Works” get a poor review.

Also, not to say that Tunde Adebimpe is a poor actor, but if you know of his band, “TV On The Radio”, you’ll inevitably be thinking, “Hey, that’s the guy from that band”. I’m pretty sure he’s wearing the exact same glasses he wears in the band. You would think the costume people would have picked a slightly different frame. I suppose filmmaker Jonathan Demme is of the opinion that most people won’t know who he is.

And the wedding is propesterous. Here we are in Connecticut, probably the whitest place on Earth and we have an interracial couple getting married wearing Indian garb with folk music playing. It’s like, “Look how open we are! Our white daughter/sister/relative/friend/whatever is marrying an African American man and we also dig jazz music and Indian clothes and everything non-white.” I don’t have any stats about interracial marriage in Connecticut, but I think that would have been striking enough to give the movie a bit of extra flair. The saris and fiddlers are just over the top. For a film which is supposed to look so realistic and drag in places where life drags, I just was stunned by this lapse.

There are two bright spots. Rachel, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is quite good. I also think she has the kind of interesting nose you don’t see often these days on film. I really liked that. Hope she doesn’t change that. (See Jennifer Grey from “Dirty Dancing”).

Debra Winger is also very good as Rachel and Kym’s mother. I’m a big fan of her work in “An Officer and a Gentleman” from all the way back in 1984. Even when she’s quiet she has a very powerful presence.

In conclusion, I won’t be recommending this movie to anyone. Unless, that is, I really don’t like them.