Crazy Heart (2009)

Crazy Heart is a lumbering shambles of a film that moves from one cliché to another with such astonishing ease, I'm surprised it didn't come with a disclaimer. Jeff Bridges, in an Oscar-winning performance, plays Otis “Bad” Blake, a broken-down sot who is desperate to revive his sagging country-western career. One afternoon, before a gig (at a bowling alley, no less), Blake agrees to give an interview to a local newspaper reporter. Enter Maggie Gyllenhaal, one of the smartest actresses around, playing an even smarter character, Jean, who loves her job, but loves her little boy, Buddy, even more. Blake and Jean have an intimate discussion in the shadows of Blake's dingy motel room, and how Bridges and Gyllenhaal handle this scene proves why they're two of the best actors working; it's quite a moment.

Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

Sissy Spacek embodied Loretta Lynn in Michael Apted's biopic well enough to win an Oscar for best actress.  It's a strong performance in a modestly weak film, helped tremendously by the gifted Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Lynn's husband, Mooney.

The first half of the film is strong, as Spacek, all pluck and naivete, leaves the poor back country of Kentucky--with Mooney at her side--for the road to superstardom.  There she meets Patsy Cline (Beverly D'Angelo), already a success in the country-western world, who takes the young and talented hillbilly under her wing.  I admired the way Apted and screenwriter Thomas Rickman take the time to build the characters and the tumultuous relationship between Lynn and Mooney.

All That Jazz (1979)

Bob Fosse's bleakest film, All That Jazz also happens to be his most prophetic, as well as one of the best movie musicals ever made.  Considered semi-autobiographical, Jazz stars Roy Scheider--in a career-best performance--as Joe Gideon, a boozing, pill-popping, bed-hopping choreographer who walks the tightrope between life and death.  Gideon leaves in his wake a string of devastated women, including his ex-wife (Leland Palmer), who knows Gideon better than he knows himself, and a girlfriend (played with heartbreaking naivete by Fosse muse Ann Reinking) hell-bent on love despite being trounced on like an old rug.

A Chorus Line (1985)

Ok, fine.  So now you know my secret shame: I kinda like Richard Attenborough's A Chorus Line.  It's an exuberant movie, filled with largely schmaltzy music, a few stand-out numbers, and a capable cast led by Michael Douglas as the iron-fisted choreographer, who auditions sixteen dancers for a shot at the chorus in a major new Broadway production.

Keep an eye on Charles McGowan ("I Can Do That") and Yamil Borges ("Nothing"), who, respectively, deliver the most entertaining and heartbreaking solos in the film.  And Audrey Landers has a lot of fun singing the praises of plastic surgery with "Tits & Ass."  Attenborough, a director of considerable talent (he won an Oscar for directing Gandhi), balances well the nervous anticipation of the audition process with bright, buoyant musical interludes, as in the famous closing number, "One."

It's a fun, but not great, movie, the cast is very good, and you might even find yourself humming a few bars after you've seen it.  And I'll ask that you keep my little secret shame just between the two of us.

1985; starring Michael Douglas, Alyson Reed; directed by Richard Attenborough; 118 min; PG-13; in English.