Crazy Heart

*** - Anybody worth their salt knows that I have an extreme dislike of country music in all of its forms. From Johnny Cash to Willie Nelson to Garth Brooks to that guy in a cowboy hat who ‘sings’ about killing terrorists (pretty much covered the rest of them with that, yeah?), I find country music – along with gangsta rap, emoticons, and the inflatable beach pillow - to be the absolute nadir of human culture on nearly every level, as well as a sign of the end times. So the fact that “Crazy Heart” centers on the life of a washed-up country music star – and includes a very large amount of country music being played – makes it a very hard movie for me to sit through. And I think the fact that I still found enough enjoyable about it to give it a 3-star rating says loads about the performances (especially that of Jeff Bridges), scenery and direction. The story is nothing new – in fact, it has the distinct feel of a really long country music song in story and depth – but I still found it worth watching.