Crazy Heart

'Crazy Heart' MPAA rating: R for language and brief sexuality Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes Playing: In selected theaters

Jeff Bridges will pick up his guitar again for Southland performances next month at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio, and he'll be joined at both by his band, the Abiders. Bridges will play the El Rey on April 25, then heads to Indio for his Stagecoach performance the following day, wrapping up a tour of five Western states with a dozen stops. He'll be drawing from his 2011 major label album, “Jeff Bridges,” as well as from some of the material he sang for his Oscar-winning role as washed-up country singer Bad Blake in the 2009 film “Crazy Heart.” His tour opens April 1 in Folsom, Calif., but at Folsom Lake College, not Folsom Prison.

Hollywood's Jeff Bridges, a musician before his acting career took off, will return to his roots with a pair of concerts this spring in suburban Las Vegas . Bridges will perform April 19 at Santa Fe Station and the following night at Red Rock Resort . Bridges' musical talents were showcased in 2010's “ Crazy Heart .” The veteran performer took home the lead-actor Oscar for his portrayal of Bad Blake, a down-on-his-luck country...

Hollywood's Jeff Bridges, a musician before his acting career took off, will return to his roots with a pair of concerts this spring in suburban Las Vegas . Bridges will perform April 19 at Santa Fe Station and the following night at Red Rock Resort . Bridges' musical talents were showcased in 2010's “ Crazy Heart .” The veteran performer took home the lead-actor Oscar for his portrayal of Bad Blake, a down-on-his-luck country...

The story behind the hard-core country music at the center of "Crazy Heart," the buzzed-about new film for which Jeff Bridges is winning accolades for his portrayal of singer Bad Blake, would make a movie every bit as poignant as writer-director Scott Cooper's tale of a down-but-not-entirely-out musician in desperate need of redemption. The real-life tale would be a buddy movie about the friendship between two musicians whose lives charted divergent paths, one leading to multimillion-selling albums and multiple Grammy Awards, the other hewing closer to the hardscrabble life on the outskirts of fame as portrayed in "Crazy Heart."

Wins by film Here are the films that won more than a single Oscar: "The Hurt Locker" ... 6 "Avatar" ... 3 "Crazy Heart" ... 2 "Up" ... 2 "Precious" ... 2

CRAZY HEART by Thomas Cobb (Harper & Row: $15.95; 256 pp.). Life on the road for faded country crooner/guitarist Bad Blake is one honky-tonk after another, frequented by women in Dacron and men in Stay-Press leisure wear, bedrock 'mericans living in Western towns where cacti outnumber people. In his debut novel, "Crazy Heart," Thomas Cobb has produced a piercing, keenly observed chronicle of modern Americana, getting across current mores and attitudes as experienced by C&W musician Blake.

There is a down-home comfort saturating "Country Strong," in that "somebody done somebody wrong song" way, that almost carries you through when its music-drenched melodrama gets predictable. Which is pretty much as soon as the fragile, still-in-rehab country superstar played by Gwyneth Paltrow starts talking about the baby bird she's found and is trying to save. So like, Scene 2. Paltrow's Kelly Canter is trying to mend her own broken wing, her drinking and on-stage meltdowns having put her career in need of rehab and recovery too. The actress brings her own surprisingly sweet voice to the foot-stomping, two-stepping proceedings with such surety that if you didn't catch her coming-out party on the Country Music Assn.

Bad notes, old song in 'Janie Jones' In "Janie Jones," the guitar-slinging pre-teen girl with the long black hair is 15-year-old Abigail Breslin, a little tougher-looking since her "Little Miss Sunshine" debut but sporting the same appealing mixture of pluck and vulnerability. She's not served well by this music-filled road drama, however. Dumped by her ex-groupie single mom (Elisabeth Shue) into the hands of the father she never knew — a fading alcoholic rocker named Ethan (Alessandro Nivola)

Jeff Bridges will pick up his guitar again for Southland performances next month at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio, and he'll be joined at both by his band, the Abiders. Bridges will play the El Rey on April 25, then heads to Indio for his Stagecoach performance the following day, wrapping up a tour of five Western states with a dozen stops. He'll be drawing from his 2011 major label album, “Jeff Bridges,” as well as from some of the material he sang for his Oscar-winning role as washed-up country singer Bad Blake in the 2009 film “Crazy Heart.” His tour opens April 1 in Folsom, Calif., but at Folsom Lake College, not Folsom Prison.

Go ahead, wear your heart on your sleeve. That's the dress code of “Where the Great Ones Run,” Mark Roberts' sweet tale of fame and regret. A 99-seat “Crazy Heart,” this tender 80-minute dramedy has the makings of a mellow hit for Rogue Machine Theatre. Country music star Sonny Burl (Jeff Kober) has left a trail of human debris on his way to the top: estranged wife Marylou (Holly Fulger), who runs a truck stop in their Indiana hometown; feisty daughter Julie (Lily Holleman)

Imagine, if you will, a Hollywood version of fantasy football pitting the likes of Margaret Thatcher, J. Edgar Hoover, Marilyn Monroe and F. Scott Fitzgerald in a head-to-head battle with, well, a bunch of nobodies. Daunting, to say the least. Yet these powerful, iconic, often historical figures are likely to be doing just that this film award season, in a competition that squares them off against such characters as a nebbishy lawyer and an illegal immigrant gardener. It seems evident from the start just who will come out on top: Anecdotally, audiences and voters seem to naturally gravitate toward big-screen portrayals of the powerful, the movers and the shakers, and celebrity types.

Bad notes, old song in 'Janie Jones' In "Janie Jones," the guitar-slinging pre-teen girl with the long black hair is 15-year-old Abigail Breslin, a little tougher-looking since her "Little Miss Sunshine" debut but sporting the same appealing mixture of pluck and vulnerability. She's not served well by this music-filled road drama, however. Dumped by her ex-groupie single mom (Elisabeth Shue) into the hands of the father she never knew — a fading alcoholic rocker named Ethan (Alessandro Nivola)

Musician T Bone Burnett has sold his Brentwood home for $2.75 million, the Multiple Listing Service shows. The Cape Cod-inspired house, built in 1945, features four bedrooms, four bathrooms and 3,090 square feet of living space. French doors off the family room, which has a bar, open to a garden. There is a swimming pool and a spa. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article said T Bone Burnett has worked with John Elton. The musician has worked with Elton John.

Why do so many of us smirk when a Hollywood movie star picks up a guitar and walks toward a live microphone? Maybe it's because, as songwriter Harlan Howard once said, music is about "three chords and the truth" and, really, an actor's day job is about the closest you can come to lying for a living. The question brought a sage smile to the 61-year-old face of Jeff Bridges, the Oscar winner who this week will release his first major-label album, a 10-song collection from Blue Note/EMI called "Jeff Bridges.

Four cast members of the 1970s sitcom "Happy Days" on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against CBS Corp., alleging that the television giant has cheated them out of millions of dollars in merchandising revenue. The plaintiffs include Anson Williams (Potsie Weber), Marion Ross (Marion Cunningham), Don Most (Ralph Malph) and Erin Moran (Joanie Cunningham), as well as Patricia Bosley, wife of the late Tom Bosley (Howard Cunningham), who died last fall. Contracts with the show's producer, Paramount Television, which has since been folded into CBS, said the actors would be paid when their "name, voice, likeness or endorsement was used in connection with merchandising rights," according to the suit.

Go ahead, wear your heart on your sleeve. That's the dress code of “Where the Great Ones Run,” Mark Roberts' sweet tale of fame and regret. A 99-seat “Crazy Heart,” this tender 80-minute dramedy has the makings of a mellow hit for Rogue Machine Theatre. Country music star Sonny Burl (Jeff Kober) has left a trail of human debris on his way to the top: estranged wife Marylou (Holly Fulger), who runs a truck stop in their Indiana hometown; feisty daughter Julie (Lily Holleman)

Musician T Bone Burnett has sold his Brentwood home for $2.75 million, the Multiple Listing Service shows. The Cape Cod-inspired house, built in 1945, features four bedrooms, four bathrooms and 3,090 square feet of living space. French doors off the family room, which has a bar, open to a garden. There is a swimming pool and a spa. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article said T Bone Burnett has worked with John Elton. The musician has worked with Elton John.

? Jeff Bridges, who won the lead actor Oscar last year for "Crazy Heart," is up in the same category for his performance as Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit. " Only two actors have won Academy Awards in the lead actor category two years in a row ? Spencer Tracy won for 1937's "Captains Courageous" and 1938's "Boy's Town," and Tom Hanks earned Oscars for 1993's "Philadelphia" and 1994's "Forrest Gump" ? Two lead performer nominees ? Jesse Eisenberg, 27, ("The Social Network") and Jennifer Lawrence, 20, ("Winter's Bone")

There is a down-home comfort saturating "Country Strong," in that "somebody done somebody wrong song" way, that almost carries you through when its music-drenched melodrama gets predictable. Which is pretty much as soon as the fragile, still-in-rehab country superstar played by Gwyneth Paltrow starts talking about the baby bird she's found and is trying to save. So like, Scene 2. Paltrow's Kelly Canter is trying to mend her own broken wing, her drinking and on-stage meltdowns having put her career in need of rehab and recovery too. The actress brings her own surprisingly sweet voice to the foot-stomping, two-stepping proceedings with such surety that if you didn't catch her coming-out party on the Country Music Assn.