In 2009's Crazy Heart, Robert Duvall plays a bartender who helps a country singer named Bad Blake get his life on track. Jeff Bridges does a fine job as the burned out, broken down, hardcore troubadour. Bridges got most of the notice in the film, while Duvall got to play another heartfelt supporting role. He even got to sing.
The film was a big success, getting praise from critics, dollars from paying customers, and a Best Actor Oscar for Bridges. The Academy also awarded a statue to the song, The Weary Kind, written by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett. I mean, how often will I get to mention T Bone Burnett in this column?
Crazy Wines Cabernet Sauvignon is from Chile, and retails for about $60. New York's Channing Daughters Winery makes a dry white blend called Heart for $20. Get one of each for Crazy Heart and enjoy the show that much more.
1979's Apocalypse Now is generally considered to be Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece, a film which resides in just about any cinematic "Best Of" list you can find. Besides giving us a dark and soul-searching vision of the Vietnam War, it also injected several phrases into the popular lexicon. Who among us hasn't paraphrased Duvall's catch phrase, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." His shirtless Cavalry cowboy claims napalm smells like victory. Time had a different sense of it.
Duvall's Colonel Kilgore also justified his helicopter assault on an enemy beach just so he could ride the waves. His line, "Charlie don't surf," is tossed away like a live grenade.
While we can't say that Coppola's Diamond Collection Merlot will smell like victory, it may well take you to your virtual heart of darkness. As one of my favorite bartenders used to scream every time I walked through the door, "Schlagers!"
Duvall made his bones in cinema history in 1972, with his portrayal of Tom Hagen, the Corleone family's lawyer in The Godfather. His level-headed persona stood in direct contrast to some of the more quick-tempered elements of the crime family.
The head of Woltz International Pictures didn't realize who he was dealing with when he told Hagen that Johnny Fontaine could take a flying leap. Hagen's response was, "Mr. Corleone never asks a second favor, once he’s refused the first. Understood?" His cool, even tone laid the groundwork for the horse head scene that followed.
Don Corleone would probably like a nice Nero d'Avola, a hearty red wine that's full-bodied, like the Don. It's also usually not blended, but allowed to stand on its own two feet, like a man. The grape comes from Avola, which is on the other side of Sicily from the Don's birthplace of Corleone. Is there, however, a winemaker in Avola who would deny The Godfather a bottle of his finest? $21.
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