Oscar®-nominee Jeff Bridges to have Special IFI Season

admin | February 3, 2010 | Comments (0)

The well-deserved Best Actor nomination for Jeff Bridges’ wonderfully lived-in performance as the has-been country crooner in Crazy Heart has prompted a Jeff Bridges Season at the IFI.

The season starts with The Last Picture Show, Bridges’ 1971 breakthrough role as a none-too-smart teenage stud in a wasting 1950s town about to lose its cinema. Bridges’ performance here and alongside Clint Eastwood in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot saw him clock up two early Oscar®-nominations. Despite Bridges’ fantastic contribution to the special-effect trendsetter Tron, the film was a box-office flop but the film found enduring acclaim as a cult favourite.

The season climaxes with The Big Lebowski, the Coen brother’s funniest creation and probably the film for which Bridges is best known. Bridges as Jeffrey Lebowski (aka The Dude) may be caught up in an intricate Raymond Chandler-style kidnapping but the zany plot fails to overshadow Bridges’ brilliantly idiosyncratic characterisation of the laid-back and washed-up LA stoner.

Other films to be screened include The Fisher King and The Fabulous Baker Boys.

Tickets are available from the IFI Box Office in person, on the phone 01 6793477, or online at www.ifi.ie