Posts Tagged ‘Jeff Bridges’

For fans of The Big Lebowski, it’s Christmas in March thanks to today’s LA Weekly cover package of stories tied to the movie’s 15th anniversary and upcoming local Lebowski Fest. Our personal favorite is the item about the LA home used for scenes involving Ben Gazzara’s pornographer character Jackie Treehorn.

Writer Sam Bloch spoke with James Goldstein, the seventy-ish owner of the Beverly Hills John Lautner spread that doubled as Treehorn’s beachfront party HQ:

For Treehorn’s encounter with the Dude, the crew set up for a three-night shoot. Goldstein “wasn’t thrilled” about a big black sheet being thrown over a glass, which would obscure a view of the Century City skyline. “I am proud of the way the house looks now,” Goldstein says. “I don’t like it when a set designer makes changes just to justify his pay.”

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Jeff Bridges, the most likeable guy in Hollywood, will appear this evening on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight. In the clip below, the actor/musician explains why, though he has a long career history of playing the lush, he doesn’t get “puke-drunk” anymore.

In related news, Bridge’s new self-titled country-folk album is excellent whiskey drinking music. Puking optional.

From what we can tell, Showblitz.com, the much ballyhooed window into what’s being published daily behind the Variety.com paywall, is not yet indexed on Google News. Which is a shame, because the trade publication has been doing a great job recently of landing film news exclusives.

Unlike Deadline.com, the Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap, where Variety film editor Josh Dickey used to work, the 106-year-old outlet (!) receives far fewer Internet “hat tips” and URL-linked rewrites, because most third-party sites are unwilling to point to a URL that requires membership. And until the entertainment journalism community at large starts getting blasted with Google News alerts, not too many seem willing to pay attention to Showblitz.

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On the Hollywood Reporter masthead, there is already a person listed as managing editor, daily—Michael Barnes. But since May, a second managing editor slot vacated by Todd Cunningham has been sitting vacant.

That position has now been filled internally with the promotion of Erik Pedersen, formerly copy chief and news editor. Pedersen has been with the trade a long time–15 years–and previously worked at both the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Daily Journal.

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The media have been having fun for the past few days with the idea that the Venice home featured in the Coen brothers’ 1998 cult movie The Big Lebowski as the residence of Jeff Bridges‘ The Dude is now up for sale. It’s part of a six-unit compound, and the list price is $2.3 million.

The best headline remains one of the very first, from LA Weekly: “The Dude’s Abode.” It’s not often that commenters chime in to compliment an outlet on a headline, but in this case, there are several hat tips for Sarah LaBrie. Deservedly so.

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Actor-turned-musician Jeff Bridges has an album coming out in August, and he was good enough to share a few tracks Tuesday night at the Troubadour. FishbowlLA managed to score an invite to the private concert, and arrived just in time to hear Quincy Jones introduce Bridges as “my baby brother.”

Bridges proved as charming and affable on stage as he is on screen, and his country-folk ditties were a hit with the crowd. The Bridges family was in attendance, and the highlight of the night had Jeff singing “The Man in Me” to his wife Sue. Pierce Brosnan and album producer T Bone Burnett were spotted in the crowd, and standing just behind us were actors Ryan Reynolds and Olivia Wilde, looking cozy.

After the show we chatted with Rachel Reynolds of KCRW and rock critic Laura Ferreiro, both of whom confessed to being uncharacteristically starstruck. “I think he’s the world’s most likeable guy,” said Reynolds. Agreed.

As today’s blog reminiscence by Baltimore Sun movie critic Mike Sragow reconfirms, some things never change. Magazine editors place their bets on certain cover story allegiances, subsequent buzz be damned.

Skragow recalls how his editors at Rolling Stone in 1982 were initially resistant to the idea of going big with feature coverage of Steven Spielberg‘s E.T. But he soon figured out why:

A week or two later, I discovered the editors’ underlying rationale. “There’s only room for one sci-fi smash per summer. This summer it’s going to be Tron.” And they had already locked up special cover art with Jeff Bridges in his Tron outfit.

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[Mild spoilers ahead]

Halfway between Tron and the December 17th sequel TRON: Legacy, the Coen brothers unleashed The Big Lebowski. FishbowlLA had the pleasure of catching a preview screening of the new film over the weekend on the Disney lot and was amazed to discover the Dude himself occasionally popping up on the Grid.

Overall, Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn is very Zen thanks to solicited script input from the actor’s pal Bernie Glassman. Still, it’s an unexpected joy to behold Bridges breaking into full Dude-speak at several points in TRON, provoking in each case hearty laughter from the audience.

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At the New York Times “Wheels” blog (a.k.a. The Nuts and Bolts of Whatever Moves You), contributor Tori Tellem has a fun rundown of the VIP party events that surrounded the November 17th-18th press preview days for the Los Angeles Auto Show. It’s not entirely A-list caliber stuff, but it’s still the kind of celeb smorgasbord that few other American cities can rival.

At the Lotus end of the show floor, the unholy trifecta of Sharon Stone, Billy Baldwin and KISS member Paul Stanley helped unveil sparkling new automotive offerings. Sorry to say, but if this were a movie, it would go straight to VOD. Other celebrations were a little more high-brow.

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We know Hollywood is the place for dreamers and the high aspirational. But ten nominations for best picture seems greedy and self-congratulatory. “There’s just so much WONDERFUL, QUALITY work we just couldn’t chose.”

As we’ve seen with politics, twice the candidates doesn’t make them better choices. Just more.

The complete list of the noms:

Best picture

“Avatar”
“The Blind Side”
“District 9″
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”

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