GET LOW – Jan AP Kaczmarek – Soundtrack Suite (2010)

Robert Duvall will turn 80 next year, a fact that hardly seems possible since he’s one of those men for whom the term fit as a fiddle should have been invented. But it’s been nearly half a century since his first notable role as Boo Radley in 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird. In his latest film, Get Low, Duvall plays a suitably ancient hermit named Felix Bush who senses death’s approach and decides to stage and attend his own funeral. Hidden behind an enormous beard that looks to have blossomed and gone to seed long ago, Duvall seems old — but when Felix emerges from a haircut and clean shave, audience members could be forgiven for wondering if the actor is too young to be believable in the role. Actually, he’s just right for it, and it is just right for him: without Duvall’s rich, supremely skilled performance, this slim period piece wouldn’t amount to much. The stuff of local legend in rural Caleb County, Felix has lived in the backwoods for some 30 years, with only a mule for company. He hunts trespassers with a rifle, terrifies small children and is rumored to have killed a man with his bare hands. But the local undertaker, Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), is sorely in need of some business, so he’s happy to honor Felix’s request, regardless of how strange it is. (See TIME’s Summer Entertainment Preview 2010.) The movie is based on the true story of Felix “Bush” Breazeale, a Tennessee recluse who staged his own funeral in 1938, apparently because he wanted to know what people …