Russell Crowe Discusses Forthcoming 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts Documentary

UTAH (Reuters) - Oscar may be eyeing Russell Crowe for A Beautiful Mind, but not for what comes after. On Jan. 17, Miramax will debut a documentary called Texas at Utah's Sundance Film Festival. The film captures Crowe's band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, rehearsing and recording Bastard Life or Clarity, the album it released to mixed reviews earlier this year.

"I asked [Miramax head] Harvey Weinstein if he'd like to see it and he said yeah," Crowe said during an L.A. press conference to promote A Beautiful Mind. "It's very raw, very rude, and it puts me in an incredibly bad light. So he bought it. It surprises the hell out of me that people would find it that amusing."

The documentary shows Crowe and crew knocking around Austin, Texas, where the actor once found himself while promoting a movie. "You go from bar to bar on Sixth Street and you can hear everything from reggae to disco to any number of divisions of blues and country and western," Crowe says. "It just felt like a real music town and felt like people were appreciative of music without all the bells and whistles."

When it came time to record, Crowe says he wanted to take his band out of its native Australia anyway. "I wanted to put them in a place where we could all concentrate on the music," he says. "Cities like London, Los Angeles or New York were all considered, but seemed to be too big."

Crowe - who plans to attend the Sundance screening - says Beyond has purchased international distribution rights, but could not say when the movie would be released.