Oh, sure, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It’s easy for you to heart Jeff Bridges now that he’s a certified big-deal Oscar winner for Crazy Heart. I mean, everybody and anybody hearts Jeff Bridges, now that he’s won the popular vote. It’s like saying all along, even though you never said it out loud (unlike me), you knew Nicole Sherzinger and her partner, Derek, would win on Dancing with the Stars. Yeah, right.

I grant you, it’s clever and certainly timely for MFAH Films and the Houston Film Critics Society to organize a special film series called “We ♥ Jeff Bridges,” which is nearing its midpoint at the MFAH. And speaking as a longtime MFAH member who spends countless hours admiring the art on the walls as well as on the screen, I certainly appreciate your collective good taste, Museum Meisters. But just so you know, I hearted Bridges long before you art connoisseurs ever even noticed he was cute.

Way back in the early ‘70s, when I was a precocious little person of indeterminate age, I first saw Bridges when he was a skinny teenager in a high-school football jacket, eating his heart out over beautiful but ruthless Cybill Shepherd in The Last Picture Show. Even though I was obviously just a tiny little girl, I noticed that boy had sweet, expressive eyes. My ♥ went out to him.

As one who had already pledged herself to a big-city lifestyle even at that unquestionably (don’t ask) tender age, I hoped that cute but sadly agoraphobic boy would someday muster up the wherewithal to ditch that tiny Texas town and move to a big city offering a wider range of possibilities. After all, that town was so small, it only had one movie theater, and that was going down the tubes, fast. You didn’t need a billboard to read that town’s future: bleak to none.

Almost two decades later, when I saw The Fabulous Baker Boys, I was thrilled to see that my small-town heartthrob had turned into the city boy of my dreams, albeit a little tarnished with wear from creeping cynicism. Jeff was playing one of two brothers — the suave, sophisticated one — in this 1989 film, which, I am delighted to report, will screen tonight at the MFAH. The Baker Boys is my favorite Jeff Bridges film, and since I’ve already given you my unimpeachable bona fides in the JB department, you can take it from me, this one’s special.

Jeff and his real-life brother, Beau, portray sibling jazz pianists doing a lounge act in Seattle that, as the MFAH Films brochure aptly puts it, “gains new energy — and escalating tension — with the arrival of a sexy singer,” Michelle Pfeiffer. My key word for this film would be “sizzles” — especially when glamorous Michelle renders her alluring cover of “Makin’ Whoopee” while crawling decoratively across the grand piano Jeff is playing.

The film, the music and the stars, particularly Pfeiffer, won a slew of prestigious awards and rave reviews. Composer and jazz pianist Dave Grusin, who dubbed Bridges’ piano playing, won a well-deserved Grammy for his superb soundtrack.

I can hardly wait for my rendezvous with The Fabulous Baker Boys at 7 p.m. tonight in the MFAH Brown Auditorium. Promising even more fun this time around, the stage will be set for the film with an introduction by Regina Scruggs, producer and host of KUHF-FM’s “Music from the Movies” and a charter member of the Houston Film Critics Society.

The remaining films in the Jeff Bridges series follow in subsequent days, including Starman, The Fisher King, and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, until the June 25 denouement of Crazy Heart. Each of the films will be introduced by a member of the Houston Film Critics Society who’s sure to put you in the proper frame of mind for that particular picture.

You can’t beat the ticket prices. General admission is $7; MFAH members, senior adults and students with ID receive a $1 discount; Film Buffs members, and children age 5 and under, are admitted free. I’ve already got all my tickets – as would anyone who really hearted Jeff Bridges. I hope to see you there, like me, heart in hand, open to the magic of the movies.