True Grit (2010) (1 Viewer)

[Scott McGillivray]

I saw this last night and was highly entertained. This is a movie worth going to to theatre to see.
Better/worse/remake...none of that bothers or interests me. I have seen the original and enjoyed it. I saw this one and also was very entertained.


If I had one complaint, as others have said, they really should have spent at least another 5-10 minutes with the bad guys so we got to know them a little. The end felt too rushed in that sense.


Overall, a great movie. My second favorite western just behind "Unforgiven".

 

[Richard--W]

This review from the NYT Opinionator raises issues that are worth discussing:


http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/narrative-and-the-grace-of-god-the-new-true-grit/?hp


Here is an excerpt from the much longer essay:

Movie critic Dan Gagliasso doesn’t like the Coen brothers’ remake of the Henry Hathaway-John Wayne “True Grit.” He is especially upset because the moment he most treasures — when Wayne, on horseback, takes the reins in his teeth and yells to Lucky Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall), “Fill your hand you son-of-a-bitch” — is in the Coens’ hands just another scene. “The new film,” Gagliasso complains, “literally throws that great cinematic moment away.”

That’s right; there is an evenness to the new movie’s treatment of its events that frustrates Gagliasso’s desire for something climactic and defining. In the movie Gagliasso wanted to see — in fact the original “True Grit” — we are told something about the nature of heroism and virtue and the relationship between the two. In the movie we have just been gifted with, there is no relationship between the two; heroism, of a physical kind, is displayed by almost everyone, “good” and “bad” alike, and the universe seems at best indifferent, and at worst hostile, to its exercise.

The springs of that universe are revealed to us by the narrator-heroine Mattie in words that appear both in Charles Portis’s novel and the two films, but with a difference. The words the book and films share are these: “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.” These two sentences suggest a world in which everything comes around, if not sooner then later. The accounting is strict; nothing is free, except the grace of God. But free can bear two readings — distributed freely, just come and pick it up; or distributed in a way that exhibits no discernible pattern. In one reading grace is given to anyone and everyone; in the other it is given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious.

A third sentence, left out of the film but implied by its dramaturgy, tells us that the latter reading is the right one: .....

Not surprisingly, the author has no awareness of the original version's philosophical musings.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

From the excerpted NYT Opinionator passage:


In the movie we have just been gifted with, there is no relationship between the two; heroism, of a physical kind, is displayed by almost everyone, “good” and “bad” alike, and the universe seems at best indifferent, and at worst hostile, to its exercise.
This description sounds exactly like the Charles Portis novel to me. True Grit is not a story about virtue. Tom Chaney is not hunted down for because he is a coward who killed a decent man. He is hunted down because the daughter of the man he killed has both the resources and tenacity to ensure that he is hunted down. Had he been fortunate to kill a man with a more timid and less prosperous family, he would surely have gotten away with it. Rooster Cogburn is not a virtuous man, as his own accounting of himself makes clear; Mattie Ross admires him because he has grit, forcefulness and tenacity to match her own. On the surface, this is a straight-up adventure story, but it's also frank about the nature of the world, especially in areas where the mechanisms of civilization are still only tenuously established. I haven't seen the remake yet -- I have plans to see it Sunday -- but the demythologizing of the story can only be an improvement. The conflict between the libertarian spirit of the frontier and the taming influence of civilized values is at the heart of the story, and it portrayed as a fact of great sorrow that the latter force is prevailing.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I watched this film for the second time on Monday and actually liked it more since viewing it twice. However, I still think the first film did a better job of connecting Mattie and Rooster and thus, the final resting place for Rooster.






Crawdaddy

 

[Bryan^H]

I'm absolutely shocked that this film is getting so many average reviews. Even Roger Ebert(gave it 3 1/2 stars) had his quibbles with it.

I have read 6 reviews of it so far, and of the six, not one reviewer gave it a perfect marks(4/4 stars, 100%, A grade etc.)

I did a rough estimate on movies I have watched on the big screen. Around 600.

I think True Grit is a perfect film, and of the best cinematic experiences I have ever had

 

[TerryRL]

I absolutely loved this movie. I'm glad that it's doing so well at the box office as well as critically (boasting a stellar 95% rating at Rotten Tomatoes). It will be among the ten Best Picture nominees, it probably won't win since many consider this Fincher's ("The Social Network") year, but it will give the Coens three Best Picture nods out of their last four films. Both Jeff Bridges and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld are expected to walk away with Oscar nods as well for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress (though she is the lead character) respectively.


The film has been showing great legs in theaters and many believe that it'll end up being only the fifth western in history to earn north of the $100 million mark domestically (making it the biggest hit the Coens have ever had), joining "Dances With Wolves" ($184.2 million), "Wild Wild West" ($113.8 million), "Maverick" ($101.6 million), and "Unforgiven" ($101.2 million). "True Grit" is going to become the most successful western since the late 1990s. Not too shabby for a movie that cost less than $40 million to make.


In comparison to the 1969 original, while I do like that film, I enjoyed the updated version far more. The Duke was great in the original, but overall I feel that the new one is a much movie. Just my two cents.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Watched the film this afternoon.


Mixed feelings about it. Thought it was very well done.

Hailee Steinfeld is superb and I hope she gets an Oscar

nomination out of this despite the fact she won't win.


I haven't read a single review so I don't know where the

critics find fault. My problem with the film is that the pacing

was a bit slow at times. I just walked away feeling that it
was a great film for the performance Hailee gives but it will

never be in my top list of westerns.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The discovery of Hailee Steinfeld is the reason for making this remake/re-adaptation. Having read Charles Portis's book a few months ago, she pretty much leapt off the page as the character I imagined in my head while reading. She looked just about what I pictured, with those severe pigtails and rather plain face, and unlike Kim Darby actually was the age of the character or even a bit younger. At the same time, she's really, really tall for a 14-year-old, taller than most of the men in the town -- but not Rooster! -- which gave her a certain believability when confronting adult businessmen. Most importantly, she had the attitude. Petulant isn't quite the right word, because everything Mattie Ross does is purposeful. But certainly unpleasant. And belligerent, sometimes needlessly so. What Mattie Ross is on the march, you don't want to be caught in her path. At the same time, she's a believable 14-year-old.


Which isn't to say the two other main characters don't offer improvements in the casting department, as well. Jeff Bridges is less than John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, but he's supposed to be. When the circumstances warrant it, Bridges's Rooster can be positively lethal. But he's also a drunk and a delinquent, with a lifetime of bad decisions behind him and ahead of him. Bridges captures both sides of him ably. He does right by Mattie Ross, but he's done wrong by many others before she came along, and he'll do wrong by many others after he's passed out of her life.


Matt Damon strikes absolutely the right note as LaBoeuf, with his performance imbuing the character with more than is there to be found on the page. The fragile dynamic between Rooster and LaBoeuf, with Mattie as the lynchpin, was one of my favorite parts of the film. Rooster finds LaBoeuf's superior education threatening, and LaBoeuf finds everything about Rooster threatening because, let's be honest, who wouldn't?


I would estimate that over three quarters of the dialog came directly from the book. It is a great achievement of the Coens and Steinfeld, Bridges and the rest of the cast that they pull off the unique vernacular so completely naturally. If there's a weak link in the picture, it's the performance by the older Mattie. Her performance lacks the grit of Steinfeld's and implies that Mattie has softened with age, when in fact that opposite seems to have been true.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

The discovery of Hailee Steinfeld is the reason for making this remake/re-adaptation. Having read Charles Portis's book a few months ago, she pretty much leapt off the page as the character I imagined in my head while reading. She looked just about what I pictured, with those severe pigtails and rather plain face, and unlike Kim Darby actually was the age of the character or even a bit younger. At the same time, she's really, really tall for a 14-year-old, taller than most of the men in the town -- but not Rooster! -- which gave her a certain believability when confronting adult businessmen. Most importantly, she had the attitude. Petulant isn't quite the right word, because everything Mattie Ross does is purposeful. But certainly unpleasant. And belligerent, sometimes needlessly so. What Mattie Ross is on the march, you don't want to be caught in her path. At the same time, she's a believable 14-year-old.


Which isn't to say the two other main characters don't offer improvements in the casting department, as well. Jeff Bridges is less than John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, but he's supposed to be. When the circumstances warrant it, Bridges's Rooster can be positively lethal. But he's also a drunk and a delinquent, with a lifetime of bad decisions behind him and ahead of him. Bridges captures both sides of him ably. He does right by Mattie Ross, but he's done wrong by many others before she came along, and he'll do wrong by many others after he's passed out of her life.


Matt Damon strikes absolutely the right note as LaBoeuf, with his performance imbuing the character with more than is there to be found on the page. The fragile dynamic between Rooster and LaBoeuf, with Mattie as the lynchpin, was one of my favorite parts of the film. Rooster finds LaBoeuf's superior education threatening, and LaBoeuf finds everything about Rooster threatening because, let's be honest, who wouldn't?


I would estimate that over three quarters of the dialog came directly from the book. It is a great achievement of the Coens and Steinfeld, Bridges and the rest of the cast that they pull off the unique vernacular so completely naturally. If there's a weak link in the picture, it's the performance by the older Mattie. Her performance lacks the grit of Steinfeld's and implies that Mattie has softened with age, when in fact that opposite seems to have been true.

For her very brief screen time, I wouldn't say that, with her calling Frank James "trash" to his face.






Crawdaddy

 

[Mike Williams]

Saw this yesterday. Loved it. Thought it was excellent. There are a few things from the original I missed and would have liked to have seen here, such as the poker game between Rooster and the owner of the Chinese store, as well as John Wayne's line reading of "Fill your hand, you sonofabitch!" John Wayne's scene of Rooster talking about his ex-wife was very tender and a wonderful moment. In the new version, it seemed more of a throwaway.

That said, I thought Jeff Bridges was outstanding and completely disappeared into the role of Rooster Cogburn, whereas in the original, you are never NOT aware that you're watching John Wayne. I thought the new Mattie Ross was fantastic. She was headstrong and precocious without being annoying the way Kim Darby was. Matt Damon did a good job with the LaBeof role, although after seeing both versions, I've decided I just don't like the character at all. However, Glen Campbell did not do a fine job, as some have claimed. Glen Campbell is possibly one of the worst actors ever to grace the silver screen. It is no accident he did very little else afterward.

I thought Barry Pepper did an excellent job of filling Robert Duvall's shoes and even seemed to channel Duvall a little bit. For those that complained they wanted more of his character, blame the author of the book, not the movie. The movie gave the character exactly what he was supposed to have, as did the original, and both characters were very memorable in their limited screen time.

For those -- and there are many -- who complain that this movie does not have the beautiful scenery of the original film, the story takes place in Fort Smith, ARKANSAS and INDIAN TERRITORY (Oklahoma). There are no Colorado mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and while beautiful, I always thought it was completely ridiculous that Colorado was supposed to be filling in for Arkansas and Oklahoma in the original. To complain about the Colorado mountains' absence seems at least as ridiculous.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Robert Crawford

For her very brief screen time, I wouldn't say that, with her calling Frank James "trash" to his face.

I wasn't saying that the older Mattie was written as having softened with age, just that Elizabeth Marvel played her as having softened with age. I would have liked to see more grit from her performance, so to speak. The older Mattie's rather resolute opinions concerning the 1928 presidential election were wisely left out here, but they helped define her continued resoluteness for me when reading the book. It fascinated me at the time that someone could come through such an ordeal at such an impressionable age at great personal injury and still view life from just about the same perspective on the other side.

 

[PaulDA]

A few comments:


Loved the film. The Coen Bros. are a big favourite of mine and this is among my favourite of their films.


Re-makes: Call them what you will, but I have no difficulties with the idea of doing "re-makes". I judge them individually, not because they are re-makes. After all, without re-makes, I would never subscribe to the symphony nor would I get to enjoy Shakespeare and Molière (to name but a few of a tiny subset of "re-makes" across all artistic genres).

I look forward to adding this to my library of films and watching it again and again. Perhaps not the best film of 2010, but certainly the best I've seen (admittedly, I've seen very few of this past year's releases--kids and other major life obligations have considerably slowed my once ubiquitous presence at the local cinema houses--as a young, single and childless man, I used to average 5 movies a week at the cinema and the same at home; now, 5 movies a year at the cinema is more my speed and 3 a month at home is about what I can manage 8 months a year).

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

For her very brief screen time, I wouldn't say that, with her calling Frank James "trash" to his face.

I wasn't saying that the older Mattie was written as having softened with age, just that Elizabeth Marvel played her as having softened with age. I would have liked to see more grit from her performance, so to speak. The older Mattie's rather resolute opinions concerning the 1928 presidential election were wisely left out here, but they helped define her continued resoluteness for me when reading the book. It fascinated me at the time that someone could come through such an ordeal at such an impressionable age at great personal injury and still view life from just about the same perspective on the other side.[/QUOTE]


I don't quite understand what else you expected from Elizabeth Marvel to do with her few limited lines of dialogue? She called Frank James trash to his face, buried a man in her family plot despite what others might say about such a thing, circa 1903, ran the family farm with only one arm and never bothered to get married because she didn't have time for such things. She sounds pretty gritty to me.







Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Crawford]

With the Coen brothers making this western and it earning some serious box office cash for a western, I hope it spurs other filmmakers like Spielberg or even Scorsese to do a western before their directing days are done.

 

[mike caronia]

After seeing The Social Network, I thought for sure that film would run away with Best Picture.

Having just seen True Grit, I hope that's not the case.

I absolutely loved this movie. Most entertained I've been in a theater in a long time.

Pretty much a perfect film in every way to my ears, eyes and brain.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I'm glad to see so many people enjoying this film but I must admit that with each passing review I grow more and more confused as to why this film is getting so much love. As much as I enjoyed the movie I feel as if years from now I'm going to have to call the thing overrated. Perhaps I should give it a second viewing and not right after watching the original.


As to what Robert said about other directors doing a Western. It would be interested to see if the mainstream crowds would be ok with 3-4 Westerns being released a year. Since UNFORGIVEN they've all been spread apart and I'm guessing this is because the studios don't believe the people will show up for them too often (the same with Musicals).

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Robert Crawford

As to what Robert said about other directors doing a Western. It would be interested to see if the mainstream crowds would be ok with 3-4 Westerns being released a year. Since UNFORGIVEN they've all been spread apart and I'm guessing this is because the studios don't believe the people will show up for them too often (the same with Musicals).

A movie like this couldn't be made if there were still three to four Westerns being released a year. Part of the joy of this picture is that there is no twist, no gimmick to sell the Western genre. It's a straight-up, unreconstructed Western telling a straight-up, unreconstructed Western story. It works because audiences haven't seen a straight-up, unreconstructed Western in a long time. The genre still resonates deep in the American psyche, and this is the genre done conventionally but also done extremely well. And there's the fact that Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn were great, crowd-pleasing big-screen characters 41 years ago, and they're still great, crowd-pleasing characters today.

 

[Ockeghem]

After having read the posts on the Home Theater Forum for the past couple of days, I decided to go see this film with my wife and several of our children Tuesday. There was a 3:35 showing, and since Tangled (for the younger children) was being shown at 3:25, this ended up being quite convenient. From what I had read on the HTF, it sounded as though True Grit was one entertaining and well-made film, and I was not disappointed.

I think Hailee Steinfeld did a remarkable job in her role. But imagine having to fill the Duke's shoes? Yikes. Perhaps an even more remarkable performance was given by Jeff Bridges, which IMO is saying quite a lot given Steinfeld's interpretation.

I loved the two or three Christian hymns that I heard prominently throughout the film. The piano sounded (appropriately) like it was almost a period instrument -- similar to how it resonated (to my ears) in the Ken Burns excellent Civil War series. One of the departures from the 'normal' scoring of the film occurred during the prairie scene, at which point it almost sounded as though a second composer were at work -- very modal (and quite unlike any of the aforementioned hymns I had heard) in parts, but IMO still quite breathtaking.

For my own part, the only weakness of the film was the final ten or so minutes. 'Older Mattie' just did not do it for me. Perhaps it's because (to my way of thinking) the scenes were either too brief or seemed a bit too rushed, or maybe it's because 'younger Mattie' by contrast was so very riveting in her performance. I just wasn't all that convinced in that particular part of the story, or in that particular actor's delivery of those scenes. I am not a film expert by any means, but as an analog, it was similar to a song in which the B section fails in part to be formally related to its A section via harmonic unity, and in the process loses a degree of its overarching (in this case, antecedent-consequence) coherency. Sure, the song still functions and is related melodically and strophically -- that is to say, from the linear and textual standpoints as it transitions from A to B -- but something is lost vertically (i.e., harmonically) in the process. This does not mean that it fails to work, it just means that it is less unified (and in my estimation, less convincing). That being said, I still found this to be an excellent film. My oldest son plans to pick it up on DVD once it becomes available.

 

[Bryan^H]

I dragged my folks to see it today(completely my idea that they watch a good film on the big screen). My mom despised it, and my dad gave me a little reassurance in that at least it had a good musical score. I now feel very bad that they paid prime theater prices to see something they disliked very much.

I should have learned my lesson long ago:

Never impose your like of a movie on other people. If they are interested in seeing a film, they will see it.

 

[Ricardo C]

Saw it with my wife and father-in-law yesterday, digitally projected (2k Cinemark XD in Robinson). I saw the original as a child, but have no memories of it, other than John Wayne's image. So this was very much a "virgin" experience for me.


It was the best Western I've ever seen, and quite possibly my favorite film of the last few years. My wife thought it was a great film, though I don't think she enjoyed it quite as much as I did. My father in law, a big fan of the original, thought it was a great character study, but that it didn't have quite as much action as he would have liked.