True Grit

spoonieteespoonietee 110 Posts
edited December 2010 in Strut Central
Highly recommended. Jeff Bridges obviously wrecks shit. Humor, guns, great visuals, and...Jeff Bridges. Go see it.

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  • Can't wait to check this out...

  • gambitgambit 906 Posts
    Agreed. Another solid Coen Brothers effort. The dialogue definitely threw me for a loop, but I dug it. It stays true to the genre, but still manages to smarten it up a bit.

  • motown67motown67 4,513 Posts
    Yes, saw it day before yesterday. Great western, and the dialogue is the star. A lot of that comes directly from the book that came out in 1968.

  • dollar_bindollar_bin I heartily endorse this product and/or event 2,326 Posts
    I caught a matinee of True Grit yesterday and it's definitely an entertaining flick, but it will probably be considered second tier Coen Brothers material. Don't take that as an insult, I even liked Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, so pretty much everything they do is cinema gold as far as I'm concerned. True Grit will certainly make it into my top five of the year. The Dude gives a performance so large, you can almost smell his farts emanating from the screen. Matt Damon and the Girl were good as well. It felt short for a Western, which is not necessarily a bad thing. All the other marks of Coen craftsmanship, the screenplay, the directing and the cinematography, were more or less up to standards. The only negative is that it's relatively light compared to their denser material of recent years.

    The dialog made me miss HBO's Deadwood all the more.

  • beautiful movie.

    the girl was amazing.

    (it's interesting: I'm hearing people [IRL not necessarily in this thread, though here a lil as well] saying it was a great movie but only a good western. it's a puzzling formulation because so often a movie works within a certain genre but is not great as a stand-alone movie. for the record I think True Great was a far above average western AND a far above average movie.)

  • dollar_bin said:
    I even liked Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers,

    I think Intolerable Cruelty is slept on; it's a good movie. Lady Killers may be the ONE Coen movie I can't really stand. Actually there's one more I don't much care for called....
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    Blood Simple.
    [hatt me now.]

  • I'm with y'all the Coen Bros gold (though, my piece of hatt is reserved for, "Burn After Reading,") and I loved this movie. Bridges & the girl carry the show, but each performance- large or small- is great. The horsetrader, and Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned both stand out.

    I thought it was also an oddly sincere Coen Brothers movie- some straight up Western elements. All those shots of half-dissolved horses over beautiful scenery were so traditional, and not the usual Coen look/feel. Ebert tackled this in his review better than I can, but his point I liked most was, "This was an odd movie for them to make, but I'm glad they made it."

    The Dude is highly quotable... After the shootout at the cabin, his, "well... that didn't pan out..." nearly had me on the ground.

  • white_teawhite_tea 3,262 Posts
    dollar_bin said:
    The Dude gives a performance so large, you can almost smell his farts emanating from the screen.

    In a more just world, this would replace whatever throwaway Peter Travers line on the movie poster.

    Wikipedia has a graph charting all of the earnings of the Coen Brothers' movies and, somewhat surprising to me, Burn After Reading was their biggest earner -- probably because it was the film that followed their Oscar winner No Country...

    I might be in the minoirty here, but I loved their last movie A Serious Man. Small in scope but pretty funny. That scene scene with Hendrix' "Machine Gun" was fire!

  • gambitgambit 906 Posts
    dollar_bin said:
    I even liked Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers,

    I think Intolerable Cruelty is slept on; it's a good movie. Lady Killers may be the ONE Coen movie I can't really stand. Actually there's one more I don't much care for called....
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    Blood Simple.
    [hatt me now.]
    Oh, come on! Blood Simple is much better than The Man Who Wasn't There. Seriously, I almost jumped the Coen Brothers bandwagon on that one. They were getting scary in the early 2000s.

    That said, I can understand folks not really digging Blood Simple. It's a classic to me, but it's dry and Frances McDormand's performance is a little awkward. *shrug*

  • gambitgambit 906 Posts
    dollar_bin said:


    I might be in the minoirty here, but I loved their last movie A Serious Man. Small in scope but pretty funny. That scene scene with Hendrix' "Machine Gun" was fire!

    I dug A Serious Man as well. In fact, it's one of the few Coen Brothers' films of recent that I have seen multiple times. Wait. That's a lie. I watch many of their movies several times, even the ones I somewhat hatt to be sure I have the hatt for it.

    Is this where I say SPOILER ALERT?

    Did anyone notice an editing glitch in one of the scenes with Bridges, The Girl and Damon? There was a point where The Girl wasn't speaking and her lips were moving. I found that exhilarating to catch.

  • dollar_bin said:
    I even liked Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers,

    I think Intolerable Cruelty is slept on; it's a good movie. Lady Killers may be the ONE Coen movie I can't really stand. Actually there's one more I don't much care for called....

    .
    Blood Simple.
    [hatt me now.]
    Oh, come on! Blood Simple is much better than The Man Who Wasn't There. Seriously, I almost jumped the Coen Brothers bandwagon on that one. They were getting scary in the early 2000s.


    That said, I can understand folks not really digging Blood Simple. It's a classic to me, but it's dry and Frances McDormand's performance is a little awkward. *shrug*

    They've had some hiccups along the way (it seems we all have one movie in their catalogue that we don't like). Lady Killers, Blood Simple, and, yes, Man Who Wasn't There are at the bottom for me.

    But don't forget that "early 2000s" is when they made "Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?" which is among their most ambitious/interesting movies I think. And funny as hell.

    The dudes have a seriously fusking great body of work IMO. Raising Arizona and Miller's Crossing are two of my favorite movies ever. No Country, Lebowski and Hudsucker are all probably in my top 200 somewhere as well.

  • white_teawhite_tea 3,262 Posts
    What don't you guys like about Billy Bob's barber movie? Always liked it as a low-key, noir film with a lot of classic Coen touches, not to mention nice small roles for Scarlett Jo and James Gandolfini. The black and white looks gorgeous as well.

    The thing that killed Ladykillers was the fact that everyone outside of Hanks and the older black lady was a total stock, stereotype character. I did like the one "hipity-hop" reference... "Left my wallet in El Segundo!"

  • gambitgambit 906 Posts
    white_tea said:
    What don't you guys like about Billy Bob's barber movie? Always liked it as a low-key, noir film with a lot of classic Coen touches, not to mention nice small roles for Scarlett Jo and James Gandolfini. The black and white looks gorgeous as well.
    For me to truly answer this, I'd have to stomach another watch. After giving four or five tries, I just cannot do it again. It was just too low-key for a noir film. I hated the Scarlett Jo casting; even though, that was an attracting interest at first. There is probably more substantial reasonings, but I just don't know off top.

  • dollar_bindollar_bin I heartily endorse this product and/or event 2,326 Posts

    Blood Simple.
    [hatt me now.]


    Blood Simple is not only one of my favorite Coen Brothers movies, it's straight up one of my favorite movies of all time. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying I strongly disagree. It's a little rough around the edges, but it's totally engaging and scary as hell. The burial scene alone is worth the entire price of admission. I'll stand up for The Man Who Wasn't There as well, it's a very nerdy tribute to film noir.

    The Coens take risks with their movies, so I think it's totally reasonable for even a big fan to have one or two movies that didn't land for them. If I had to pick two Coen Brothers movies (beyond Intolerable Cruelty and Ladykillers which can be excluded from the canon) that I could live without seeing again, it would probably be O Brother and Burn After Reading, but I did like those two movies.

  • goatboygoatboy 371 Posts
    I saw True Grit the other night and thought it was outstanding.
    A good solid "perfect" little movie that resides somewhere between Deadwood (approach), Oh Brother (dusty cinematography) and Miller's Crossing (music).
    The only real problem was that it was over before I was ready to let go of it.

    Jeff Bridges is great, but the actress who plays the girl easily steals the show imo.

  • goatboy said:

    Jeff Bridges is great, but the actress who plays the girl easily steals the show imo.

    She's outstanding. So much intelligence is needed to play a part that well and she nailed it at whatever young age she is.

  • motown67motown67 4,513 Posts
    They say she was 13 during filming and is currently 14 and in middle school.

  • thats craaaazy. her scenes in town dealing with people were a joy to watch.
    i misted up at the river scene. go girl go!!!

    overall, i did think it ended a little too soon (i dont know the book). and i left the theater thinking it was good but not great. but in the weeks since i saw it, scenes and dialogue keep coming to mind that i look forward to seeing again. overall it was just a pleasure to watch every second...there was a real texture to the movie if that makes any sense.

  • goatboygoatboy 371 Posts
    tripledouble said:
    there was a real texture to the movie if that makes any sense.
    Definitely!
    I really think a lot has to do with the cinematography (not that I am an expert in this by any means).
    I remembered back to when I watched some of the extras on the Oh Brother DVD and they showed what scenes looked like before and after they "adjusted" them.
    It was like a whole other world opened up.
    This had the same look to me in a way...

    I love the scene where she's dealing with the pony seller and verbally bull rushing him to get a fair deal.
    First sign that maybe she had three times her size in smarts and gumption.

  • AlmondAlmond 1,427 Posts
    The Coen Brothers did a great job writing the screenplay, and as mentioned before, the dialogue made the movie. All the actors fit their roles perfectly, and I felt like the film was as much about playing the part as it was about delivering the lines effectively. It's no surprise that Jeff Bridges offered an effortless performance, but Hailee Steinfeld stole a lot of the thunder. It's refreshing to see a child actor do so well in a well-written drama, without the hype and gloss of such franchises as Harry Potter and Twilight.

    I feel that for an actor as prominent as Matt Damon, his talent wasn't exploited in the role of LeBoeuf. A lot of less prominent actors could have fulfilled the role of a rambling Texas ranger. Barry Pepper, as usual, is understated perfection in his role as Lucky Ned. I've only seen him play secondary and tertiary characters, but he never fails to pack a lot of impact in his scenes. I could barely recognize him through those chapped lips and decaying teeth. *Spoiler* When they finally ran into Tom Chaney, I was a bit let down at how much of a loser he was. Maybe that's how I was supposed to feel. He didn't seem like the type of man who could evade law enforcement for so long, but I guess it's because he had a posse backing him up. As someone else stated, I also feel that the film ended somewhat abruptly. I like that the accents were understated, rather than being hackneyed and heavily "Southern."

    In some parts the diologue was a bit fast and mumbly for me to understand. Was this just me? Overall, I was impressed, but I can't say that my mind was blown.


    Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld. They both clean up well and easily make one of the best acting pairs of the year.

  • motown67motown67 4,513 Posts
    A review of the movie on NPR I think said that the Coen's weren't remaking the John Wayne original, but were instead using the book for their inspiration and took a lot of the dialogue directly from the text. Then I came across this trailer from the original and some of the lines and scenes are exactly alike.


  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,902 Posts
    Saw it earlier today. Pretty decent flick. The girl deserves an Oscar nod IMO.

    The biggest WTF moment of the movie... Sat around at the end chatting and noticed in the credits

    "Mr. Damon???s abs double"

    Had to find out what that was all about.

    Answer here

    http://scottfeinberg.com/truegrit-2

    "One funny note: when the end credits were rolling, I noticed a job described as ???Mr. Damon???s abs double??? ??? even though Mr. Damon???s abs are never seen in the film ??? that was attributed to one ???Buster Coen.??? Towards the end of the evening, I asked Damon what that was all about, and he laughingly told me that Ethan???s 15-year-old son; Buster had served as an assistant to the script supervisor on the set during the making of the film, but had indicated that he wanted a more important-sounding credit than that; and had apparently requested that one!"


    bwhaha. Nice one

  • dollar_bindollar_bin I heartily endorse this product and/or event 2,326 Posts
    There's plenty of Portis' dialogue in the 69 film. The NY Times had a pretty interesting article about his relationship with the film adaptations of his work: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/magazine/12FOB-WWLN-t.html?scp=2&sq=true grit&st=cse

    It makes a certain sense that Wayne, playing the trigger-happy drunk Rooster Cogburn, finally got his Academy Award by delivering dialogue largely borrowed from Portis

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,902 Posts
    dollar_bin said:


    The dialog made me miss HBO's Deadwood all the more.


    Agreed X10000000000

  • was surprised to find that screener copies are already up on the torrent sites.

  • tripledouble said:

    i misted up at the river scene.

    Haha. You not the only one. That's what Real Gs do.

    Great movie. It ended at just the right time.

    So many great lines but "That's okay, keep your seat, Trash" might've been my favorite.

  • motown67motown67 4,513 Posts
    It's not just the dialogue is the same between the two movies even the sets are the same. Take a look at the part where the girl walks in on Rooster when he's asleep in the backroom of the Chinese shop. The bed is similar between the two movies.

  • white_tea said:


    I might be in the minoirty here, but I loved their last movie A Serious Man.

    that movie should be renamed, A Serious Turd.

    I wanted to smack everyone who ranted & raved with the usual Coen Brothers cock sucking after it came out. A total waste of 2 hours. I'll be approaching True Grit in a more cautious manner.

    Since Lebowski the only two Coen Brothers films I really liked were The Man Who Wasnt There & No Country for Old Men

  • Hotsauce84Hotsauce84 8,450 Posts
    motown67 said:


    "You wouldn't see it if you saw it!"

    Ha!

  • white_teawhite_tea 3,262 Posts
    GenePontecorvo said:
    tripledouble said:

    i misted up at the river scene.

    So many great lines but "That's okay, keep your seat, Trash" might've been my favorite.

    What was that all about? Just a general distaste for the man and/or his lifestyle?

    I finally saw it last night. The action scenes were definitely my favorite -- the way they filmed Rooster and the girl staking out the shack at night and how the posse rode up quietly on horses was so cool, and you knew something would be up later, in the morning deep in Indian territory and after the ranger left, that it would get serious, especially after they show the girl walking down to the river. And, yet, it didn't make it any less intense when the scene developed. HOWEVER, it depressed me that this gorgeous young lady turned into such a sour, wooden and ordinary older woman. That was a bit of a downer at the end.
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