True Grit
spoonietee
110 Posts
Highly recommended. Jeff Bridges obviously wrecks shit. Humor, guns, great visuals, and...Jeff Bridges. Go see it.
spoonietee
110 Posts
Comments
The dialog made me miss HBO's Deadwood all the more.
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.)
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 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.
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!
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.
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!"
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.
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.
She's outstanding. So much intelligence is needed to play a part that well and she nailed it at whatever young age she is.
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.
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.
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.
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
Agreed X10000000000
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.
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
"You wouldn't see it if you saw it!"
Ha!
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.