Monday 14 February 2011

True Grit


The light-hearted adventures of a cowboy with Aspergers Syndrome, a hyper intelligent youngster and Matt Damon never dip below the bar that the Coens have already set so high for themselves.

9 comments:

  1. I thought the dialogue was excellent (as were the performances and casting).

    Aspergers? Does he obsessively/compulsively kill people? I think he's more like the Dude except he drinks whisky instead of smokes weed...

    I thought it was great apart from the CGI snakes and the last 5 minutes.

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  2. Possibly the second greatest remake ever (behind The Thing) and very high in the pantheon of westerns. The dialogue throughout is utterly sublime and the performances pitch perfect with a delightfully Coen twist. The finale came up very abruptly and felt somewhat anti-climactic, but I'm being picky. It was the best of the 4 quite brilliant films I've seen at the cinema this year so far; and it's only February.

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  3. I refuse to believe Bryce has been to the cinema. Surely I'd have heard about a ticker tape parade in Glasgow. I thought the last movie to tempt you to the big screen was Total Recall?

    I'm hoping for a big return to form from the Coens, after some stinkers, the overrated No Country and the boring one with all the jews.

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  4. I thought No Country was excellent personally. (and that Total Recall stank on a re-watch recently - hadn't seen it since I was a kid. I think Robocop is probably the only Veerhooven movie I like). Not sure about this one - I can't stand Westerns as a general rule, but then again it's the Coens, and there seems to be lavish praise all round for it on here so I'll have to make a trip to the old Peckham multiplex.

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  5. I went to the Grosvnor in the West end. Nice leather seats and you can take booze in. Just about what I can handle...

    I liked No Country but this is much better.

    You all need to watch Total Recall on the big screen (it helps if you are 13).

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  6. I think No Country is probably their very best film (that or Miller's Crossing), but it's far from my fave (behind Lebowski, Fargo and Miller's Crossing). It is also a western.

    I'm slightly dumbfounded by the lack of love for A Serious Man. It's pure Coen; eccentric characters, sparkling dialogue, excellent quirky performances, it's all essentially pointless. All this makes it their funniest and most interesting comedy since The Big Lebowski (the film it most closely resembles), and considering everything bar No Country was a comedy I just don't get the non-love.

    Total Recall... they don't make 'em like that anymore!

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  7. I did really like No Country, I just didn't get quite get it. I only figured out Josh Brolin had been killed on the second viewing, and the last scene with Tommy Lee Jones - "kids these days" - seemed both baffling and trite. I'm clearly missing something. I agree with James that all their other films have been comedies of varying blackness.

    Simple Man I haven't given a fair chance yet. I tried to watch it on a plane, and abandoned it after five minutes for The Informant.

    Still moving bastard house, but I may take a break to see True Grit this afternoon.

    Oh, here, shout out to Al and James for the heads up on Rec and Rec 2. Great stuff.

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  8. Admittedly I've only seen it once, but I came out of A Serious Man convinced it was my favourite Coens since Lebowski, so I am also shocked at the "non-love"...

    But then I guess it played to my habitual down-beat put upon gallows-ha! world-view, being essentially about a man trying to be reasonable in the face of a million little things fucking him over, until the threat of a massive looming fucking him over renders all those little things silly and pointless.

    And the supposed "life-authorities" are fucking useless and no help at all.

    It's properly funny in parts, but, unlike, say Burn After Reading, there's real bleak, nihilistic substance to that film, and empathy.

    Well that's what I got from it anyway.

    Accept mystery.

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  9. Oh yeah, Simple Man's the gay Colin Firth one directed by Henry Ford I believe.

    Enjoyed the ending of True Grit - thought it elevated the whole thing to a different level. She lost her surrogate dad, and her surrogate husband.

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