I saw the Movie True Grit yesterday. I thought they did a good job on remaking this John
Wayne classisc. Of course I still like the original better.
I haven't seen it yet; I have mixed feelings about the whole concept of remaking such a classic. Hearing that it adheres closer to the original novel makes me feel a little better about it, though. I'll probably end up seeing it when it comes out on Blu-ray.
Never had a chance to go see it yet, but the previews do indeed looks like it might be a pretty decent "tribute" to the original classic!!
IMO, over the last few years, the
majority of remakes have fallen way short of the entertainment value of the whatever original classic they are trying to re-create. From any decent actor's pov who really cares about how the public sees their performance, I think remakes are got to be the toughest role because the standard has already been set by the actor who starred in the original role.
Granted their are certain actors/actresses (Hoffman, Deniro, Pacino, etc) who can take a classic role, make it their own, and give a very excellent entertaining performance, but the majority of remakes fall flat!! Just my opinion....
BTW, anyone know what the the letters "G.R.I.T.S." really stands for??
- Cap'n Noodles -
I wonder why they switched eyes.
Is this Jeff Bridges year or what?
While we're on the topic of remakes of classic westerns, 3:10 to Yuma with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe was very good. I got the Blu-ray from Amazon for $7.99 and watched it last night. I haven't seen the original Glenn Ford version.
But has no one read the Portis book? Movies, wonderful tho' they are (LOTR, for example), if based on some other source... well, to see the shadow of an original work w/o experiencing the original...
Saw the movie on Monday and I will say this is not a remake of the 1969 John Wayne movie. This version stays truer to the Portis novel, e.g. narrated by the 14 year old Mattie Ross, the ending, etc. The weave of Victorian English throughout the dialog provides for moments of laugh out loud dry humor that was lost in the 1969 version.
Overall, I thought it was a nice adaptation of the story as written by Charles Portis. A fine Coen Brothers project with excellent character portrayals by Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld who plays the tough as nails Mattie Ross.
Overall, I thought it was a nice adaptation of the story as written by Charles Portis. A fine Coen Brothers project with excellent character portrayals by Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld who plays the tough as nails Mattie Ross. 
I'm kind of interested to see how Mattie is portrayed because I thought Kim Darby was annoying as hell in the original version.
It was a fine movie. The actors really brought out the characters and made them believable. The Coen brothers are great at bringing the best out of their actors. I happened to see the 1969 version a week or so before I saw the new version. It looks like they filmed the shooting battle between Cogburn and Ned Pepper at the same location. I'm curious now about the book.