Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review New True Grit: Who wants to see it?

Diamondjim: I believe this was young Miss Hailee Steinfelds first acting role!
She was the pick of 15,100 (fifteen thousand one hundred!) young women who cast/auditioned for this part/position.
I also am intent on adding this movie to my "home collection" - of which there are not many westerns in to date.
Some of the few westerns in my home collection are the original "True Grit" and "The Wild Bunch".
Yes Diamondjim, a Happy New Years to you as well - see if you can induce, somehow, the cheer for the New Year upon another very negative type poster on this thread - I have about given up on his inherent negativism.
My two favorite scenes (among MANY favorites) of Mattie Ross in this latest True Grit is when she tackles crossing the deep river on her trusted horse "Little Blackie" and she swims alongside him all the way across holding on for dear life.
And my other favorite scene with her is when she tries to take Tom Chaney into custody whilst mid-stream in the river and the recoil from her "Colts Dragoon" knocks her onto her rump in the water!
I have been trying to avoid a THIRD expensive viewing (popcorn and such!) of the new True Grit on the big screen but I may have to see it one more time?
It could be months before its available on disc?
I am glad to see the movie doing so well and in so many markets.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Someone needs a hug, and it's not John Wayne.

In one of the other many True Grit threads, someone called it Jeff Bridges playing Rooster, NOT, JB playing JW playing Rooster.

I liked the movie and like the new Mattie and LeBouef better than the original.

Putting Glen Campbell in the original was and is just painful to watch. The new version was fun, suspenseful, and damned funny. (The scenery looks out of place for what is now southeast Oklahoma.) I'll probably go see it again this coming week and will definitely be buying it on Blu-Ray when it's released.

For an actor, Campbell was an OK singer.

Nsaqam: After seeing the movie for the second time I have to agree with you - she is just an extremely interesting and charming young talent - and yes she stole the show (and that was a tough thing to do!)!
I hope her all the best in the future and look forward to studying her performance in True Grit and future movies - some more in the future.
With NO prompting from their father at all the two VarmintSons (aged 24 and 25!) BOTH have seen the movie twice. They grew up in horse country and know how "horse people" feel about their horses and horsemanship.
I am horsephobic (having never successfully been astride a horse - in countless tries!) and can NOT comment on the horsemanship of the actors but it looked realistic/great to me.
The VarmintSons live out on the west coast and saw it on the "big screens" and in Dolby sound (or what ever the big theatres are using these days?).
I am glad they got to see a "great western" movie for a change.
I have lost track - MtCurman have you seen the movie yet?
I hope you have and hope you liked it as much as I did.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Ironbender: Now that was funny!
Yes Glen Campbell seemed stiff or slightly awkward in the original movie but I tried to overlook that as the director wanting him to be somewhat awkward? I don't know why the director would want that but the director could not possibly have NOT noticed how "stiff" the original LeBouif came through as being?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Yessir, I sure have. What a great movie! One of the best I've seen, rivaled only by The Last of the Mohicans and The Ghost and the Darkness(IMO). Halliee Steinfeld(right?) was excellent as Mattie Ross, and Bridges and Damon were both great as Rooster Cogburn and LaBouef. I loved how LaBouef was always extolling virtues on "The Sharps Carbine"! In all the scenes with Lucky Ned Pepper, my eyes were strangley drawn to his Remington 1875 SA! I don't think you should compare this one to the JW version, or even try, two great movies telling the same story, each one with their own twist.

Outstanding movie. I really like the original, but I think I like this version a bit better. I still wish they's have shot it in western AR and SE OK.

Expat

My wife and I saw the new "True Grit" in the local theater and both of us enjoyed it. We watched on cable the original John Wayne version and enjoyed it again. The new version was more realistic and "gritty". One thing, at least, that was better in the new version was the musical score....old Christian hymns played on a piano, not the overwhelming epic music in the original. The beautiful scenery in the original took something away from the movie...almost traveloguish (SIC ?).

Overall impression was that the new version ,as was the old, a great Western.

Mtcurman: I am glad you enjoyed the new True Grit as well!
The new True Grit has just been nominated for 10 (ten!) Oscar Awards - so in a "subjective way" maybe the new True Grit has merit beyond what US die hard John Wayne fans wish to concede?
I am especially happy and impressed that True Grit was nominated for "Best Picture" as well as the nominations for Best Actor (Jeff Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Hailee Steinfeld) and Best Movie Direction (Joel & Ethan Coen)!
Yes I enjoyed Lucky Ned's pistols as well - the inlays in his pistols grips were interesting and handsome as well.
I have word in to my "electronics Ghuru" here in SW Montana that the minute the new True Grit CD becomes available he is to let me know and we are going to each order one.
Speaking of CD's - an interesting aside.
I watch a house here in Montana for some friends that go and "winter" in Thailand, most years.
Anyway they bring me gifts from Thailand when they return.
The last time they brought gifts one of them was a CD of the movie AVATAR.
I had the gift CD in my hands LONG before it became available on American markets?
I am not a very worldly person but I was/am puzzled how the Thai folks could get the CD on their street markets before it was available here in the USA?
Another gift they brought me was a bottle of Thai Whiskey with a small Cobra inside it!
The Cobras head is flared and it is posed in the whiskey biting its own tail!
Apparently in Thailand it is a sign of manhood (machismo?) to drink whiskey from a bottle containing a Cobra!
I show this gift to friends and many of them start gagging when I offer them a drink of it!
Back to the new True Grit - I don't hold out a lot of hope for it to win many Oscars but it was still an honor and a comment on quality that it be nominated for more Academy awards than all of the years movies, save one.
See you at the movies.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Should be burned at a ritual!!!!!!!!!

RAS2: Can't understand your post - what should be burned at a ritual?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Nothing I was a little cranky ealier...all better now.

RAS2: Go see the movie on the big screen (for a second time if need be!) and that will cure ya!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

It would be very interesting if Jeff Bridges won Best Actor.

That would make two different actors winning Best Actor for playing the same role.

For those that don't know, John Wayne won his only Best Actor Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn in the original "True Grit".

"Best Supporting Actress (Hailee Steinfeld)"... how did she suport? she was in EVERY screen shot????

Leanwolf can probably chime in with the exact info, but I suspect it has to do with billing.

Bridges, Damon and Josh Brolin all got star billing, Hailee is down in the fine print. Kind of funny since Brolin had pretty minimal screen time.

I believe you nailed it, Jim. Even though the story was Mattie's in Portis' novel, the three men in top billing have many more top credits and "standing" in Hollywood, than a "newcomer" such as Steinfeld. She is no more a "supporting actress," in that flick than Bridges is a "supporting actor."

But, in Hollywood, egos are big and ethics are small, so the Coen Bros. billed her below minor players such as Brolin.

Damon's and Brolin's agents would have already worked out the billing before either actor showed up on the set. Neither actor would have taken the part if he were to be billed beneath Steinfeld.

I will say I was surprised she was up for "Supporting Actress," but it might have been a decision her agent and manager made to not put her, a virtual newcomer, up against some established actresses as "Best Actress." Might have thought she'd have a better shot at winning "Supporting," than "Best."

You never know. Hollywood's a funny place ... sometimes.

L.W.