anticipate TRUE GRIT by the Coen brothers

what more could a one handed girl in that time period grow up to be?

Anxiously anticipating 2 Grit 2 Furious.

she is NOT a genius, re Eric's first comment, today she might grow up to be S*r*h Palin.

Barbara Streisand's stepson should've pushed her off the cliff.

Where in the world are you people coming up with ways to call Mattie Ross the worst and a cunt? I'm totally not riding along with any of that.

THe coda showed that maybe her desire not for justice, but for revenge cast a cloud over the rest of her life, that there were consequences, but I don't buy the hate.

And Morbz, she says in the book that she supported Al Smith for president. How can she be a proto-Palin?

She seems like she grew up and found out that most people had no grit/moxy whatsoever, and became appropriately isolated.

what more could a one handed girl in that time period grow up to be? I think she turned out pretty well all things considered.

― iatee, Saturday, January 1, 2011 2:35 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well she turned out v mean, and yeah i did consider that it was a statement abt cultural marginalization of a one armed alpha female, but that doesnt feel quite right for this movie

Where in the world are you people coming up with ways to call Mattie Ross the worst and a cunt? I'm totally not riding along with any of that.

― Pleasant Plains, Saturday, January 1, 2011 2:44 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i found her pretty appealing

pp otm, the rest of you saw a different coda than me, maybe.

to be clear i found the young mattie appealing, the old one was mean and purely uptight

also, we're basing this all off like 2 minutes of screentime

maybe she was just having a bad day

i got more of a "pain in the ass" reading from both the younger and older mattie. in the younger one it read as precocious, and in the older one it read as difficult... but it seemed very essentially the same character

xpost Yeah, maybe she just found out her hero just died hours before she could be reunited with him.

dunno feel like it was pretty purposeful

I think when a novelist or filmmaker jumps ahead 25 years to give you a glimpse of the protagonist, it's supposed to be fairly representative of her character.

What is endearing in children is irritating and worse in adults. Go fig.

i intend to stop belaboring this point but: thats a pretty broad brush

Anyway, I think PP's interpretation of the exchange is undoubtedly the correct one.

yeah prob

the missing arm pretty much drives the point home

I simply cant bear old Mattie being described as a c---. I let it go the first time way upthread but yeah, please, not that word for her.

(I'm not above using it in anger at inanimate objects but I hate it as a descriptor.)

I admit it's more a personal thing, the book is close to my heart for a long long time, Mattie especially. *That* word just undermines everything she went through.

Im not going to flip out or anything, just needed to state my case for her.

Carry on!

Perhaps that was harsh, sorry; I suppose one can pity the way old-school Protestantism has warped her (and America) if that's not too severe.

didn't realise this was a portis story. his stuff is hilare

Thanks Morbs. You're a good stick :)

FYI for anyone who is interested, The book (and history) sheds more light on her distaste for Frank James on the final scene: the other elderly outlaw was Cole Younger. Younger was partnered with the James gang at the Northfield robbery where the gang was caught: Frank James killed the bank officer, but surrendered to police & later acquitted. Younger was charged with the murder, did 25 years for Frank James' crime.

in the movie it seemed like it was because he didnt stand up

Yeah I know. Which plays fine, as it stand. I kinda think that outburst seems extreme without the context.

i'm kinda amazed at all the ppl outraged she dissed frank james here - you fuckers all bobby brady or something?

lol

i mean morbs using 'she got a little grouchier when she was older' as some sorta 'gaze into the abyss' parable w/o irony is a bit much imo.

I dunno that I said that. She's seems essentially unchanged at the core, as most of us are after we're five years old.

Can't believe I called this "aggressively OK-ish." it's definitely grown in memory.

i might be conflating yr thoughts w/ some other - my bad morbs! i enjoyed this a great deal, would love more matt damon comedies (i even enjoyed that farrelly bros one enough), the girl was pretty great. wish this was more the baseline intelligence and skill we could expect from a hollywood entertainment than the exception but i'll take what i can get. somewhat suprised the coens didn't go wilder w/ their western pic, somewhat relieved at the same time. would like to see more coen westerns. would like to see a rooster cogburn remake w/ jennifer jason leigh in full hudsucker mode.

Can't believe I called this "aggressively OK-ish."

Especially since they filmed it all in NM and TX!

would like to see a rooster cogburn remake w/ jennifer jason leigh in full hudsucker mode.

this is sort of an amazing idea

Cosign

So this is officially the highest grossing Coen Bros film to date.

Thought that was weird until I checked and saw that the previous title-holder was No Country. Americans love them some Coen westerns.

Ha it's the 6th highest grossing Western of all time, about to pass Back to the Future 3... lol, earthlings, i do not understand you.

and the Coens are closer to becoming household names: True Grit is the only movie non cineastes watched and wanted to talk about over the holiday, I noticed, and every relative/friend I talked to alluded to the Coen filmography.

lol @ WWW @ #2 on that list

Open Range!

Yeah, Coens are definitely approaching Hitchcock/Spielberg territory where people who don't even particularly know what directors do know them/their work.

these are not inflation adjusted grosses so w/e

Totally entertaining movie, which makes it my favorite Coen thing since Lebowski (the last time they were willing to be totally entertaining, or maybe able to). First 5 minutes I thought Mattie was going to annoy me, but then she turned out to be cool. All three leads are really good. I like the classicism, and I think it makes sense for the Coens. They can do a lot worse than punchy genre exercises.

Not that I could even tell it was Barry Pepper when watching the film, but he's kind of like a mini-4th lead in my opinion. Even if Brolin got higher billing.

btw No Country is not a western. Set in West /= western.

(need horses)

I found Intolerable Cruelty totally entertaining, if minor.

Pickup trucks are the horses of our time, especially when driving across cattle lands.

Plus, Tommy Lee Jones borrowed his wife's horse.