The last movie that I have gone out to see is the new version of ‘True Grit’.  I have only seen part of the original version, and that was when I was around 9 years old.  My family had rented it for my grandpa to watch one day.  He was happy to watch the movie as it was one of his favorites.  I didn’t have an attention span then (not sure if I do now either) and went off to play with the Cowboys and Indians toys they had.

Because of the nostalgia from the idea of the old movie (that I hadn’t seen), I was not excited to see the new version that ruined the memories.  What if I didn’t like the movie or what if they did a bad job?  My better half on the other hand was thrilled to go.

In short, the movie was awesome!  I really liked the characters and the progression.  After seeing True Grit I tried to find a copy of the old version for comparison.  It turns out that a remake of an old movie spawns a lot of people with the same idea.  All of the rental stores had it checked out, netflix didn’t have it on demand, and it wasn’t carried in the box stores.

While I stopped short of handing over $20 to buy it online, I did run into an old 5 minute teaser video on it.  Most of the lines were taken verbatim and it looks like the new version was very true to the older one. 

Of course being made by the Coen brothers, they had a lot of blood splats and went all out developing characters.  The ending of true grit was a big let down.  Showing Mattie as an old woman and having Rooster become a circus performer added nothing to the movie and killed the emotional bond between them and the audience.  Other than the lackluster ending, the show was fantastic.

Damon & Bridges did well playing characters outside of their usual or signature roles.

Tags: Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, matt damon, movies, oscar nominations, true grit, western