Pun Salad

I'm of the opinion that the Coen brothers can do no wrong, movie-wise. (There are only Coen-brother movies that I, um, don't understand yet, like The Ladykillers.) And I like westerns, I think Jeff Bridges is pretty great. And I loved the original True Grit.

This is where you're expecting to see something like: "still, I was disappointed in the Coen brother's remake of True Grit." Not so, my friend. This is a very good movie.

It's the tale of 14-year-old Mattie, bent on a mission to track down Tom Cheney, the scurrilous murderer of her beloved dad. But he's teamed up with an outlaw gang led by "Lucky" Ned Pepper, and lit out for Injun Territory. Mattie's only hope is the often-drunk over-the-hill Sheriff Rooster Cogburn, who reluctantly agrees to a partnership. Also along for the ride is Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who's trying to find Cheney on an unrelated crime. The three don't get along well; Mattie doesn't like either of the lawmen much, and can't make up her mind which she likes less. Cogburn and LaBoeuf, for their part, are each continually trying to out-testosterone the other. Will they hold things together long enough to find and defeat Cheney and Pepper?

It's fun to compare casts: John Wayne → Jeff Bridges; Glen Campbell (!) → Matt Damon; Kim Darby → Hailee Steinfeld; Robert Duvall → Barry Pepper; Jeff Corey → Josh Brolin; and Strother Martin → Dakin Matthews. The new cast must have mused about the big shoes they were filling.

Well, maybe not Matt Damon. But Glen killed the theme song in the old movie, and I bet nobody asked Damon to even try.

It's been a long time since I saw that old movie, and a long time since I read the book on which both movies are based. Still, I was able to notice a number of differences between the versions; no clue on what the artistic impact was. The most important movie lines are (I'm pretty sure) exactly the same:

"I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!"

"Fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch!"

A glorious moment, then and now.

Book and movies all have the same wonderfully-stilted dialog. It's fun to listen to, and helps provide a musty atmosphere, but Mark Liberman, one of the balloon-puncturers at Language Log, indicates that it is not necessarily historically accurate.