TRUE GRIT Remake Ain't All That

I went to see the Austin Film Society-sponsored sneak peek of TRUE GRIT last week at the Paramount. I respect Harry Knowles and Ain't It Cool News quite a bit, but the Coen Brothers' latest movie just wasn't all that. Maybe I just couldn't see through the wooden line readings and the less than stellar shot composition due to my intense hunger, having skipped dinner at the promise of a lavish after-party sponsored by Shiner Beer where food never materialized. For $45 a ticket, these local brewmasters (recently co-opted by a national shitty beer company) could have at least provided chips and salsa.
Sure, the party was "donated" and all proceeds from the tickets went to the Austin Film Society but still... serving alcohol but not food at an after-party? How irresponsible is that?
Anyway, back to TRUE GRIT. It can be argued that this movie didn't need to be re-made. The original movie from 1969 starring John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn holds together pretty well for me and doesn't seem dated. Jeff Bridges is one of my favorite actors and does a fine job as Rooster Cogburn in the Coen Brothers' remake, but he doesn't have the larger-than-life swagger of John Wayne, who always commands the frame in any shot he is in. Big stars like John Wayne just don't exist anymore, due in part to the fragmentation of media outlets over the past 20-plus years of myriad cable channels and the development of niche markets. Back in the day, there were only 3 TV networks and a handful of large movie studios -- which made stars more recognizable because EVERYONE saw their images over and over.
The dialogue in the original seemed much more natural than the dialogue of the Coen Brothers' remake. This observation is alarming to me because I have always really enjoyed the Coen Brothers' scripts and use of language and dialogue. The lack of this superior and clever language component makes me wonder if these geniuses are slipping. Maybe the Coens were just overwhelmed by the material. Maybe they got halfway into the project to find they couldn't outdo Marguerite Roberts' 1969 script but were into the movie too deeply to back out so they just sort of gave up and did a half-assed job. Maybe their hearts were not in it in the first place. Maybe they just lost interest or maybe they started to run out of money, but from the beginning of act 3 to the epilogue, the dialogue pacing was off and the delivery inflectionless and flat.
Again, maybe my intense hunger colored my (mis-)perception.
The Coen Brothers' TRUE GRIT is darker than the original movie, more in line with the book's tone. Of course, the whole "revenge is bittersweet" theme is apparent. But there is a joylessness inherent in the remake. The only sequence which reflected the special eerie otherworldly shot composition standard in Coen Brothers' movies was the sequence in which the heroine falls into a cave and encounters rattlesnakes nesting in a human skeleton.
Any Coen Brothers movie is a special treat, but I'm sad to say that TRUE GRIT is not on the same intensity level as O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU or HUDSUCKER PROXY or BLOOD SIMPLE or even THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Let's hope the Coens do better next time.
---------------------------------------by Anne Heller

Pt. 2 - Dir. Robert Rodriguez and Cast Speak at MACHETE Premiere

Pt. 1 - Dir. Robert Rodriguez and Cast Speak at MACHETE Premiere

Venerable Austin Theatre Closes - Goodbye, Dobie

Rumored for at least 2 years but still coming as a surprise, the staff of the dobie theatre were informed Wednesday August 18th that their last day of official operation would be Sunday August 22. Despite the fact that it was located in the center of the University of Texas campus, one of the most populous universities in the nation, ticket sales had been declining for years, despite an upsurge in attendance over the last year.
One of the first arthouse movie theatres in Austin, the Dobie virtually kick-started Richard Linklater's career with its screenings of arthouse classics such as the films of Akira Kurosawa. The theatre was also the original location for Quentin Tarantino's first film fests, which took place in the '90's.
"I want to thank Scott Dinger for starting the Dobie theatre in the late '70's - early '80's," general manager Heather Cain said to a crowd of over a hundred students gathered in the Egyptian Room to attend the very last official screening at the theatre, a sneak preview of the teen comedy EASY A, sponsored by collegemoviereview.com, on August 23.
The Egyptian Room, you ask? Yes, the four screening rooms in the Dobie were decorated according to separate and distinct themes, just like my favorite beachside inn in Port Aransas. Screen one was The Library, with bookshelves and red surtains painted on the walls. The last movie shown on that screen was fittingly the competently quirky and full of inside jokes Will Ferrell- Mark Wahlberg comedy THE OTHER GUYS, which I saw Sunday night. Entertaining spoof of cop/action movies.
Screen two, the largest room in the Dobie (which sat maybe a little more than 150 people) was my favorite, the Egyptian Room. The walls of this room had enough Egyptian symbolism painted on them to make Madame Blavatsky proud. Yes, this room was replete? with huge murals of Isis, Osiris and Horus and their attending servants. The column in the middle of the room was even painted in Egyptian lore.
"So what are they doing with the artifacts from the Egyptian Room?" I asked Manager Heather Cain on Sunday night. "Are they stripping the room? May I have some of the pieces?"
"I think they're leaving the rooms intact for now." Heather replied.
Screen three was the Gothic Dungeon. Detailed and fierce gargoyles were painted on the walls overlooking their prey from the barred stone doors. I remember seeing a Bresson retrospective sponsored by the Austin Film Society in this theatre room back in the early 2000's. It was creepy seeing JOAN OF ARC in a room that looked like a dungeon.
"What are they doing with the gargoyles?" an older gentleman asked Heather on Sunday. "May I have one?"
The fourth screen was the Art Deco Room and the smallest one in the theatre. The columns painted on the walls were reminiscent of the sets for the 1930's serial classic FLASH GORDON. Seems like I might have seen something in that room, but my green-saturated hazy mind wants to make up romantic screenings that probably never happened, like maybe seeing the Queen-fueled camp classic FLASH GORDON (1980) in that room. That would have been a classic screening, if it ever occurred.
Soon I will upload the photos of the rooms I took on the last official night that the Dobie was open to the public.
----------------------------by Anne Heller

Author Alison Macor Speaks of Research on TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE for Her Book