True Grit remake
- Thread starter A beaker full of death
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Because that's what good fiction is supposed to do. Provoke a reaction and make you think. Having a happy ending is often times lazy and it requires little thought on behalf of the audience and the creators themselves. If you like check your brain at the door type of movies then you should never have gone to see a Coen Brothers film in the first place.
Well I guess it's actually the book more than the Coen Brothers in this case, but thanks for the warning. I'll stick to lazy and stupid movies going forward. I get enough "challenges" from my job, dealing with family, and this thing we call life in general. Entert:ainment, for me, is supposed to be an escape from that. YMMV
EDIT TO ADD: Case in point, just saw a news story about the possibility of $5 a gallon gas here in the US in 2011. Trust me folks, that "challenges" and "provokes" me in a way no movie ever could. Of course if we really get $5 gas, it will be a moot point as I won't be going to any movies anyway.
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I thought it was brilliant across the board. Quite frankly I didn't find the ending all that depressing. In fact I would say it felt about the same to me as the original. I guess that's because each ending is perfect for the rest of that movie's tone. I thought the remake ending wasn't bleak or devoid of hope. It had a beautifully done, quiet emotional charge to it that carried elements of good and bad.
The original film's ending was wonderful for its own reasons. Quite frankly I think this remake would have been ruined by using the exact same ending.
The original film's ending was wonderful for its own reasons. Quite frankly I think this remake would have been ruined by using the exact same ending.
The only problem I had with the epilogue was when Mattie stated that LeBoeuf, 25 years later, would be in his late 70's. I can't buy that LeBoeuf, as he appeared in the film, was supposed to be in his early 50's. Maybe that's the case in the novel, but there's no way the character looked like he was that old.
Anyway, it was a good film all round. I like the original, and I think this version stands next to it pretty well.
Anyway, it was a good film all round. I like the original, and I think this version stands next to it pretty well.
Mattie was telling the story in her old age, in the 1920s. The epilogue with the Wild West Show was also a flashback to around 1900.
--Justin
Yeah, I had assumed the movie was being told from middle-aged crone Mattie in the 1890s during the train-ride to the show. It didn't seem inferred to me that event he ending of the movie was in a flashback from an even older Mattie. That strikes me as somewhat convoluted story telling. (I didn't pick-up on the age problems mentioned above. LeBouf struck me as a man in his 30s during the movie's main time-frame.)
Yeah. I had honestly not picked up on the apparent age discrepancy in LeBouf's age in the movie's two time-periods or I noticed it and it just never registered. But it made "sense" to me the older Mattie was the story teller as that's usually how this type of story-telling works. If you have an older-sounding character telling a story in V.O. and late in your movie you see an older version of that character it only make sense to put two and two together and assume the older version of the character we see is the story teller and not some even older unseen version. (IMDB only lists two Matties the young girl and the middle-aged version and no voice-over Mattie. So purely from a credits point-of-view crone-Mattie is the storyteller as I would figure another actress would have been needed to tell the story to have the voice of an 80-year old woman (who don't sound anything like their 40-year old counterparts.)
I may watch the movie again someday and see if I pick up on this age discrepancy with LaBouf or if there's an apparent even older story-teller. For some reason I seem to remember "flashes" between scenes or acts to middle-aged Mattie on the train reflecting and apparently thinking the story.
I may watch the movie again someday and see if I pick up on this age discrepancy with LaBouf or if there's an apparent even older story-teller. For some reason I seem to remember "flashes" between scenes or acts to middle-aged Mattie on the train reflecting and apparently thinking the story.
The lines at the end are pretty much verbatim from the book, which has more clues about the chronology. But I agree there's not much else in the movie to indicate the narrator’s time period. I have been familiar with the book for a long time so I really can’t say if it would have been distracting to me.
--Justin
--Justin
I, for one, realized at the end that Mattie at the grave was flashing back to twenty five years earlier to Mattie on the train trying to visit Rooster, who was flashing back another twenty years to the main body of the film. I remember it was a very quick little cue about that, though.
Saw it last night. I thought it was great, as did the two people I saw it with. Fantastic script, great performances all round, lovely cinematography. A simple enough story but so well told and acted.
I saw the original years ago and must check it out again soon. I don't think a remake/ further adaptation takes away from the original, certainly not to me; it makes me want to see a movie I hadn't otherwise thought of in years.
Oh and FWIW I hated the ending of No Country but liked the ending of True Grit.
I saw the original years ago and must check it out again soon. I don't think a remake/ further adaptation takes away from the original, certainly not to me; it makes me want to see a movie I hadn't otherwise thought of in years.
Oh and FWIW I hated the ending of No Country but liked the ending of True Grit.
The older I get the less interest I have in "happy endings" per se - they seem more facile and more predictable and have less emotional resonance with experience. Ambiguity, at least, is more satisfying.
^ And more true-to-life.
There's enough unhappy endings in real life that I like experiencing, however synthetically, happy endings in media.
That said, this was a fantastic movie. And, in a way, it had a "happy enough" ending for me.
My 14-year-old niece however, was extremely unhappy about the death of the horse.
The dead human characters? She couldn't care less.
That said, this was a fantastic movie. And, in a way, it had a "happy enough" ending for me.
My 14-year-old niece however, was extremely unhappy about the death of the horse.
The dead human characters? She couldn't care less.
Actually, I find bad endings pretty predictable lately. Most of them are extremely forced, too. And most bad endings turn the entire movie into a pointless thing. Bad ending mostly mean that the characters lose the struggle, which in effect means I just wasted two hours watching people wasting their lives for nothing. Whoever thinks that's entertaining... well, I don't. I've come to the point where I find a good, well, happy ending actually pretty refreshing.
^ You can have a well-done unhappy ending or a badly done happy ending, just as you can have a badly done unhappy ending or a well done happy ending. For me, it all just depends on the individual movie and how well it carries off that ending.
I don't particularly enjoy depressing endings - not often - but there's a world of distance between that extreme and the tidy "folks we're rooting for end happily without a doubt or qualm" conclusions that are tailored to offend and disappoint no one. One just sees that repeated over and over in everything designed for mass consumption for a few decades and one can reach that point where - well, it's like realizing suddenly that one cannot be forced to ever eat another McDonald's hamburger, so why do it?
Something that I found extremely funny, though, was the happy ending that the producers came up with for nuBSG - and of course some viewers howled about it, but a happy ending was the only thing they really could have done that would have been unexpected and unguessable for that show.
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Just saw this movie tonight - great movie. Works as a Western, works as a better-than-the-original remake, works as an adaptation of the novel, and works as a Coen Brothers movie.
It kicks The King's Speech's ass in all manner of ways, and was robbed at the Oscars.
It kicks The King's Speech's ass in all manner of ways, and was robbed at the Oscars.
