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True Grit


We saw this on March 30 at the Toho Cinema complex in Nishinomiya (I think it was free as I'd built up 6 movies on the point card). As I recall, there was a long queue and I was a bit concerned our theatre would be full. Luckily, the clueless majority were evidently lining up for something called Tangled. Or some shite Japanese anime or baseball flick.

As is usual with the Coen's films, True Grit looked great (shot by Roger Deakins again) and the dialogue fairly sparkled. The casting was typically spot on and they really have a sense of atmosphere - which the music (by Carter Burwell again), the costumes and the sets exemplify brilliantly.

But I reckon this film sits around the mid-section of the Coen portfolio, just near Miller's Crossing and The Big Lebowski. Not quite up to the standards set by Barton Fink, No Country for Old Men and Raising Arizona but not as low as The Hudsucker Proxy or Burn After Reading.
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  1. Steve2 June 2011 at 11:31

    Well, I agree with your general classification - the three excellent films as listed, two dodgy and the others in between. But I liked True Grit much more than the films in your middle category. How do you see others in their oeuvre - Blood Simple, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou? I confess there are a few others between 2000 and 2007 that I've not seen.

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  2. Shady2 June 2011 at 21:45

    Steve, I reckon the first four films they made were very good, peaking with 'Fink'. Then I don't know what happened but after the relative success of 'Fink' (critical acclaim - won 3 big awards at Cannes) they seemed to blow it with 'Hudsucker'. I thought 'Fargo' was a TV movie, not bad but nothing special and 'O Brother' was pretty good. As for the others, 'The Man who Wasn't There' was mildly interesting but a bit dull, 'Intolerable Cruelty' was harmless farce and I haven't seen their version of 'The Ladykillers'. 'A Serious Man' was somehow great, but don't ask me how.

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