Hacker Cinema
True Grit
2010 · Film · 110 min
Directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Following the murder of her father by a hired hand, a 14-year-old farm girl sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find—a man with 'true grit'—Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn.
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23 comments on Hacker News
"...an ordinary 19th century family’s one book beyond the Bible (thousands of years old) might be Pilgrim’s Progress (about two hundred years old)." I think that is part of the reason speech has changed. I am reminded of this snippet of dialog in the film True Grit. The language used sounds so archaic, even though the fictitious event is just over a century and a half old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMPr9rchJMs
It is also a great book. The Cohen brothers adapted it masterfully, as they tend to do (see also: True Grit and Oh Brother Where Art Thou). Overall it's extremely similar to the movie, but it's a short read so well worth it if you enjoyed the movie and enjoy reading for fun.
Interestingly, Cormac McCarthy originally wrote No Country as a screenplay in the 1980's and went all over Hollywood trying to pitch it, only to be told things like "that will never work as a movie." Eventually he gave up, and later he adapted the screenplay into a novel (published in 2005). Then Cohen brothers take interest, and then they readapt it back into the screenplay for their film.
this article’s reputability is immediately damaged by the statement that intolerable cruelty is a bad film. just because it is a romantic comedy, a romcom, people immediately dismiss its brilliance. intolerable cruelty is hilarious and very much in the center of what the coen brothers do best. there is some fantastic dialogue and the on screen compatibility between the actors is fantastic.
“freddie...it’s a negotiation.”
reading further, i don’t think this person knows anything about the coens. o brother, where art thou is not really an adaptation of as much as it is inspired by homer. no country for old men is almost a direct copy of cormac mccarthy’s book. irreverent is a strange way to describe that film’s handling of the book’s story. and in talking about “true adaptations”, the author fails to mention true grit, which is even more of a direct translation to film of its source material.
An example of how rampant "political correctness" in media has become: closed-captioning sanitation.
For example, any word in which any segment of characters could be interpreted as a slur in any context has that segment obliterated by X's. Take an example from the film "True Grit" where Cogburn refers to a "coon (racoon) hunt", it gets converted to "XXXX hunt". Or when "suspicion" is spoken in NYPD Blue, it becomes "suXXXXion". "Nippy" (cold) becomes "XXXpy". Even the obviously benign "Cocktail" becomes "XXXXtail".
Such substitution seems to occur across the board: MeTV, Movies!, H&I, Decades, Cozi. I suspect they all subscribe to transcription services following similar rules.
That said, given that "coon" in isolation has an ugly history as a slur (I personally had never heard it in that vein before its use as such in the film "M.A.S.H."), it's best avoided.
Every time you are making a movie you need to answer the question: why am I making this? Especially when doing a remake, what I have found missing from the original material that I think requires filling. Perhaps there's a prequel story to be told (Planet of Apes), perhaps I want to depict a version closer to how it could've happened in real life (True Grit) and so forth. If your answer is "well I want to make money" then don't do it.
Tell me true, what is the answer for this one?
Ps. If your answer is, well the original movie was funny but didn't have enough crotch jokes then especially don't do it.
If it truly is a synonym for grit in prior literature, "conscientiousness" is the regrettable term. "Grit" is far more faithful to common usage. "Conscientiousness" in everyday speech connotes "politeness" and "thinking about others." These qualities have nothing to do with the thing Duckworth (and other business writers) are calling "grit." They're referring to perseverance, never giving up -- the ability to get up and keep going after failing, and to doggedly pursue long-term goals. In popular culture (eg, the film "True Grit") and everyday speech, "grit" conveys this concept perfectly, better than any other word I can think of in English. So whether it was a conscious marketing ploy or not, it's a far more accurate term.
Oh boy, you fucked up now. Here are the books I read this past year that I felt were "Good", starting from the most recent :
To Kill A Mocking Bird (Insanely good)
True Grit (Insanely good)
The Little Friend (Good)
Priceless (Very good, about art theft)
The Secret History (Insanely good)
Ready Player One (Good, nerdy)
Shadow Divers (Very good, history nerd book)
Diary of Anne Frank (Very good)
Unbroken (Very good, way better than the movie)
With The Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa (Very good)
Seveneves (good, but I'm a Stephenson fanboy)
The Martian (Very good, but just watch the movie).
I read a bunch of other stuff, but that's what I found really "good" this past year.
Yeah that's weird. When you search for "true grit" it finds the movie and John Wayne is correctly listed and one of the cast members. I'll sort it out when I get home, it's probably just a case of adjusting the querying algorithm. Thanks for letting me know.
The Wild Bunch.
Nevada Smith.
3:10 To Yuma, the original with Glen Ford and the remake with Russel Crowe are both excellent. Original story written by Elmore Leonard.
The Magnificent Seven. Watch it with The Seven Samurai.
Once Upon A Time in the West.
True Grit, original and remake.
Blazing Saddles.
The Naked Prey. Movie takes place in Africa, but it's based on a true story of the American West. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Colter#Colter.27s_Run https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Prey
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=best+western+movies&t=canonical
funny thing is - trailers are today revealing much less than in the past.
If you have seen the movie True Grit - either the old or the new one - compare the trailer to the 1969 version, which essentially gives out all the plotpoints - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN-j4GDqjv4 - and the trailer to the 2010 version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUiCu-zuAgM .
Didn't read the article, just the title, but I'd like to chime in to say I'm pretty sure I saw around a dozen good movies in the last year. Subset includes Inception, Social Network, King's Speech, True Grit, Star Trek (too far back? not sure), and The Fighter.
Hmm, I find it hard to feel so pessimistic. I don't go to the cinema very often, but all the films I saw this year were outstanding (Kickass, Inception, Social Network, Kings Speech, True Grit were the latest). Also, sequels aren't necessarily going to be any worse than non-sequels. Often great art arises from restricted subject matter. For instance all the paintings of religious figures, or all the Shakespeare plays that were reworkings of popular stories/dramas.
You hear this every year. And it's still true. Hollywood is wall-to-wall sequels, IP translations (games, comics, tv shows, etc. to movies), remakes, and the remake's newer cousin the "reboot".
Yet even so good films are still being made. The Social Network, True Grit (a remake even!), Toy Story 3 (a sequel!), The Fighter, Black Swan, How to Train Your Dragon, and Inception were all great films from 2010 (I haven't seen The King's Speech or 127 Hours yet but I hear those were good too). If this is what the system pumps out while it's horribly broken, I'm ok with more of the same.
There's always going to be a ready supply of churned out pap in any medium. Just go to a bookstore and look at all the crap that they keep pumping out. But that doesn't necessarily stop truly excellent works being published as well. Some of my most loved books have been published in the last several years. And with the internet it's easier than ever to sift through the dross to find the gems.
> True Grit while good was such a pale movie compared to the original John Wayne version.
And in the reviews I read, it was better than the John Wayne movie, because it was more of an adult film.
> The Social Network - Sort of knew the story and acting was pretty ordinary.
> Inception - Cool story and nice effects, very captivating movie, made me think a little bit, but the ideas of the movie are too far fetched.
> True Grit - I didn't see the original, couldn't work out whether it was fiction until near the middle, and then it just went downhill, for me the girl did the best acting.
Worth watching? Definitely, become classics? Probably not, they're all missing the extra magic sauce.
He is using his own subjectivity like the OP did. Just because they get Oscar's doesn't guarantee anything at all.
True Grit while good was such a pale movie compared to the original John Wayne version.
I chose these movies not necessarily because I felt they were superb (although I loved them all) but because they were critically acclaimed and all received lots of oscar nominations. Almost by definition, they are the best films of the year.
If you compare it to nominated movies ten years ago, Braveheart, Apollo 13, I think they are comparably great.
Additionally, box office returns seem to be at all time highs. Black Swan and True Grit are two films that typically would be destined for "niche" audiences, but have returned hundreds of millions for reasonably small budgets.
Also, I think that Inception will be almost as influential as The Matrix, except in a smaller genre of films (eg: Matrix built upon action movies, whereas Inception was more of a psych thriller) - in my opinion.
Don't you feel this might be kind of a cognitive bias? Like when people poll for the best album of all time and it's always something that was released within the last 3 years of whenever the poll was.
The social network is of it's time and will date really badly, to the point where no one will watch or mention it ever again.
True Grit is a remake so specifically cannot be included as it had to be good enough to have been remade.
Inception isn't ever going to be a classic a la The Matrix.
The Kings Speech will definitely have longevity; Black Swan I'm not convinced will float above just being another film you can pick up for £3 in HMV in a couple of months but then think "well, will I ever watch it?"
Huge Moki.TV fan (http://moki.tv/2481). But also a huge movie fan. I entirely disagree.
Think about this years movies:
The Social Network
The Kings Speech
Inception
Black Swan
True Grit
Will all almost certainly become classics.
Some recent good movies:
-Animal Kingdom (Australian crime film)
-True Grit (Western)
-How to train your dragon (Pixar film)
Actually, I saw True Grit in theaters just yesterday, and I noticed a flicker I'm pretty sure was caused by the framerate when there were scenes that contrasted something very bright and very dark.
Unlike the other person, though, I actually prefer the lower frame rate because I associate it with film. If it's a higher frame rate, it just doesn't look like a movie to me.
"Lebowski has lots of zippy writing...but True Grit...does not."
Did we watch the same movie? True Grit had some of the wittiest, zippiest dialogue I've seen in a long time. The writing was incredibly conspicuous, in a good way.
I disagree with your notion that conspicuous writing makes for a bad movie, just as I would argue that conspicuous editing, or score, or cinematography, or acting can lead to an excellent movie.
Cool, it deserved it. It was an excellent movie. The Social Network was my own personal pick for "best movie of 2010", although - to be fair - I didn't see every movie released in 2010. But I would rank it above Inception, Shutter Island, Tron:Legacy, True Grit, Harry Potter, and Red - out of the other good movies that come to mind from last year.
Nice pacing, good acting, great score, inspirational, entertaining, thought-provoking, it really had everything. It was a great trip inside the world that a lot of us live in / aspire to live in. Maybe a non-hacker wouldn't see it in quite the same light, but I really thought it was just excellent.