The Orphans Of 2013: Let’s Get Excited About The Year’s Strangest Movies.

  

There are some potentially great movies coming out this year. Go anywhere else on the internet and you will read about movies like PACIFIC RIM and ANCHORMAN 2 and THE WORLD’S END and ELYSIUM. I’m excited about those too. There’s also all the obvious nerd bait like STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS and HUNGER GAMES 2 and THOR THE DARK WORLD. Not really my thing, but it’s certainly understandable if those are the kind of titles that make your heart do a happy dance.

But step off the beaten path with me. Let’s take a moment to give some attention to the real weirdos out there. Let’s look at some of the movies of 2013 which no one in their right mind is looking forward to. I’m not talking about intentional cult items like MACHETE KILLS or ESCAPE PLAN. Those movies are that guy or girl at the party who’s trying too hard to be sexy and therefore failing big for exactly that reason. I’m talking about the ugly guys or girls who just don’t give a fuck what you think they look like. They just wandered in off the street because they got a whiff of the guacamole dip.

This isn’t about schadenfreude.  Well, I’m no saint. There are a couple movies I wouldn’t mind watching crash and burn. In that category are ENDER’S GAME — written by a bigot, directed by the guy who made X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE; sure, no way that pairing could go wrong — and a pair of Vince Vaughn movies, one where he hangs out at Google for an entire movie and another movie where he plays a sperm donor, because no one learned anything from THE SWITCH and holy Lord do I ever not want to see or ever be asked to think about Vince Vaughn donating sperm.

But generally, my natural good nature wins out and I am a sweetheart who only wishes the best for everyone. Still, there are some movies coming up in 2013 whose very existence perplexes me. And that in turn makes me curious. Call me a a jerk, a creep, a kook, a contrarian, a nihilist, an anarchist — I’ve been called all of those things before and that was only this morning at the nunnery — but I like really bizarre movies that make no rational sense, and I like it even better when those movies turn out to be entertaining.  So the following bunch is a group I’ve got my eye on in 2013 (some are getting real close now!):

_______________________________

ASSAULT ON WALL STREET (May 10)

Why It Could Be Cool:

It’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 meets WALL STREET!

Why It Probably Won’t Be:

It’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 meets WALL STREET!

_______________________________

JAVA HEAT (May 10)

Why It Could Be Cool:

It’s the caveman version of HEAT!

Why It Probably Won’t Be:

Mickey Rourke may actually be an Al Pacino, but Kellan Lutz is no Robert De Niro. I mean, maybe he is. I’ve only seen him in ARENA. He did not come off too brightly there. Also, his name is Kellan Lutz.

_______________________________

CODY THE ROBOSAPIEN (May 28)

Why It Could Be Cool: “From the producer of SPIDER-MAN, X-MEN, and IRON MAN…”

Why It Probably Won’t Be: …And the director of SOUL SURFER!

_______________________________

SINBAD THE FIFTH VOYAGE (May 31)

Why It Could Be Cool:

Pseudo-stop-motion-animated skeletons!

Why It Probably Won’t Be:

Skeletons aside, this looks impressively bad. Like ten dollars worth of stolen garbage. I bet you Sinbad doesn’t even do his MacDonald’s milkshake routine!

_______________________________

AFTER EARTH (May 31)

Why It Could Be Cool:  Will Smith! A clone of Will Smith! Space! Volcanoes! Monkeys!

Why It Probably Won’t Be: M. Night Shyamalan.

But that also means it could be as funny as THE HAPPENING. At this point, Shammy is probably done for as a serious director. But as a director of hilariously-solemn unintentional-comedies, he’s got a better shot than most.

_______________________________

HAMMER OF THE GODS (July 5)

 

Why It Could Be Cool: It’s a movie about Vikings!

Why It Probably Won’t Be: Vikings that say “Kiss my axe.”

_______________________________

R.I.P.D. (July 31)

Why It Could Be Cool: I’ll never not have hope for a movie that has Jeff Bridges and James Hong in it,

Why It Probably Won’t Be: It’s trying way, way hard to be both GHOSTBUSTERS and MEN IN BLACK at the same time. See if you can spot the big, gaping difference.

_______________________________

THE BUTLER (October 18)

(no poster yet, but here’s a picture of Terrence Howard, Oprah Winfrey, and her lovely, ‘volumptuous’ tig ol’ bitties)

Why It Could Be Cool: There are a lot of good actors in this movie.

Why It Probably Won’t Be: Watch the trailer. Listen to and look at all the shit those good actors are made to do, say, and wear. Listen to that music. Have you done all three? Great! Now your incontinence is cured!

___________________________________________

GALLOWWALKER(S) (release date unknown, may actually have already been out for two years)

Why It Could Be Cool:

It’s exactly BLADE, but then also a Western!

Why It Probably Won’t Be:

I mean let’s be reasonable with our expectations here.

________________________________________

Bookmark this page because I will be updating it as I discover more beautiful treasures!

@jonnyabomb

Movies You May Have Missed: VIVA RIVA! (Congo, 2011).

I haven’t posted much in a while.  I alluded to the reasons here, in the post which so far represents the unintentional culmination of my October horror column (which I still hope to resurrect in some form before years’ end.  This damn optimism will never die!)

The point is, sometimes life gets in the way.  And sometimes life refuses to get out of the way.  And occasionally, life mercilessly pummels your face in.

So I haven’t been posting here much this month, but when I’m not around these parts I can be found over at Daily Grindhouse  — here are my recent pieces on VIGILANTE, GET CARTER, HIT MAN, GREMLINS 2, END OF WATCH, DREDD, LAWLESS, and DRIVE ANGRY – so please check them out.

And I’ve certainly been thinking plenty.  I’ve got enough thoughts stored up for several volumes worth of reviews and essays.  There’s a lot of writing to come from me.

But one thing I’ve been thinking about is a particular movie I watched last year.  I added VIVA RIVA! to my 2011 top ten list without any idea that a year later, it might have any parallel to my own life.  Quick synopsis:  A gasoline shortage in the Congo leads to violence and distress.  Quick synopsis of the past month:  A gasoline shortage in the Tri-State Area leads to violence and distress.  I’m not saying we had it worse here than they have it in a third-world country.  I’m only saying that it feels a lot less foreign to me.  Hurricane Sandy gave us a small taste of what is commonplace in many places in the rest of the world.  Having seen neighbors getting into screaming matches and fistfights over a tank of gas, I’ve had my perspective shifted just a little bit.  It wasn’t scary to me, though it was to some (understandably).  It was just weird.  Strip away a few modern-day conveniences and you start to learn some harsh truths — and surprising virtues — about people.

 
Anyway here’s the trailer, and then what I wrote in 2011:

_________________________________

VIVA RIVA! (Congo, released in U.S. in 2011)

What It’s About:

In a community where gasoline is a precious commodity, a devil-may-care rogue thief (Patsha Bey Mukuna) rips off a gas shipment from some very bad men, then runs into trouble when he falls for a local gangster’s girlfriend (Manie Malone.)

Why I Love It:

Because it’s electric.

Before I get to what makes this film so thrilling on a cultural level, let me start out by promising that it’s a solid crime film no matter what part of the world it’s from.  The plot relies on familiar noir tropes – the femme fatale, the murderous nemesis, the doomed hero – but where the story lacks in originality, the film more than makes up for it in atmosphere and intensity.

This is a low-budget movie shot entirely practically in a real community using primarily local talent, which gives the movie an added urgency and veracity.  This isn’t some ROAD WARRIOR future where gangs battle over gasoline — this is really happening in the world right now.  Imagine that; imagine the gasoline we Americans so take for granted being the currency that believably powers criminal enterprise in crowded, poverty-stricken villages.

But even amidst all that urgency and desperate verisimilitude, there’s also a harsh beauty to this movie.  The nightlife in Kinshasa feels vivid and seeped in detail and danger, and the sexuality in this movie has a fierceness and forthrightness rarely seen in European cinema, let alone puritanical American movies.  If there were rankings based on 2011′s most assertive (and acrobatic) cunnilingus scenes, this movie would have that position licked.

But it’s not just honest sex that makes this film so intriguing.  VIVA RIVA! serves as nothing less than the ignition of a nation’s film industry.  On the DVD, director Djo Tunda Wa Munga talks about how he specifically designed the film’s plot to be familiar and genre-based because there aren’t a whole lot of Congolese films out there, and he wanted this one to be as accessible as possible in order to gather the international appetite for more films from the Congo.  With VIVA RIVA!, we’re seeing an entire film industry start from the ground up, and that’s an exciting thing to watch.

Is It On Netflix Instant?:  Yes!

And find me, instantly, on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

Screenings in NYC: NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984) @BAM_Brooklyn.

 

After Night Of The Creeps, Night Of The Comet is the best “Night Of The” movie of the 1980s.  (There were many of ‘em.)  These are the kind of movies you hope for, every time you venture off the mainstream path looking for something out of the ordinary.  These are the kind of movie there just plain aren’t enough of, although if there were, I suppose coming across them wouldn’t feel quite as special.

Night Of The Comet is about two sisters, Regina (Catherine Mary Stewart, from The Apple) and Sam (Kelli Maroney, later of Chopping Mall fame).  Regina works at a movie theater where she sometimes hooks up with the dickhead projectionist (Michael Bowen, eventually of Magnolia and Kill Bill).

Meanwhile, Sam is younger, so she’s stuck at home with their shitty stepmother on the night when parties are gathering to watch the approach of a rare comet.  Sam is sent to her room, and Regina is holed up in the projection booth, so they’re not outside with everyone else when the comet turns whole cities to zombies and dust.

Let me clarify:  The comet mostly turns everyone to red dust, with a red haze coating the already-considerable haze of L.A. smog.  Those who aren’t turned to dust are turned into zombies, which Regina discovers when her dickhead boyfriend ventures outside in the morning and is immediately killed by one.  The zombie chases Regina out into the alley, where this exchange transpires:

ZOMBIE IN ALLEY: Come here!

REGINA: Come here your ass!

Two things:  Talking zombies, which is something I’ve always wanted to see in a movie like this, and also, what a great female protagonist!  Smart-ass, super-pretty, and unafraid of any back-talking red-dust zombie.

So Regina escapes and finds Sam, hiding out.  They discover, with a reaction somewhat more in stride than horrified, that everyone they know is dead.  Apparently if you were inside during the comet’s approach, you lived.  If you were outside, as most people were, you’re dust.  If you got caught in between, you’re zombified — but not for long; dust is in your future.  Of course, it strains credulity that Regina and Sam would be the only ones who managed to stay inside, but if you go with it, the movie works.  It’s really Dawn Of The Dead, with a much lighter tone and an uber-sarcastic lead girl.

The cool thing about Night Of The Comet is that it isn’t a standard zombie-apocalypse movie.  Where you might expect the typical zombie hordes, here the zombies are very rare.  This movie is even more sparsely-populated than any of the I Am Legend iterations.  Eventually, Sam and Regina meet another survivor, Hector (Robert Beltran), a likable enough guy who helps them arm up before heading out for a while.  Sam and Regina go foraging at the local mall — after Dawn Of The Dead, it was hard to escape that mall — where they encounter another group of zombies and are then captured by a brigade of scientists.

The scientists, led by cult fixture Mary Woronov and Eastwood mainstay Geoffrey Lewis, are fixated on “the burden of civilization.”   Their nominal goal is repopulating the earth, but like any grown-ups in a 1980s teen movie, apocalypse or no, they can’t be trusted.

For me, the movie falls apart, or at least lags, in this final third, as Regina and Sam have to escape the evil scientists.  It would be hard for any movie to maintain the camp energy, eerie setting, and arch dialogue that Night Of The Comet initially established so well, and while some fans will disagree, I don’t feel that the last half hour or so stacks up to what came before it.  However, I don’t want to dwell on any criticisms for long, because there’s so much to enjoy with this movie.  It’s fun, silly, highly quotable, and surprisingly convincing, and I have to suspect that it was a partial inspiration for Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  It certainly helped set the precedent for smart, self-aware teen heroines.

 

Night Of The Comet is an underrated, under-remembered cult movie, and a neat accomplishment by its creator, Thom Eberhardt.  It’s a fun genre mash-up with an influential tone.  It has its flaws, but it’s way more fun than many so-called perfect movies.  You’re gonna dig it, if you haven’t already dug it.  So go dig it.

And follow me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

 

NIGHT OF THE COMET plays in Brooklyn this evening at BAMcinématek as part of their Apocalypse Soon film series, celebrating the fact that according to the Mayan calendar, we’ve only got two months left.

 

 

Cult Classics: DILLINGER (1973).

For all those who enjoyed Michael Mann’s PUBLIC ENEMIES, and even those who didn’t, here’s a somewhat lesser-known treat: John Milius’s DILLINGER, from 1973, starring Warren Oates as bankrobber John Dillinger and Ben Johnson as lawman Melvin Purvis.

There have been countless cinematic treatments of the Dillinger story, but this one is one of the most purely entertaining.  It was written and directed by John Milius, a contemporary of Spielberg’s and Scorsese’s whose work is a bit of a fascination of mine.  Milius co-wrote a DIRTY HARRY sequel (MAGNUM FORCE) and some scenes in JAWS, and directed the first (and best) CONAN THE BARBARIAN movie, among other things.  He was also the inspiration for John Goodman’s character in THE BIG LEBOWSKI.  So anything from the mind of Milius is worth parsing, to me.

As Michael Mann’s newer Dillinger movie illustrates, a cops-and-robbers flick is always at its best when it’s about two equal but opposing forces.  Milius’s movie has two incredible character actors centering his Dillinger film.  Warren Oates is best known to younger generatiosn as Sgt. Hulka from STRIPES, but in the decades before that, he built up a stunning career of dirty, often ugly character actor performances.  He’s sure not the prettier Dillinger that Johnny Depp created, but equally compelling.

Against him is the eternal Ben Johnson, the definition of a veteran actor who worked for the majority of the twentieth century.  Johnson was a large and amiable figure in literally tons of movies, mostly Westerns, mostly for John Ford.  He’s not prettier than Bale, but he smiles way more often.  Casting Oates and Johnson against each other is as watchable and as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July.  For fans of great movies, the casting has an added punch since only a couple years earlier,  in 1969, Oates and Johnson played the marauding Gorch brothers in Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece, THE WILD BUNCH.  That cinematic memory only informs the experience of watching DILLINGER – to fans of THE WILD BUNCH, DILLINGER may carry a vague feeling of brother-against-brother.

Like Mann’s movie thirty (!) years later, the earlier DILLINGER film is full of still-recognizable supporting actors, such as singer Michelle Phillips as Dillinger’s girlfriend Billie Frechette, Harry Dean Stanton as Homer Van Meter, Clint Eastwood regular (and Juliette’s dad) Geoffrey Lewis as Pete Pierpont, and Cloris Leachman as Anna Sage, the low-down whore who sells Dillinger out.  Oh, and a very young Richard Dreyfuss as Baby Face Nelson.  You haven’t really enjoyed a manly gangster picture until you’ve enjoyed the spectacle of Warren Oates smacking around Richard Dreyfuss.

As that aforementioned pleasure implies, this is definitely more of a guy’s guy movie; whereas PUBLIC ENEMIES was constructed much more as a romantic story.  But for fans of guy’s guy movies, DILLINGER is almost a necessity, and anyone at all who enjoyed PUBLIC ENEMIES will find the similarities and contrasts to be compelling.

DILLINGER is tough to find on DVD and rarely screens anywhere, but Netflix occasionally has it.  Sometimes it’s available, sometimes it’s not.  (Netflix and DILLINGER apparently have a stormy relationship.)  Well worth the effort.

This piece was originally written and posted on July 7th, 2009.  I stand by my recommendation.

On Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

Now on @DailyGrindhouse: DREDD 3D (2012).

Short and blunt:

My DREDD review. On Daily Grindhouse.

Get there.  ‘Like’ it.

Thank you for your cooperation.

@jonnyabomb

Judge Dredd by John McCrea

Judge Dredd by Steve Dillon

Judge Dredd by Brian Bolland

Another by Brian Bolland

Judge Dredd by Carlos Ezquerra

__________________________________________

Now on @DailyGrindhouse: LAWLESS (2012).

LAWLESS is a couple weeks old now, but it’s still way worth talking about.  It’s not to be confused with FLAWLESS, the Philip-Seymour-Hoffman-in-a-dress movie, nor is it to be confused with the upcoming DREDD movie, which as we all know is guaranteed to have a surplus of law.

Here’s what I said about LAWLESS before I saw it…

WETTEST COUNTY was on my list of 50 most eagerly-awaited movies of the year.   But it’s not called that anymore, though.  Now it goes by the handle LAWLESS, a much more generic title which sounds a little cooler after knowing it was generously bestowed upon the movie by none other than Terrence Malick.  Whatever it’s called, it’s a John Hillcoat movie, which after THE PROPOSITION and The ROAD, promises good things.  I’m definitely getting a less-artsy, more-mainstream PUBLIC ENEMIES vibe from the new trailer, but that doesn’t strike me personally as a deterrent.

Check out the trailer, it made LAWLESS travel that much higher on my want-to-see-now meter:

_____________________________________________

Now, to read what I had to say about LAWLESS after seeing it (spoiler warning: it’s a lot of very nice things), you’ll have to click over to Daily Grindhouse:

>>>LAWLESS!!!<<<

And make damn sure you check out that soundtrack:

Stone Classics: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969).

Looking over the list of my top fifty favorite movies today, it seem like a good time to expand a little bit on my writings on Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.  Some days it’s my second favorite movie of all time, after Leone’s own THE GOOD THE BAD & THE UGLY, and most critical writings on the movie call it Leone’s masterpiece.  Clint Eastwood played the lead in A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, he shared top billing with Lee Van Cleef in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and they made it a trio in THE GOOD THE BAD & THE UGLY.  With ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, you have four main characters this time around, each time with their own personal musical cues courtesy of Leone’s most important collaborator, Ennio Morricone, and each one of the quartet  is among the most eternally memorable incarnations of the archetypes they are meant to represent:

The movie’s lonesome stranger, in a role originally offered to Clint Eastwood, is played by cinema’s other great stoneface, Charles Bronson.  His character is known only as Harmonica, and the reason why is a brilliant reveal which I wouldn’t dream of ruining. 

The charismatic rogue, who may or may not be on the side of the angels, is called Cheyenne and played by Jason Robards.  This is arguably the coolest character of all goddamned time, in my opinion.  The tragic romantic figure that the younger Robards was so good at playing is imbued with a terrific (and tremendously quotable) sense of humor in Leone’s hands.

The whore with the heart of gold, Jill, is played by Claudia Cardinale.  For my money, Claudia Cardinale in this movie is as beautiful as a human woman can look.  She’s great for a lot of other reasons, some of them I listed here when I named her my number one of all time, but you can’t argue with that face.

Frank, the bad man in the black hat, is played by all-American good guy Henry Fonda, and seriously speaking, he is one of the greatest villains ever.  I’m sorry to keep using generic platitudes, but that’s the kind of blindly expansive adoration that this movie elicits from me.  Frank has a cruelly and coldly sadistic introduction, and he maintains that level of villainy throughout the movie.

As you can tell from the title, Leone thought of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST as “a fairy tale for adults,” and the fact that each one of these classic Western movie archetypes are simultaneously so broad and so memorable is proof that Leone succeeded.  This is a definitive Western, and a legitimately perfect movie.  It probably helps to go in on it with a working knowledge of Westerns, just so that you can see how Leone so definitively aced it, but I figure it’d be just as good even if you can’t tell a Colt from a Derringer from a Remington.

For plenty more about movies all the time, find me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

Screenings in LA: THE GREAT SILENCE (1968) @Cinefamily!

If you’ve seen Sergio Leone’s THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, then congratulations!  You’ve seen the greatest movie ever.  But even if you’ve seen every Western that Sergio Leone made (which you really ought to), you’ve still only scratched the surface of the vast reserve of wonderfulness that is Italian Westerns.  Another Sergio – surname Corbucci – made some of the best-regarded of those movies.

Sergio Corbucci’s THE GREAT SILENCE is about a mute gunslinger nicknamed “Silence” (Jean-Louis Trintignant, maybe not a household name but a terrific actor and still starring in major movies at 82), who tries to help a small community who have been besieged by a band of vicious criminals, led by the cooly genocidal bounty hunter “Loco”, played by the ever-disturbing Klaus Kinski.  Loco collects dead bodies like a hunter collects pelts, while Silence only kills in self-defense – to be fair, he does provoke a lot of dickheads to draw down.  That way it’s legal.  Silence kills bad guys.  Loco is the worst guy.  Inevitably they’re going to meet up.  Sounds like a movie we may have seen a few times before, right?

Not quite.

The main element that drew me to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY when I first saw it, the element that got me into Italian Westerns for life, and the element that THE GREAT SILENCE has in abundance, is the otherworldly quality of it all.  There’s a beautifully weird disconnect that happens when Italian filmmakers use international actors to shoot stories about the American West in (usually) Spain.  THE GREAT SILENCE is one Italian Western that doubles down on the otherworldliness.  The story takes place in Utah, on a wooded frontier blanketed with snow – even the horses have a hell of a time getting anywhere.  The characters are bundled up in layers of animal hides, brown and grey spots in an oppressive blanket of whiteness.  And the score by Ennio Morricone is one of the most haunting you’ll ever hear, even by the haunting standards set by the maestro.

THE GREAT SILENCE will stick in your guts, and that’s good because it leaves you with a few things to think about.  Corbucci wasn’t the most political of Italian-Western directors (that’d be the third Sergio, Sollima), but there is some clear subtext here if you’re interested in looking for it.  It may or may not mean much that the voiceless hero is a Frenchman – maybe Trintignant was just plain the best guy for the job – but I’d say it certainly means something that a blond, blue-eyed German is the monster of the piece, and Loco’s every action in this film bear out that hunch.  His monstrousness is familiar, is all I’m saying.

Moreover, it says plenty that the romantic interest, Pauline the vengeful widow who sets Silence on his collision course with Loco, who is the man who killed her husband, is a black woman – Vonetta McGee, who went on to star in several grindhouse-friendly films including BLACULA,DETROIT 9000, andSHAFT IN AFRICA, and in my well-educated opinion is only second to Claudia Cardinale in the ranks of most beautiful women ever to headline a “spaghetti” Western.  Race isn’t an issue to Silence, who proves his open mind by engaging in probably one of the earliest examples of interracial love scenes on film, but it most certainly is to Loco, who, in addition to his many other crimes, is blatantly racist.  Corbucci couldn’t be drawing the line between good and evil any more clearly, which is why the movie ultimately becomes quite literally a punch in the heart zone.

Non-spoiler warning: THE GREAT SILENCE has probably THE down ending of all time.  I’m not going to get into it, but trust me on this one.  It’s almost unbearably sad, but it’s also resolutely unique and entirely unforgettable.  If you think you can handle the heartache, then I couldn’t recommend this movie any more highly.

THE GREAT SILENCE is screening from Sunday September 9^th through Tuesday September 11^th at Cinefamily in Los Angeles.  This is the world’s only surviving 35mm print.  If you want to see this movie theatrically, this is the time.

@jonnyabomb

____________________________________

Screening in NYC: TRUE GRIT (2010).

True Grit was my favorite movie of 2010.  There wasn’t much hesitation there.  I saw it and I made that decision right quick.  Normally there’s a fair amount more deliberation in my mind over such declarations, but movies so impeccably mounted and  raucously enjoyable on a simultaneous basis are rare enough that it gave me the instant courage to say so.  I admit it’s a tenuous climb out on a slender limb to advocate for the greatness of a Coen Brothers movie, but that’s just me.  I take the big risks. 

In True Grit, the great Jeff Bridges plays Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, a grouchy slob of a drunk with an eyepatch over one eye and a burning enthusiasm for frontier justice in the other.  True Grit was originally a novel by Charles Portis, and then it was a movie in 1969, in the cool-down phase of John Wayne’s long career.  I regret to admit that I haven’t seen that earlier movie, but I have read the book so I can tell you that the Coen Brothers’ rendition is eminently faithful to Portis in both spirit and text.

True Grit is the closest we’ve come so far to a mainstream, crowd-pleasing Coen Brothers movie.  It has all the virtues and eccentricities and technical brilliance that the Coens have taught us to expect from them, but it also is just a bit more conventional than usual.  The heroes are actually heroic, for one thing.  There’s the aforementioned Jeff Bridges, as charismatic and ingratiating as ever, even when he’s playing a character that often looks as lousy as he often acts.  There’s Matt Damon as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (pronounced “La Beef”), the uptight lawman who ends up as a reluctant teammate.   Matt Damon is hilarious in this movie, toning down his impeccable way of making an audience believe he can do anything, until he appears to be a total dunce, only to end up surprising you all over again.

But before these two guys enter into the story, and after they leave it too, there’s Mattie Ross, played by the young Hailee Steinfeld.  Mattie’s father was killed by an outlaw named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), and she wants him brought to justice. She hires Marshall Cogburn, because she’s heard he has “true grit,” and insists that she get to accompany him in the pursuit.  (For a pre-adolescent in a man’s belchy, farty world, she’s ridiculously, brilliantly persuasive.)  LaBoeuf, already in pursuit of Chaney across state lines, joins them.  Nobody gets along. 

The confrontational banter between the three main characters is some of the most pure joy that movies can provide.  Obviously the Coens provide some of the most distinct and musical dialogue of any writers around, but it should be said that a lot of the dialogue in this film comes directly from Portis’ novel.  The Coens, as one of the most unique filmmaking forces to emerge from America in the past thirty years, aren’t exactly known for their skillful facility with adaptations, but they should be — it is a part of their resume.  Their planned adaptations of James Dickey’s To The White Sea and Elmore Leonard’s Cuba Libre have yet to be realized, but of course they reached new heights with their 2007 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men.  They also know their detective fiction; as their debut, Blood Simple, referenced the work of Dashiell Hammett, and their most popular movie, The Big Lebowski, is essentially a take-off of The Big Sleep, originally a Raymond Chandler novel.  The Coens know how to enliven the work and the influence of others while bringing their own individualistic stamp to it.  They know their pulp literature and they know their film history, and they bring all of it to bear in True Grit.

Did someone say “bear”?

Bear!

Yeah, there’s a lot of humor in True Grit, both ridiculous and profound.  The trailers and promotional materials have emphasized the pure badass-ness of the movie – and that’s there, no mistake – but it’s a wonderful surprise to discover how hysterical it is.  It’s funny even in its most tragic moments, just like real life.  There’s a black humor and a sharp tang to the unsentimental nature of the movie, and it’s totally refreshing to experience, particularly at a time of year that can either go too sweet or too sour.  The tone of True Grit isn’t too treacly and it isn’t too harsh.  It’s just right.  (There goes that bear reference again…)

True Grit is really kind of perfect, from the imagery captured by the legendary Roger Deakins, to the wonderful score by underrated Coen regular Carter Burwell, to the two memorably uglied-up and weirdly compelling villains of the piece, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned.  It should get repetitive to note how dependably watchable Matt Damon and the Coens are, but it really doesn’t.  They’re that good.  Everyone involved in this project is working at the peak of their respective craft. 

But in the end, if there’s a defining feature of this movie, it will be that unusual, indelible relationship between the two riding companions, Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross, and there are no two more ideal actors on the planet (or in the throughways of time and space) to play them than Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld.  There’s something both truly real-world relatable and movie-perfect that happens in the alchemy of casting and characters here.  The magic that occurs between the two of them make True Grit something truly special, even by the absurdly high standards that the Coen Brothers have set for themselves and for the rest of us. 

– @jonnyabomb.

True Grit is now playing at MoMA, since it has been officially added to their library of notable and classic films.

  

  

As something are a bonus, here are some random thoughts and observations that passed through my head as I watched True Grit on subsequent occasions and couldn’t settle on how to edit into my main review:

• One thing that cracks me up is that this is the Coens’ idea of a kids’ movie (*).  I completely approve, don’t get me wrong, but it brings to mind the notion of a Clint Eastwood Preparatory School For Girls.  (Actually, that very thing happened once, in The Beguiled, and it didn’t work out too well for anyone.)

 

• True Grit is as close as the Coens will probably ever get to convention, but it’s still as unusually wonderful as any of their original creations.  It is, actually, aside from all the talk of killing, not unsuitable for younger folks.  There’s a keen moral streak running through this movie, distinctly and typically contradictingly American.  And it’s an absolute celebration of language.

 

• Between the first and second times I saw the movie, I read the original novel by Charles Portis.  It’s striking to see how closely the Coens stuck to the original text in their adaptation.  Some of the stuff you’d swear they invented were already there, although some, like the bear suit guy and the hanging man, were Coen additions.  Much of the dialogue is spoken verbatim from the book, and how wonderful that is.

 

• Mattie doesn’t shed a tear when presented with her father’s dead body.  She doesn’t shed a tear, until later on, when she’s handed his gun.  Then the water trickles down.  This is a distinctly American touch.

 

• In both the book and the film, the major setpieces are more often structured around language than incident.  (The haggling over horses, the courtroom scene, the campfire scenes, etc.)  In other words, the conversations are as important and as thrilling, if not moreso, than the shootouts.

 

• J.K. Simmons vocal cameo as Lawyer Daggett!  (Daggett is a  character with slightly more of a presence in the Portis book.)

 

• The song that Rooster sings when he’s on his bender sounds an awful lot like “Busted” by Johnny Cash.

 

• The climactic snakepit scene is very strongly foreshadowed, the closer you watch the movie.

 

• Barry Pepper (as the badman Lucky Ned) is such a great, unfairly-unheralded actor.  Just always good.

 

• The guy who makes all those crazy animal sounds, believe it or not, is in the book.  The Coens didn’t make him up, although I would’ve sworn to it.

 

• Tom Chaney turns out to be exactly the way Mattie had him pegged, a wretch and a whiner.  Dumb: “I must think on my situation and how I may improve it.”  And mopily repetitive:  “Everything is against me.”  (Pretty cool of leading-man-type Josh Brolin to be willing to play such a lame-ass.)

 

• Speaking of which, again I say, how ridiculously consistent is Matt Damon?  Does that dude have to be so good at everything?  Obviously Jeff Bridges and little Hailee Steinfeld are totally incredible in this movie, but don’t take what Matt Damon does here for granted.   He lets himself be the butt of the joke, almost until you forget that he isn’t.  So well done, this supporting act.

 

• The valiant end of Mattie’s horse just guts me, every single time.

 

• In fact, the end of the movie is so damn sad.  Bittersweet, I guess, but seeing as it’s about how quick life can go, even leavened with humor and optimism as it is, that’s a sad topic.

 

• Some of the all-time great lines in literature are in this movie:

“Fill your hand, you sonuvabitch!”  [Bridges' reading trounces Wayne's, I venture to say.]

“The love of decency does not abide in you.”

“I’ve grown old.” [Best part is the Chewbacca sigh that Bridges does right after he says it.]

“Time just gets away from us.”

“This is like women talking.”

The last one is how I plan to end most of my conversations from now on, by the way.

This is like women talking.  Just watch this movie already.

A Tribute: ERNEST BORGNINE (1917-2012).

In THE WILD BUNCH, 1969.

This beautiful portrait was taken by @SethKushner.

Hollywood legend Ernest Borgnine passed away Sunday, July 8th, 2012.  He was 95, which is not young.  But anyone who suggests that his age makes the loss much easier would be mistaken.  There are people who are irreplaceable, and this was most certainly one.  Ernest Borgnine, or Ernie to his fans, had more than sixty years in the movie business — just think of how many stories he must have had left to relay.  Though he gave plenty of great interviews over the years, that probably was only a fraction.  With Ernest Borgnine goes a unique and eternally ingratiating talent, and a pivotal bridge that spans Old Hollywood, New Hollywood, and the modern age we’re currently living in.  For this post I’ve collected a ton of pictures and posters of the many movies I’ve seen Ernest Borgnine in.  I will touch on most of these movies (and maybe more) in the longer appreciative piece I am working on, but in the meantime, please enjoy these movie memories of a true original.

Check out this great interview also.

Find Ernie in the southwestern hemisphere.

@jonnyabomb