Man on Film: True Grit

Since this blog has made the full-on switch to being a pop culture blog, I have written about every newly released film that I have gone to theatrically but two.  Those two outliers have been A Serious Man and Burn After Reading. 

With Burn After Reading, I think the primary reason that I never did a reaction piece was that I was largely disappointed but was worried that I would later come around on the film as I did with earlier Coen Brothers films such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski.  Having been initially somewhat underwhelmed by Lebowski, I would now contend that it is one of the funniest movies ever.

With A Serious Man, I had begun to write an entry, but I had this weird idea about how the movie had a weird anti-technology/trappings-of-modern-society angle it was working on that I was relatively unsure about* and didn't want to finish until I had seen it a second time.  That second viewing never happened.  Neither did the blog entry.

*I once convinced myself that Radiohead's Hail to the Thief was almost entirely an anti-Bush album, a reading that I seemed to be entirely alone on when I talked this over with friends.  I definitely wanted to be sure on the A Serious Man thoughts, and the theory was just a kernel.

I went to True Grit for the first time last Thursday, but I was tired from not having slept much for the two nights prior to going and ended up dozing off for what I figured was about five minutes.  After going to it again, it would seem more like I missed about two minutes the first time.  That I had to see it a second time (or at least felt obligated to) does not make me upset at all.

True Grit is outstanding. 

While the Coen Brothers post-The Man Who Wasn't There output has been hit-or-miss, True Grit is most definitely a hit.  Joel and Ethan Coen have churned out another highly stylized script with pitch-perfect dialogue that rivals their best work in Fargo, Lebowski, and O Brother.  They have discovered the world in which these characters live and made it ooze from every corner of every frame in this film. 

As for those characters, they are great.  Jeff Bridges is in top form as the world weary Marshal Rooster Cogburn, grizzled, hardened, uneducated, drunk.  Not once do you think that he is the same actor who was the coach in Stick It.  Matt Damon steals every scene he is in as the loquacious and comically prideful Texas Ranger LaBoeuf.  Barry Pepper and Josh Brolin are both remarkably filthy and seem so authentically Wild West criminals that you would think a time machine had been employed to get them in the movie.

And then there is Hailee Steinfeld.  Color me shocked.  I went into this film expecting next to nothing from the lead.  I was actually leery about the movie as a whole because Mattie Ross was said to be in every scene, and having so much of a film reliant upon the performance of a child actor is not a proposition I take to without a good bit of trepidation.  Such worries were unnecessary, as she plays Mattie with such pugnacity and gumption that one can hardly tell she has appeared in only a handful of projects, most of them shorts.  If it was not for her shockingly good turn, True Grit would fall flat on its face.  Instead, we got a film that was easily one of the best of 2010.

While having neither read the book nor seen the original adaptation of the Charles Portis novel, this film is great on its own merits.  As the Coen Brothers are wont to do, they imbue this world on the fringe of civilization with nuggets of oddness that simultaneously put the Coen Brothers' stamp on the film and let the viewer know just exactly how far from society Mattie & Co. are.  The entire sequence from when they happen upon the hanged man to after they happen across the frontier dentist in the bear skin doesn't really serve to advance the narrative at all, but it is strangely vital to making the film work.  These flairs set this film apart from your standard theatrical fare, and we should all be thankful for that.

Rediscovering the Past: A Musing or Two on Starman

First things first: This is going to be briefer than I'd like. I want to have something to write about, but I've been insanely busy with work(s). In addition to the late Spring onslaught I've been enduring at the docks, I also went out to DC for a couple of days (this was the second time I'd been there in as many months) to go to "Jeopardy!" auditions. I showed well and am in the contestant pool for this upcoming season. Hopefully I get the call this time around...

This all has meant that I've been unable to consume media at the ridiculous pace that I generally do. I've been slogging through a Martin Dugard book about Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War for about a month and a half, largely because I've been reading a reference-y book on the Presidents on the can as pseudo-preparation for the aforementioned tryout.

I've also not been able to get out to the theater since Iron Man 2, so there's not much to say on that front.

I also anticipate writing up a little something on "Justified" as the season comes to an end, but nothing else on the TV front has tickled my fancy enough to write about it lately (as is also evident over at Munch My Benson).

Then there's the whole UFC obsession that has taken over the lives of Chad, Peter, and myself, but I'll not be getting into that just yet.

As for Starman, I sat down and watched it for the first time last night and was pleased as punch that I did. From John Carpenter's* decision to go for the gusto with the awesome Jack Nitzsche score to Karen Allen actually sort of acting penultimate real film role**, the entire experience was an awesome one.

*The cool John Carpenter, not the creepy Bob Crane sidekick who filmed him on his escapades and then likely killed him as portrayed by Willem Dafoe in Auto Focus. And yes, I do feel the need to make the clarification between the two.

**Yes, I'm stating that the only movie she did after this in which she was worth a damn was Scrooged. Do you disagree? That's what I thought. I don't want to see any feigning of indignation in the comments section here card-holding members of the Karen Allen Fan Club.

What was really awesome, though, was Jeff Bridges stunted speech. I think if I could choose one way to talk from any movie, it would be the manner of speaking utilized by Jeff Bridges in his Oscar-nominated turn as Starman.

Watching Bridges own the role brings to mind the fact that he must have been livid when he was shooting K-Pax and Spacey was just sitting there blowing what Bridges had done better.

Just look at the disdain in Bridges eyes as he looks at the man who has won an Oscar chomping into a banana like a smug dick while Bridges mantel lay bare. The irritation is real (and justified). Really, does anyone think that F. Murray Abraham deserved an Academy Award for playing himself in a wig and a ruffled shirt? Come on.

Regardless, Bridges is the shit here, and Carpenter's sci-fi romance hits the mark at almost every turn, including this one...

Man on Film: Crazy Heart

After weeks of not being able to see this for various reasons, TSLF and I finally got out to the theater to take in Crazy Heart, and am I ever glad we did.

As this is a movie about a musician, I feel compelled to talk first about the music. The soundtrack is outstanding. With Buck Owens, Waylon, Townes, and more scattered throughout the film with the Oscar-nominated Ryan Bingham theme, "The Weary Kind," bridging from the coda to the credits, the non-Bad Blake songs in the film set the perfect tone. And by perfect tone, I mean the film's soundtrack is absent any and all bullshit, factory-produced, Nashville faux-country.


But really the soundtrack is just there to compliment the performance by Jeff Bridges. Singing mostly* T-Bone Burnett/Stephen Bruton penned songs, Bridges deftly embodies the Texas country singer, both as an actor and as a musician. Vocally, Bridges pulls off everything that's asked of him, which is no small task considering that the "Bad Blake" catalog runs the gamut from country ballad to a honky-tonk rollick. As an actor, he never misses a beat on his whiskey-soaked run.

*There's also the great "Brand New Angel" that was written by a personal favorite of mine, Greg Brown.

As for the rest of the film (and really, the music is that important), well, it's really damn good. Upon initially hearing of this film, I think a lot of us were probably drawn to comparing it to The Wrestler. There are certainly thematic elements that the two films share. They are about former stars in their fields of entertainment whose careers have been relegated to playing for peanuts in holes-in-the-wall. Both protagonists have also let their career pursuits (and the lifestyle inherent in such paths chosen) get in the way of the building any semblance of a personal life, leaving loved ones in their wake.

Where the films differ is in how they make the viewer feel. Sure, both films have humor generously mixed in, but where The Wrestler is ultimately depressing as the future can only have so much to hold for a professional wrestler, Crazy Heart is not nearly as sombre. Where The Ram only knows one way to live and his age has gotten to be an insurmountable obstruction, Bad Blake has a clear path by which he can right his ship. As such, the humor within is not simply a means by which temporary levity is allowed in to an otherwise bleak cinescape, it enriches a redemption tale.

And setting this tale of a Texas country singer against the quiet vastness of the American Southwest seals the deal. Maybe it is coincidental, but three of the best films* of the past five years have all been filmed largely against that backdrop. Now there is a fourth.

*Here, I am talking of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood, which actually might just be the three best films of that time span, in descending order. The only film I can think of that might force its way into that conversation off the top of my head is Children of Men. Well, that and Rambo, of course. And maybe Brick.

Driven by the superb performance of Jeff Bridges, whose turn as an alcoholic washed up country star strikes a perfect balance between a charming performer and a hopeless drunk, Crazy Heart is great film imbued with a love for music and its flawed hero.

Man on Film: Iron Man

Jon Favreau's entrance to the big-time as a director is a largely successful one. Continuing in a string of casting atypical leads in superhero fare, Favreau (looking quite a bit slimmer in the film than he has in years) sets the lens on Robert Downey, Jr. as his Tony Stark, and the results are fantastic. Downey seems to have been born to play the part of the reformed amoral rock-star scientist--well, maybe not the scientist part, but the rest would seem to have been almost tailor-made for him--and he takes the role and runs with it. His impish charm and razor-sharp wit prove to be capable of carrying the film almost entirely by themselves, and almost every moment Downey is on screen is captivating.

In support, the performances and roles are not as impressive. Where the character of Tony Stark is rich and complex, many of the other characters would have benefitted from a little more attention in the way of backstory and subplot. Obviously, in launching a franchise, there is a need for a fair amount of exposition to establish the hero, and a great degree of screen time is devoted to this. Moreover, with a run-time of just over two hours, there isn't a lot of room for exposition on secondary characters. Unfortunately, this means actors like Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jeff Bridges are left to play what amounts to cardboard cut-outs. To their credit, they do manage to breath life into Colonel Rhodes, Pepper Potts, and Obadiah Stane, respectively, and--but for an occasionally awkward interchange between Howard and Downey--they do manage to help carry the story. It just seems as though there could have been a little more going on with the supporting cast.

As for the other elements of the film, it is hard to find complaint. For a film that is largely devoted to designing weapon technology, it doesn't really drag at all. The fight choreography is generally pretty engaging. When Stark is in the suit, Favreau manages to keep the viewer involved with intercut shots of Downey's face inside the suit, something that allows the audience to remain involved with the hero, accomplishing what the Spider-Man franchise (to give just one example) has had problems achieving. And this may seem a trivial complaint about other films in this genre, but where other films ("Ghost Rider", "Batman Begins", "The Incredible Hulk", etc.) fail to have the actor's distinct voice while in hero-mode, Downey is the voice of Iron Man. Unfortunately, Bridges' voice is amplified, coming across as maybe the only major directorial misstep in the film.

Now to have read this review, one may think that my reaction was slightly better than tepid. The film was pretty good. It opens with action, and then takes a few steps back, which is an effective method of attack, although it may take just a little too long to get back to where the opening left off. Once he's in the caves of Afghanistan, the film maintains a steady course, and Faran Tahir's Raza is a particularly terrifying foil early on. Aside from the absence of really strong secondary characters and a little bit of fat in the rewind (oh, and Downey's interplay with his robotic aides occasionally approached Luke Skywalker/C-3PO/R2D2 territory), this film is damn good. Downey is triumphant, and the film is called "Iron Man", so that was really going to make or break the film. Anything that the film lacks as a whole, he more than makes up for, leaving the viewer largely sated.