True Grit, or, Jeff Bridges is Awesome

True Grit is a movie made up of pieces, which never quite come together to form a coherent whole. While each of its stars, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and the charming Hailee Steinfeld, are great in their own roles, the roles themselves almost feel like they’re from three very different films – like the Coen Brothers couldn’t decide what kind of movie they were making.

Jeff Bridges, as the whiskey-soaked, gravelly Rooster Cogburn, hasn’t been this entertaining to watch since his turn as the Dude in another Coen Brothers piece. His performance is so gritty (if you’ll forgive my using the phrase) it almost leaves sand in your mouth – he’s rough, tough, and way past his prime. Watching him is like remembering the golden era of Western film, reminiscent of the gun-toting outlaws and town defending sheriffs. But he’s old, too, and more heart-breaking in his way than the tale of Mattie’s vengeance for her wrongfully slain father.

Let’s talk about Mattie: I don’t know where the Coens found Steinfeld, but she’s a treasure in this movie and I look forward to seeing her in future projects. Her Mattie Ross is self-possessed and righteous, quoting the law at anyone she perceives as standing wrongfully in her way. Her “good lawyer” back home does not feature bodily in the film, but pops up in almost all of her conversation. Steinfeld successfully brings to life Mattie’s precociousness and also her own illusions; that is, that wrongs will always be brought to right, and that the law will always triumph. Mattie has to learn some hard lessons about preconceived notions and, more importantly, about the way that people really work, but Steinfeld makes her believable.

Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger, Mr. LaBoeuf, is the wrong note in the film. I’ve never seen the original True Grit, so I don’t know how he played out in that version, but here LaBoeuf is played (wrongfully, I think) for laughs. He is too tight, too formal, too absurd. Damon is excellent in the role, but the role is wrong for the film.

That is the weak point of True Grit: it can’t decide if it wants to be serious, or if it wants to be absurd. And rather than becoming a serious film with moments of humor, it ends up as an emotionally weak film with moments of awkwardness. I never really felt the immediacy of Mattie’s problem; I was never invested in seeing her father’s killer brought to justice. The dialogue, which is mostly very smart, does distance the audience by occasionally becoming comically flat or tremendously melodramatic - no one uses contractions ("This scheme did not unfold like I had planned;" after cutting down a hanged man, "I do not know this man."). For a film all about family and justice and revenge, True Grit itself fell a little comically flat.

Clash of the Titans

I grew up watching the glorious, campy, jerky-effects ridden Greek mythology movies. Jason and the Argonauts, the myriad Voyages of Sinbad, and especially Clash of the Titans - Ray Harryhausen productions are an indelible part of my childhood. So when I first heard a rumor of Clash of the Titans being revamped, I was absolutely thrilled. What could be better than taking the familiar story and giving its Eighties-era aesthetic a shot of adrenaline? Converting Harry Hamlin into Sam Worthington, pitting Liam Neeson against Ralph Fiennes, and gigantic scorpions; how could it go wrong?

Damn the 3D technological movement, is what I have to say about that. Damn it and throw it out the window.

The remake, which I saw on Saturday with my parents and my boyfriend, simplifies the story from the original, sticking closer to the myth itself. What we lose is basically the Calibos storyline, which is tragic only in that we also miss out on the eternally brilliant line, "Calibos! Be merciful!" Zeus and Hades are the only gods that get screen time (although there is a fabulous call-back to Athena from the original when Worthington unearths Bubo the mechanical owl from a chest of armor). The battle with Medusa has survived basically intact, and Medusa benefits hugely from the improved effects, becoming a sleek and terrifying monster that moves through her temple with sibilant ferocity. The film is fun, exciting in moments, and as fabulously violent as I'd hoped.

Where it suffers, and it does suffer greatly, is in the cinematography. The decision to add the 3D element halfway through filming was a TERRIBLE one - Neeson as Zeus is already filmed through a soft focus lens, and adding the 3D tech makes him almost completely out of focus. It doesn't add anything and it detracts quite a bit. Especially in the shaky-cam, close-up fight scenes, which bothers me in better filmed movies; I hate not knowing who's killing who, and I lost a lot of perspective on the action scenes (which take up the majority of the film).

Clash also obnoxiously hardly ever gives us wide-angled shots. We are treated to an overabundance of close-ups, which in some cases makes sequences tense and exciting. In others, well, I just want to see the damn Kracken, ok? I get that he's huge, and terrifying - show me the breadth of his size. Let me SEE him in comparison to Argos and the cliff; that will truly show me what Perseus is up against.

I'd like to see Clash again in 2D, and see whether or not the viewing quality improves like I hope it will. Otherwise, I'm glad that I saw it, and it was definitely enjoyable, but I think I'll be sticking to Hamlin and Harryhausen.

The Wolfman

The Wolfman was AWESOME.

No, really, it totally was. It struck all of the right notes, from the dry-ice fog on the ground to the overwrought Gothic castle (complete with dry leaves crumbled on the floor!) and the tension-building violin music in the background. The story itself had some problems, but watching it was a joy. Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Hugo Weaving are a triangle of fabulous acting and you can tell they were having fun: each of them owns their character, delivering a perfectly balanced triad of hunter, hunted, and orchestrator. Hopkins is perhaps the standout, portraying a loving, if distant, father figure with such subtlety you don't notice until its too late that he's been hiding dangerous insanity. Weaving and Del Toro have somewhat less complex characters to play, but they still deliver with a ferocity and believability that is engaging to watch.

Emily Blunt is completely wasted in her role as Gwen, the fiancee of dead brother Ben and later love interest of Del Toro's Lawrence, which is a criticism of the role rather than the actor. She is given hardly anything to do but simper, although she, also, takes hold of her role and acts the hell out of it. It is a testament to her skills as an actor that she is interesting to watch onscreen, even when all she is doing is running away.

There are moments of real fright in the film, moments that make your skin crawl and moments that make you jump out of your chair. The score plays a big part in this - in any other instance, I would have said it was over dramatic. Here, though, EVERYTHING is so over dramatic that it loops back around to believable. The movie picks an aesthetic and sticks to it like nothing else, and it is SO over the top that you can't help but get drawn in. Right down to the end credits, which are played over various medical sketches and diagrams attempting to illustrate some of the "science" behind lycanthropy, the film owns its vision, and it is a vision I love.

What I loved most about The Wolfman is that it, somewhat like Underworld, takes pop culture back to the roots of lycanthropy: unromanticized and violent, deformed and doomed. These are not Stephanie Meyer's "werewolves," they are not Anne Rice's, they are not the self-aware shapeshifters that run freely with the wolf pack and can change at will. They are MONSTERS. There is nothing romantic about Benicio Del Toro's plight, and Gwen KNOWS that - as she frantically searches for a way to save him, she comes to the same realization that the audience does. For Lawrence, and for anyone cursed like this, there is only one solution, and there's no getting around that. Not a happy ending, but a necessary one, and I personally don't think it could have ended any other way.