I was ecstatic when I first heard that Joel and Ethan Coen were working on a revised version of the 1969 John Wayne Western of the same name. According to them, this film will follow the original book more closely, and I have no doubt it'll be a very different movie in all respects. It's Jeff Bridges' first collaboration with the Coens since his run as 'The Dude' in "The Big Lebowski", and boy does he look great! I still have fond memories of Wayne as the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, and Bridges' grizzled figure is pretty close to it except with the addition of the beard. It'll no doubt be much more violent and dark than the original. The major question is will it be a true Western in the style and feel of the old days? Will it be something new like what the Coens did with "No Country for Old Men" and it's cold, quiet and remorseless evil and violence? Or will it take a more moving and contemplative route like Andrew Dominik's amazing "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"? I doubt it'll one or the other. Most likely a mixture of the old with the new. I have a feeling the Coens will definitely want to do homage to the classic Western which is evidenced by the glimpses we get of the horse-back shootout in the trailer. What struck me the most about this trailer though was the music. It definitely has a bit of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" to it but also a more dark and mournful tone like much of "Cold Mountain"'s score. Carter Burwell, who scored "Burn After Reading", "A Serious Man", and a few other Coen movies, is handling this one. According to a few interviews I've read onlin, Burwell is trying to form most of the music from old Protestant hymns to highlight Mattie Ross' (Hailee Steinfeld) religious devotion in the movie. However, he says he's having trouble because most of the hymns are too lighthearted. That's just another signal that this long-awaited Western from the Coens will be dark, gritty, and probably a guaranteed contender for Oscar nominations all around.
(now on to the boring stuff)
"Skyline" (trailer #2)
I was mildly excited when I saw the first trailer for this because it was just the spectacle of it. Now we have to deal with faces and actors. Bleh. I don't know about you, but I definitely got a "I can't act, but I can scream and panic" vibe from this crew. I remember seeing the guy with the tattoo on his shoulder in a season of "24" (back when I used to watch it before it was the same thing over, and over again) and I remember that he was annoying. The other people, I don't know, but they're probably annoying. Everyone always seems to make the worst decisions in movies with catastrophic situations like this. Also, what the heck was that thing that grabs the helicopter? It's hard to tell what is an alien spaceship/machine and what is possibly some giant monster. What I can tell is that nothing else matters in this except mayhem, destruction, and people flying through the air. You can forget about caring about characters, interesting plots, etc, ALIENS ARE INVADING! THERE'S MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT! Like the special effects budget (which apparently wasn't as big as you'd think). I'll have to wait for some reviews on this one before I run out to the theaters.
"I Am Number Four"
You might as well call this "I Am Trying to be Twilight". Since when did aliens (who always manage to assume human forms like Keanu Reeves) have X-Men powers? All this force-blasting people stuff just gets old. And apparently this confused alien guy didn't realize he had glowy-hand-force powers until now? Probably should've learned to use those back in Kenya or wherever the heck #5 was "hunted down". Hunted by what? Lions? I guess they want us to assume "hunted" by some bad-guy aliens (see: the ominous figure wearing all black in slow-motion by the sea/water). Simply put, this is just another one of those movies that banks off of the fact that there are many people out there who really wish they had glowy-hand-force powers and go to see movies like this just to feed those obsessions. Not that there's anything wrong with that...even though it's kind of sad. Just like the guy who walks around a college campus with a plastic sword sheathed behind his backpack on his back (#truestory). But back to this trailer, you will notice that it comes out in what month? That's right, FEBRUARY! Which falls into the category of months when bad movies come out. No need to say any more.
Well, sadly that is it for this week. But it's really all worth it just for "True Grit". Pay no attention to the other movies listed above (but do read my commentaries that I spent at least 20 minutes coming up with, a vital portion of my day).
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