This is the kind of movie I hate to review. Why? Because it was great. Just great. What are you supposed to review? Blah, blah, blah, it was good in that way and this. Boring. Not the movie, the movie was great. Unboring. The review, that’s the challenge here.
This is the kind of movie I hate to review. Why? Because it was great. Just great. What are you supposed to review? Blah, blah, blah, it was good in that way and this. Boring. Not the movie, the movie was great. Unboring. The review, that’s the challenge here.
I’ll tell you that I saw it as a screener. That was cool. I’m in the Writer’s Guild and around Thanksgiving studios start sending movies to my house. It’s on account of I wrote for The George Lopez Show and they value my opinion and all. So I got the DVD and I saw it before you. Not way before, but like a week. And I was in my home, where popcorn costs less.
I watched it with my boyfriend, Eric. He’s awesome. He liked it, and I liked it, and we cuddled. That’s a good date. So, believe me when I tell you it’s a good date movie. There’s something for everyone. Unless you’re a direct descendant of someone in the Pepper gang, and still sore about what happened. You might not enjoy it. But otherwise, most people will.
I took Eric home with me for Christmas—for the first time. That was different. He’s from Long Island, New York (Massapequa, where Seinfeld’s from!). I’m from Grand Prairie, Texas. That’s what I mean by different. At Thanksgiving, he showed me 30 Rock, bagels, deli, Broadway and the Empire State Building. At Christmas, my brother taught him to shoot pistols, we toured his ranch, fed cattle, and ate venison sausage, wild hog, huckleberry cobbler and fried pies. AND we re-watched the screener with my whole family. Double AND, they loved it!
Now, if I were you, I’d think, “Of course they loved it, it’s a screener, it’s cool to watch a movie at home while it’s still in the theaters. Don’t be a jerk.” I know, right? That’s what I think! But they don’t care. Nothing impresses them. I showed them 3:10 to Yuma back in the day—and, crickets. Maybe because it was 3:10 to Yuma.
But True Grit, they really got behind. I thought my dad, Stan (think: Tommy Lee Jones’ character in ‘No Country for Old Men’) might argue, “Whelp, I jus’ don’t think anybody oughta be a’remakin’ John Wayne pictures.” Okay, probably no one says a’remakin.’ Regardless, that was not his attitude at all. He’s 75, loves Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and westerns, and he was very accepting of Jeff Bridges. That’s when I knew it was good. He even asked if he could keep the screener DVD so’s he could practice using the DVD player, on a account of he still doesn’t know how. I couldn’t leave it with him, of course, WGA rules say we have to destroy it on account of there’s a watermark on it and all.
‘On account of’ is really less country talk and more Leave it to Beaver, but still, it’s fun to talk and type kind of like a hillbilly. That’s what Eric and I did throughout our time in Texas. And that’s what you’ll want to do having viewed True Grit with its high country language.
Is it a good date movie? Yes! So good we watched it twice, and I’d watch it again. Triple AND, it passed the Dad test. Yay, a good movie! A really good movie! Thanks, 2010. Enjoy!
—Laura House
