Saw "True Grit" yesterday

[Denis]

I was looking forward to seeing it and finally got around to it yesterday. I thought it was terrific! Definitely not a straight remake or an attempt to "redo" Wayne's portrayal of Rooster Cogburn and I thought Bridges was fantastic. To me he seemed meaner, dirtier and maybe even a little crazier, but definitely more of a hard-bitten "rode hard and put up wet" Cogburn than Wayne's character.

To me there seemed to be a lot more meaning behind the verbal sparring of the characters, especially where Mattie Ross was concerned. Her capture by Ned Pepper's gang was damned interesting and Pepper's character himself I really liked, even though he was a murderous bastard. Definitely worth seeing and I'll buy it when it comes out on DVD.

[gweimer]

I thought I saw a clip of Jeff Bridges talking about the film.  He wasn't interested in remaking the John Wayne character.  He said that the Coen brothers were trying to follow the book more than the original film, and that's why he signed on.

[Pilgrim]

I agree with both of you - definitely more from the original book, and a different take on many of the characters.  I especially liked the bits of frontier humor like the guys who thought it would be handy to have a body around.  I think the gent with the bear's head (Ferguson?) was especially droll.