A fine country for old men

VIDEO VAULT: Riding the high country with Jeff Bridges in the role of Rooster Cogburn

FRESHNESS RATING: Mild-saddle-soreness-level SPOILERS for True Grit

I made the argument a couple of years ago in one of the Year in Movies write-ups that I do for the Daily Herald every last week in December that anyone who sees at least 11 new movies in a given year has a Top 10. My point was that my list of the Top 10 movies of (fill in the year) is no more (or less) definitive than anyone else's. Well, aside from the fact that I am always right about everything. I mention this now because True Grit, my favorite movie of 2010, is newly available this month on DVD and Blu-ray, which is a fine excuse for me to whip out "them two Navy sixes" and charge straight at everyone who hasn't seen the movie until they scatter to Netflix or Redbox and repent of their oversight. I may not be more right that True Grit is the best movie released in 2010 than someone who says it was The King's Speech, or The Social Network, or Inception, but if you go for a man hard enough and fast enough, he don't have time to think about how many's with him — he thinks about himself, and how he might get clear of that wrath that's about to set down on him.

The best way for anyone to have seen True Grit is in a movie theater, with theater sound and towering theater images. There's an arts organization here in town that's showing it on an outdoor screen at a large amphitheater as part of a late-night summer series, and I considered getting tickets to the entire series just so I could see True Grit riding tall across a theater-size screen one last time. (Turns out I'll be out of town. Curse you, preplanned vacation schedule!) If all you have is a flat-panel television, however, or even just a large computer monitor for Internet streaming, then a Texas Ranger with an unruly cowlick probably ought to give you five or six good licks with his belt that will have to do. If you've heard anything about "the new" True Grit, then you probably already know that Hailee Steinfeld (who was just 13 when she made the movie; younger, even, than her character) gives a deservedly Oscar-nominated performance as Mattie Ross, the steel-spined farmgirl who hires dissolute marshal Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn to track and capture the hired man who killed her father.

Steinfeld is fantastic, but Jeff Bridges, who also got an Oscar nomination, one that was viewed in some quarters as being largely an echo of the glory showered on a recent winner, is even better. Everyone in the movie benefits from the wonderfully precise 19th-century dialogue that Joel and Ethan Coen (who wrote, directed and edited the movie together) give the characters, but nobody chews it up and spits it out better than Bridges. When True Grit first showed up, many viewers (including a wide swath of critics) accused him of merely growling, and even garbling, his lines. To which I respond, "Bull," and also tharfnurressontuhsitthissunout. Frankly, I think it's a huge part of Rooster's charm that he's a talker, and a huge part of the movie's charm that he somewhat petulantly finds himself outclassed in that regard by Matt Damon's loquacious LaBeouf (to the point of playfully offering a particular remedy for an injury the Texas lawman suffers in an ambush). Did I mention that there's a lot of great acting in the movie? Because I don't think many people would have balked if Damon had gotten a nomination of his own.

There's probably a not inconsiderable segment of viewers who had no truck with True Grit simply because they like the John Wayne version. It so happens that I like the John Wayne version, actually. I grew up liking it. I still like it. And yes, Rooster Cogburn was a good role for Wayne. Anyone who has seen both movies and prefers the older one will get no further pestering from yours truly. Why would you pass up a story and characters that you know are terrific, however, just because somebody else did it well first? A couple of years ago I saw an especially transcendent production of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Utah Shakespeare Festival (which was called the Utah Shakespearean Festival at the time). I could have skipped it, I suppose (not really; I was on assignment), because I'd already seen the French film version with Gerard Depardieu. If I had, however, I would have been passing up this (you have to scroll down a bit). So yeah, I get it: Everybody loves John Wayne. Just don't let your fond memories of saddling up for this adventure with the Duke prevent you from taking a heck of a ride with the Dude.