True Grit (2010): review: 7/10

*

A headstrong girl, having recently lost her father to a thief, hires a marshal to bring him to justice. A second marshal joins them, forming a party spanning three generations They proceed into Indian country to pursue the villain.

Overlong, but with some interesting intergenerational conflicts. As so often, Jeff Bridges overplays his hand.

The Coen's seem to have an ability to make films which mesmerise, usually because of their beauty, but which fade from memory very soon after being watched. 

True Grit contains  considerable violence and cruelty: hangings, shootings, stabbings, a man has a finger cut off. These have a revoting sadistic quality.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009): review- 5.5/10

The relentlessly whimsical tone of the film is less amusing than it's makers' perhaps imagine. Essentially the same joke is repeated throughout: notably, the silliness of New Age belief practises as revealed in a combat context.

Crazy Heart (2009): review- 6/10

6/10

Impoverished but charismatic country singing dypsomaniac falls in lurve.

Bridges is good, but lacks shade enough for the role; Maggie Gyllenhaal likewise is bland.

WARNING: Country music, with it's atrocious lyrical and musical cliches, features in many scenes.