{"id":1013,"date":"2011-02-15T04:11:08","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T10:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2011-02-15T04:11:33","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T10:11:33","slug":"true-grit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/2011\/02\/15\/true-grit\/","title":{"rendered":"True Grit"},"content":{"rendered":"

We sat in the dark theater at\u00a0Alamo Drafthouse<\/a> watching the big screen. \u00a0Trudy was eating her fish and chips and drinking a beer. \u00a0I was devouring a BLT sandwich and relishing the luxury of hot french fries and ketchup. We were there to see the Coen brothers’ True Grit.<\/p>\n

This is my report, such as it is.<\/p>\n

1. Mumbling<\/h3>\n

I hear the complaints are coming in that Jeff Bridges was mumbling, that his lines were garbled, that he was indecipherable. Hogwash<\/em>. His was a brilliant rendition of Rooster Cogburn and a creative hat tip to John Wayne, who might not have garbled his lines as effectively as Bridges but was without doubt a mumbler extraordinaire.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has trouble understanding Bridges delivery has trouble with accents in general and in my way of estimating isn’t from around these parts. I suspect that the complaints issue mostly from back East, where bloodlines and enunciation evidently runs purer and clear.<\/p>\n

2. Staccato Phrasing<\/h3>\n

The dialog by the other characters was altogether of a different sort. We were often laughing at lines that by themselves probably didn’t warrant a chuckle. Yet the combination of the words and the staccato delivery made the whole theater laugh. Something like: “Hark, what light thru yonder window breaks\u2014it is the dawn” meets J.R.R. Tolkein’s archaic-sounding English meets “Howdy pardner.”<\/p>\n

They didn’t talk like that back then. I mean the rowdies in the hills with rotting teeth, scars on their faces and six-guns at their side didn’t talk like that.\u00a0It was pure artifice. And it worked. Much like color in a comic book cell distorts reality for effect, much like Wham! Bam! Pow!<\/em> is a worn cliche, the color and cliche of this dialog created an atmosphere for characters who were, in any event, bigger than life.<\/p>\n

And there you have it. Hats off the the brothers Coen.<\/p>\n

Not exactly traditional romantic fare for a Valentine’s Day, but fun was had by all. The beer and fries were great, we enjoyed the movie (especially the dialog), and it’s far too late for me to be up writing this, as I’ll be on the road early tomorrow.<\/p>\n

So let’s call it quits, shall we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We sat in the dark theater at\u00a0Alamo Drafthouse watching the big screen. \u00a0Trudy was eating her fish and chips and drinking a beer. \u00a0I was devouring a BLT sandwich and relishing the luxury of hot french fries and ketchup. We were there to see the Coen brothers’ True Grit. This is my report, such as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,65,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1016,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions\/1016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}