Have you seen the new True Grit?  Are you planning to?

Bill O'Reilly has a review/comparison column of the two movies here.  In short, he liked them both but prefers the original.

As for me, I'm really tired of remakes.  I haven't been to the theater to see a movie since...I guess The Dark Knight.

I've heard they're remaking The Great Gatsby!  Horrors!  Mia Farrow was the perfect Daisy! 

Even worse, Robert Zemeckis wants to remake The Wizard of Oz.  Forget about it.

That's like remaking Gone With the Wind.  Sacrilege.

It seems there aren't very many original ideas in Hollywood anymore, what with all the remakes and sequels.  Perhaps that's why there was a decline in box office receipts for 2010, although the economy certainly could play a factor.  Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

I have heard, however, that The Black Swan is excellent and I did mean to catch Secretariat which I suppose is on DVD now.

I'll make a prediction, though.  I'll bet it's not long before talks are underway for Hillenbrand's Unbroken to be adapted into a movie.  You couldn't make up a story like that one.

So.  I know I'm cranky about movies.  But what about True Grit?  Have you seen it?  I might give it a shot...

John Wayne died thirty years ago today. NRO has a great gathering of remembrances here.

He was born in Winterset, Iowa which is not too far from where Steve grew up. In 2007, when we went up to Iowa, Steve took me to John Wayne's house. It's a tiny thing, and is a museum now. Winterset is a lovely little town (pop. @5000) and is in Madison County which is where all the covered bridges are. We looked at lots of those, too!

We bought a couple of kitschy things in the museum (I bought The Teenager a John Wayne bookmark and Steve bought some John Wayne beef jerky.) They had all of his movies for sale in there, and all the usual things you'd expect. There was a cool chess set that The Teenager coveted for days, but $300 was more than I wanted to drop at The John Wayne Museum. They even had a couple of recliners placed in front of a television and you could sit down and watch John Wayne movies for a bit. And, as you can see, Steve and The Teenager had their picture made with The Duke, himself. Not really. But it looks good!

Anyway, here's a clip from Steve's favorite John Wayne movie, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. It's hard to pick a favorite, and he may have several favorites, but I know he likes this one.

It was made in 1949 and is one of the John Ford movies.