​For Joel and Ethan Coen, some things, like scenes that don’t seem to fit in a movie’s structure or unreliable fantasy sequences of indeterminate meaning, are expected.  That makes it all the more noticeable when they leave all that stuff out.  True Grit contains no Mike Yanagita sidebar, nor an eerie stagecoach ride towards what may or may not be the afterlife, but it’s still unmistakably a Coen Brothers film, and their highest-grossing one to boot.  Persistently versatile and effective across genres and time periods, the Coen’s include all the hallmarks of the Western, with cowboys and Indians and outlaws and grand vistas, but they can’t help but put their pet themes of cosmic scales of justice onto a recognizable framework.  The result is a thing that works, an actor’s showcase and a joyful adventure, a reminder of why Westerns have persisted for so long and a modern rejoinder to the kinds of films the Western archetype John Wayne, star of the original as this is a remake, used to churn out.  True Grit is evidence that the Coen’s can be purely entertaining whenever they want to, one more gift for a pair that can do no wrong.

​I picture Joel and Ethan Coen writing their scripts in their office and laughing at each other about how their films will be interpreted.  Maybe they think about all the ink that will be spilled by critics and film journalists wondering why the Mike Yanagita scene is in Fargo or what the true role of John Goodman is in Barton Fink, and chuckle that they don’t actually put these mysteries in their films for any purpose other than the mystery itself.  Much like several of their films, there is actually no meaning to be discerned.  The Coens love coincidence with no rationale behind it and the capriciousness of an impassive and unknowable prime mover, themes that film writers aren’t big fans of because there isn’t much to write about when that is the case.  The reviewer looking for answers asks ‘why did that happen’ and the Coens reply ‘why ask why?’  The Ballad of Buster Scruggs appears to be exactly as cosmically retributive as much of the Coens’ earlier work, with that prime mover watching from above and snatching goodness away from the characters’ grasps.  Though each of the six stories feature bloody ends, this is actually something of an outlier for the duo, in that it’s obliquely beautiful in its own specific way.  Joel and Ethan remain as fatalistic as ever, but nothing is so simple as the point A of birth and the point B of death.  There are songs to sung and moments to be shared along the way.

​Kevin Costner’s Western Dances With Wolves is a film we’re watching because of its culture clash narrative, but it could’ve fit into a category that was raised on a recent podcast: films that need a reevaluation.  The film nerd expectation on this one is tied in with its Best Picture win over the vastly-superior Goodfellas, another example of Oscar voters going for safe over daring or challenging.  It’s also got a decidedly non-PC reputation as a white savior, noble savage exemplar.  However, where we mentioned on the podcast a movie like 300 getting a downward reevaluation, Dances With Wolves conceivably deserves one in the opposite direction.  As far as white saviors go, John Dunbar is nowhere near the most egregious example, and it’s never the winning film’s fault when a more deserving film is passed over for awards.  Much of Dances With Wolves is just as moving and enthralling as it was before I knew a movie like Goodfellas existed.  It’s hardly perfect, but Costner’s epic is undeserving of the turned-up nose in its direction.

​Remakes immediately make a certain portion of the film-going population cringe.  The popular refrain of ‘X ruined my childhood’ booms out whenever some hit is rebranded, whether the update is gender-swapped (Ghostbusters), CGI-stuffed (Clash of the Titans), or unnecessary (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).  Remakes occasionally reach for greatness (The Fly, True Grit, The Departed, Let Me In), but they’re often cynical cash-grabs from creatively bankrupt studios, which brings us to Antoine Fuqua’s Magnificent Seven.  I’ve seen the 1960 John Sturges version, and though it’s a fine and competent classic Western, I merely admired it.  While some misogynist nerds might claim that Melissa McCarthy made the original Ghostbusters worse somehow, I take the opposite tack on the two Magnificent Sevens.  The Fuqua version, with all its hamfisted writing and amateurish directing and general pointlessness, improves the Sturges version.  Seeing a straightforward story told badly reminds one of the value of basic competence.