Dennis Hopper Movie:

				Label: Paramount Pictures Salesrank: 204950
		Our Price: $13.28
		MPAA Rating: G (General Audience) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
A wonderful/rueful running gag in El Dorado involves the Edgar Allan Poe line "Ride, boldly ride" being mangled by toupee-wearer Wayne into "Ride, baldy, ride." Two years later, in True Grit, Wayne put the joke in italics by donning an eyepatch and several inches of girth to play cantankerous territorial marshal Rooster Cogburn. Critics belatedly noticed that he could be a marvelously entertaining actor, and Hollywood finally gave him the Oscar they'd failed to nominate him for in Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, et al. But make no mistake: True Grit is a splendid movie, with lovingly textured storytelling and sturdy characters, Henry Hathaway's finest high-country action set-pieces, intoxicatingly ornate frontier language, and a couple of formidable bad guys (Jeff Corey's Tom Cheney and Robert Duvall's "Lucky" Ned Pepper). It's a compliment to say that, from a technical standpoint, the movie could have been made any time in Hathaway's 40-year career, yet its feeling for the reality of violence ceded no ground to The Wild Bunch, released around the same time. Still, the film's most sublime passage falls between bursts of gunplay: Rooster sitting on a hilltop at night recounting his life story, as John Wayne metamorphoses ineluctably into W.C. Fields. --Richard T. Jameson

True Grit [Region 2] Reviews:
True Grit dvd is fabulous!
2008-11-16 - True Grit (Special Collector's Edition)This is the movie John Wayne won an Oscar for his performance and well deserved it truely is! Excellent script, excellent directing and most of all, excellent acting. The movie was perfectly cast and all the actors delivered their best. The most beautiful locations added to the movie presentation. They have a featurette on this dvd about the location of the movie---and it is a real town. All I can say is the entire movie is so impressive and I would recommend this dvd as a must have for any film library.

Angel and the Fat Man
2008-11-03 - In John Wayne's latter years, he turned in a top-notch performance as the one-eyed whiskey drinkin', weight gaining, rifle twirling Texas Marshal Rooster Cogburn. He was tough as nails and had a heart of gold...that is, if you were a gold-digger. Fortunately, Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) was something of a gold-digger (at least when it came to digging up both the tender and tough sides of the Duke) as well as an all-too-determined young woman bent on the revenge of her father's murder. Rounding up the cast is sidekick La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) and Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper as two outlaws.

If one is not careful, nearly every great western ends up looking the same after a while. And TRUE GRIT at first glance may look like any other western. But it is so much more. It has good acting (John Wayne received a Best Actor Academy Award), witty one-liners and sharp dialogue far superior to most of the action movies today, and some really intense action sequences, especially the now famous climactic gun fight as the Rooster gallops into a 1-on-4 fight with a six-shooter in his left hand and a rifle in his right hand and the reins in his teeth!

If you're not into westerns you may still enjoy this move. Even if you're not that big of a John Wayne fan, you'll still love him in this role.

Good Vehicle For the Duke
2008-10-20 - When a film or performance has the imprateur of the Oscar you expect something really special. In that sense I would call "True Grit" a minor disappointment. For sure John Wayne delivers a flamboyant and energetic turn as Rooster Cogburn in a role tailored to his particular strengths. But I couldn't help to think he was so much better in films like "The Searchers", "Red River" and his final film, "The Shootist". I'm reminded of when they finally rewarded Paul Newman after years of solid work it had to be for an OK performance in "The Color of Money". That said, on the whole "True Grit" is a good rousing western that falls just shy of greatness. Maybe a little formulaic but so what if it works. The film is skillfully directed by western vet Henry Hathaway and beautifully lensed by Peckinpah stalwart Lucien Ballard. Kim Darby playing younger than her years Mattie Ross, a feisty girl who contracts Cogburn to find the killer of her father, is beguiling. Glen Campbell is better than expected as a Texas Ranger who forms a begrudging alliance with Cogburn to find the killer. Excellent supporting cast includes Jeff Corey, John Fiedler, Robert Duvall and the inimitable Strother Martin. Look close for an abbreviated appearance by Hank Worden, a veteran of Wayne and John Ford films, as an undertaker. Didn't knock my socks off but not a bad way to spend two hours.

CLASSIC WESTERN STARRING THE DUKE!
2008-08-31 - This entertaining western starring the "Duke" in his later years won him an Oscar. A great film made when stars were stars and they could do no wrong. This film is fun, well paced and holds up really well. I have the older collector's edition from 2000 and the print is crystal clear! The DVD has some extras, but I'm sure the newer release has some added goodies.

True Grit
2008-07-05 - There was a problem ordering this DVD. I ordered duplicates and had to return one. Then the one I kept had serious flaws, but the vendor sent me a replacement that was in excellent condition so I am quite satisfied