Monday, January 3, 2011

Two Bridges

In the past few weeks I have seen the two new movies that Jeff Bridges has starred in. The two movies couldn't be more different. Tron Legacy was the sequel to Tron and True Grit was a remake of the the John Wayne movie made by the Coen Brothers. I was really looking forward to Tron Legacy and thought True Grit was going to be pretty good. As it turns out it was the exact opposite, True Grit was an incredible movie and Tron Legacy wasn't very good.

The Coen Brothers created a rich movie filled with great scenery and excellent acting performance. Bridges does an excellent job playing Rooster Cogburn, the iconic role John Wayne made famous. There was many levels to the character and Bridges relished the playing him. Much of the movie is the interplay between Bridges, Matt Damon, and Hailee Stanfield the young actress who played the lead character Mattie Ross. The Coens wrote some great dialogue and they did not fall back on some of the overly witty back and forth that highlight some of their earlier work.

Compared to True Grit, Tron Legacy just seems empty and hollow. The movie has some incredible visuals and interesting action sequences, but the characters are not developed and the story is almost non-existent. Bridges does well with his duel roles in the movie, Flynn and Clu. As Flynn, his role in the original, he is a mix of Buddhist monk and the Dude and has Clu a demented cyber version of Flynn he is loud with no depth or feeling. There is a 2-D and a 3-D version of the movie, but I don't think that makes a difference. While the 3-D would make some the action look better, it does not cover up the giant plot holes. It is a disappointing that the movie wasn't better, they have literally had decades to think about what a sequel to Tron and this is what they came up with. Jeff Bridges is one of the greatest actors of our time, but there is only so much he can do with this, and as we saw in True Grit he has the chops to do a lot of things.

Project Glen: 1-3

The last couple of weeks in December have not been good for me. Too much in general, booze, sweets, and food in general. I am going to start back in earnest this month. All the parties and things like New Years Eve. I have gained back a couple of pounds. I am still in positive overall but I need to get back on it and get back to where I was and continue on. I am not going beat myself up too much but fun time is over and now it is time to get back to work.