Bullgrit

Viewed: Theater

I love the Western genre — books and movies. I always have. I’ve read more Louis L’amour books than I can count. One of the first DVDs I ever bought was The Magnificent Seven.

The last modern Hollywood Western I saw was 3:10 to Yuma, and I was not impressed. I’ve seen the first True Grit film one and a half times, and I was not impressed with it, either. But there were parts in the first TG that I thought had great potential for epic awesome.

This latest film is not a remake of the first film, it’s an new adaption of the original book. Now, I haven’t read the book — I only recently learned True Grit was first a book — so my opinion of the film is solely based on the films themselves.

This new True Grit film, I absolutely love! This movie reached the epic awesome that the first tried for.

The first thing that awed me about it was the language. The prose with vocabulary just makes my brain all warm and fuzzy.

The acting is top notch. Jeff Bridges is perfect for the role of Rooster Cogburn. I dare say hes a better Rooster than John Wayne was — and I love The Duke. And Hailee Steinfeld gives a fantastic performance as Maddie Ross.

The cinematography is amazing. One of the things I love about Westerns is the wide openness of the frontier. This movie presents that scenescape enough to make an agoraphobic fitful.

The only issues I have with the movie are things that I understand actually come from the book, the source material. Like Tom Chaney instructing Maddie to cock her pistol fully. That kind of thing jolts me — why in the hell would you tell someone how to cock the gun they’ve got aimed at you? But since the whole plot doesn’t rely on these kinds of little quirks, I can get over them quickly and keep in the story.

Overall, this is a great movie. I’ll buy it on DVD when it comes out, and I’ll keep it on my shelf between The Magnificent Seven and Open Range.

During the credits, the theater staff folks came in and started cleaning up. I asked one if there was a scene after the credits, and they said no.

Bullgrit

Our oldest little calf has turned 10 years old. Holy moly! A decade. When he was born, Cowgrit and I were just in our early thirties, less than six years married.

I remember before we became preggers, my mom asked me if we were going to have children, and I responded with, “We’ve taken the goalie off the field.” She didn’t get the reference until my step-dad gave a hint or two.

When Cowgrit became pregnant, the doc calculated the day of birth at December 24. Well, our little Calfgrit was apparently quite comfortable where he was, and decided to stay put for another week and a half. When he finally came into the world, he was a beautiful baby. In fact, he was so beautiful, the hospital newborn photographer asked our permission, (after we made our photo purchasing decisions), to post a copy of his pic in her office as a sample.

His first week of life was pretty rough. But he got over it. He’s a healthy, happy, boy.

He loves to read, All. The. Time. Oh my god, he almost always has a book in his hands. We have to enforce a “No books at the dinner table” rule, else he forgets to eat. We also have to enforce no book in the bathroom – potty and bath – else he forgets to get up or wash. Now that he’s taking showers instead of baths, he actually once asked his little brother to hold a book just outside the shower so he could read it while washing.

He loves his quiet creative play time, too. Legos and action figures. This is where he’s a lot like I was at his age. (I didn’t start reading much until in my teens.) I watch him playing quietly with his toys on the floor in his room, and I remember my own such times. Different toys, different stories, but the core activity is all the same.

Seeing myself in him brings me both joy and worry. Maybe he’ll grow out of it.

Bullgrit

Going through my dad’s house last month, we found a lot of interesting old family memorabilia. Among the random papers, we found this old Christmas wish list:

Researching some of the toys in this list, I figure this was probably for the Christmas of 1975. I would have been 8 years old, and brogrit would have been 3, going on 4 years old.

The cursive writing, both pencil and pen, looks like my dad’s, and the large text printed in pencil was probably my own. The black boxes are just to conceal our names — mine, brogrit’s, our dad’s, and our mom’s.

• Six Million Dollar Man game
• Evel Knievel Formula 1 Dragster
• G.I. Joe
• Hotwheels cars

Oh, I remember all of those. Good times.

And little brogrit wanted western play wear and a fun tunnel. Sweet little guy. [pats his head and tousles his hair]

I also see that at 8 years old, I was getting a bb gun. Booya! (I never shot my eye out.) And my little brother was getting some trucks. I’m sure I never teased him or talked down to him when I got my big boy toys.

“You go push your plastic fire truck, little boy,” I would never have said, “I’m going to go shoot stuff with my real bb gun.”

There’s got to be a picture of brogrit in his cute western play wear.

Bullgrit