Early Buzz on True Grit

The Coen Brothers talk to the New York Times about their True Grit re-boot:

Joel Coen said it was apparent from the beginning that “True Grit” might land in a place where their other films had not.

“When we first approached the studio, one of the things that they wanted to know was whether we could be finished in time for Christmas,” he said. “And after a while we thought to ourselves, if we do the movie the way that we were thinking about it, positioning it as a Christmas movie does actually make sense.”

Or, as Ethan put it, “Yes, you can probably bring Grandma to this one on Christmas.”

But, uh oh, an early review has some problems with the new version:

Despite the number of credited executive producers including Steven Spielberg, someone should have taken the Coen Brothers aside and told them what a fool’s errand they were on. Remaking True Grit is like remaking Citizen Kane, Casablanca or The Searchers. You can take the storyline and reinvent it with a different locale and altered characters, but you should only remake a film if you have something new to say that will be entertaining and interesting. The new True Grit is neither.
You’ve probably heard the phrase “Don’t Mess With Texas!’” We’ll, the Coen Brother’s version of True Grit proves a similar very valid point – don’t fool with John Wayne, either.

Well, I'm still willing to give it a chance.