The cast of The Big Lebowski (the American equivalent of Withnail & I or something) got together to celebrate (promote) the reissue of the film on Blu-Ray, which sounds dull as shit, but turned out to be quite funny.

See, most cast members mew fluff about What An Honour it was to star in the film and all that junk… but these guys decided to become their characters again, which is just great.

Jeff Bridges became The Dude again (much like he became in Tron 2) lead the crowd in some hippyish hymnal chant, prompting Steve Buscemi to quote a famous line from the movie. Basically, he said “You shut the fuck up.” Brilliant. But what’s this about Big Lebowski 2?

Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Julianne Moore and the film’s music director, T Bone Burnett, all got together at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom to share memories of shooting the Coen brothers’ marvellous comedy (what do you mean you don’t like it? Go hang!).

So loved is the comedy that an annual Lebowski Fest launched in 2002, meaning that once a year, sales of White Russians, rugs and $20 bags of weed sky-rocket.

Goodman noted, talking about why the film is so fondly thought of:

“I think it’s the script, it’s the perfect storm of casting, the plot certainly doesn’t stink. I guess people just like to get high and watch it. That’s all I can tell you.”

Moore meanwhile thinks its all about The Dude:

“He’s a great hero, the Dude. He allows everybody in, in a way. If movies are about projecting yourself onto a situation, I think everybody can enter the Dude.”

And Moore is up for sucking your cock for $1,000 all over again, saying that she’d be totally game for a sequel if the idea takes the Coens.

But who would do the music? Burnett says:

“I like Janelle Monae. I’d get her to do a track.”

So if you like the idea of a new Lebowski and are ringing the dealer in anticipation, which foodstuffs should you stock up on?

Moore:

“I think it’s very individual. I think some people like creamy and some people like crunchy.”

However, Goodman wasn’t so hot on the idea:

“I don’t smoke. It makes me so scared. The last time I smoked I threw up. So whatever I ate before I threw up — probably Chinese.”

The Dude abides.

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Oh no! Here comes another Hollywood hack remaking a classic that doesn’t need to be made. Whatever happened to the original stories that used to litter our cinemas? John Wayne must be rolling in his grave blah blah blah…etc etc.

If this is the dim view you take on The Coen Brothers’ adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1968 novel of the same name, congratulations, you are an idiot. And not just any idiot, the kind of idiot who’s looking forward to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and that’s some thundering idiothole.

Anyway, True Grit stars 14 year old Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross on a mission to hunt, find and kill Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man who double crossed her father before kicking him off. Her mother is crippled by grief and the burden of looking after her young children so the wheelings and dealings are left to the scarily headstrong and efficient Mattie. She enquires about who can help her track down the elusive Chaney and chooses the gruff, drunken, awesomely named and not at all hygienic Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) from a short list.

Cogburn understandably refutes her and while staying at a boarding house with a loud as hell old lady, she bumps into Texas ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) who is also trailing Chaney for a big payday.

Who will land Chaney first? Will Cogburn finally give into Ross’ demands and take the job? Will Hailee Steinfeld become a Jodie Foster/Natalie Portman or a Lindsay Lohan/early Drew Barrymore?

Only time will tell.

Thanks to the recent flurry of Oscar nods and it’s huge success at the US box office, True Grit hits our shores with an appropriate amount of fanfare, and rightly so.

For the most part this doesn’t feel like a Coen Brothers film as they’ve removed their usual style in order to stay true to the source material but that shouldn’t be taken as a negative.

Everything from the script to cinematography to costume design and acting is finely tuned and expertly paced. Steinfeld steals the show and provides a surprising amount of comedy when her quick witted ways that is followed through with Bridges doing a pretty good impression of a park-based drunk and Damon being an oh-so-slightly loveable idiot.

The laughs were not expected but were very well received.

So yes, True Grit is actually, and unsurprisingly, very good which is hugely annoying as everyone loves slagging off a remake.

Oh well, at least Yogi Bear is coming out soon.

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The history of cinema has given us many a bad haircut over the years.

Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich, Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code and Nicholas Cage in pretty much everything since the turn of the millennium. Never before though has someone with such a bad haircut been so terrifying and menacing than Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men.

We are introduced to him straight away, a man of few words and (in his mind) necessary actions. The plot revolves around a bag of stolen money that Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) runs off with after finding the aftermath of a Mexican standoff – with genuine Mexicans. This leads Chigurh hot on his trail and what happens next is a gripping cat and mouse tale full of the darkest wit and heart-pounding action.  

Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell bringing with him the good to balance against the bad and the ugly haircut. He grounds the film by playing someone who is horrified by the evils that unfold in front of him, asking himself what he can do against such violence and hatred. A great performance from Jones that stands out with his best and buries the turd that was Man About The House.

The whole film has great performances all round. Each character is so well-written and so rounded that it’s a joy to watch each one on the screen and even smaller characters – such as Woody Harrelson’s Carson Wells – come across with such screen presence and well-written dialogue that there is never a dull moment as the plot takes you to unexpected places.

It’s hard to fault this film at all, which has you on the edge of your seat throughout and as it builds up to climatic confrontation at the finale when…
 
Oh sorry, were we meant to finish that sentence? Well, this is what happens in the film, all the excitement builds up and then abruptly ends. It’s a shock for the viewer and certainly felt a bit awkward when the focus changes back to Tommy Lee Jones for the last act. The film shifts into a different tone and it didn’t quite work as well as we hoped. It was all acted superbly by the parties involved, but it just felt like it was a scratched DVD and just skipped over the exciting scene.  

Without spoiling too much, though, it's clear this film is more than just a heart-pumpingly fantastic thriller – it has more of a soul than that and in these later scenes Jones’ character really stands out as the centre of the three leads. We’d be surprised if he doesn’t get an award nomination come Oscar time.

Go see this film. It is fantastic – the best we’ve seen this year so far – and a great return to form from the Coen brothers, who have revisited their darker noir roots with fantastic results.

Just don’t be surprised if you get some nightmares, because this villain will send chills down your spine and we aren’t just referring to his haircut.

[story by David A. Scarborough]

No Country For Old Men, the new movie by the Coen brothers, is quite good – and we know this because a bunch of dusty old historians just said so.

The National Board of Review yesterday voted No Country For Old Men as the best film of 2007, the first high-profile movie awards to be handed out in what's due to become a predictably tiresome three-month awards season. But that's not the only reason why the National Board of Review awards are significant – they've also ensured that everyone will be so sick of the babble surrounding No Country For Old Men by February that it doesn't even stand a sniff of a chance of winning an Oscar any more.

There's something uniquely depressing about awards season, you know. Over the next few weeks and months, about a billion groups and organisations will get together to decide what films were good in 2007, and each result will be pored over an analysed to see if it gives any indication of who'll win an Oscar. Then on Oscar night itself – bam – people just talk about what a lovely dress Keira Knightley is wearing.

Why are we rabbiting on about something that's not even starting for another few months? Because awards season is officially here, thanks to the National Board of Review dishing out its awards in front of everyone yesterday. Oh, don't pretend that you've never heard of the National Board of Review.

The National Board of Review is the perfect organisation to hand out movie awards, because its ranks are made up of historians, students, educators and a few other people who probably just turned up to escape the drizzle. Last year, the National Board of Review gave the best movie prize to that Clint Eastwood film about the war that you never got round to watch, but what about this year?

Well, this year the Best Movie award went to the Coen brother's No Country For Old Men – which also picked up Best Ensemble Cast and Best Adapted Screenplay – ensuring that it won't win an Oscar because the National Board of Review and the Oscars haven't agreed on what the best movie is for eight years in a row.

The National Board of Review also voted for its top ten movies of the year – which are The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Atonement, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bucket List, Into the Wild, Juno, The Kite Runner, Lars and the Real Girl, Michael Clayton and Sweeney Todd, or as we know them Dull Cowboy Film, Rah-Rah Britishness, Herky Jerky Action Film, Jack Nicholson's Got Cancer, Obligatory Sean Penn Nod, Teenage Pregnancy, Something About Kites, I Fuck Dolls, George Clooney Looks At A Horse and Sweeney Todd.

Finally, just in case you're interested, here's the full list of National Board of Review movie award winners. Alternatively you could just wait until the end of the week when the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle do exactly the same thing, or you could hide under a blanket until February when the Oscars are finished. Save us some room.

Best Film: No Country for Old Men

Best Director: Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd

Best Actor: George Clooney, Michael Clayton

Best Actress: Julie Christie, Away From Her

Best Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone

Best Foreign Film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Documentary: Body of War

Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille

Best Ensemble Cast: No Country for Old Men

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Ellen Page, Juno

Best Directorial Debut: Ben Affleck, Gone Baby Gone

Best Original Screenplay (tie): Diablo Cody, Juno and Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl

Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men

Read more:

Board Of Review Picks No Country – Los Angeles Times