So... we was watching VCDs 4

True Grit (2010). Ethan Coen and Joel Coen directed and wrote this western proper based on a 1969 novel of the same title by Charles Portis.

Just going from a handful of Coen movies I've seen so far – Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), Burn After Reading (2008) – I'd say the Coen brothers do a mean job at creating characters which are as original as they are relatable, not to mention that they are expert at painting the local colour.

In True Grit the Coen brothers dropped their guard – albeit slightly – and allowed U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (older and washed-out, Jeff Bridges) and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (younger and stalwart, Matt Damon) to come over as stereotypical and cartoonish. Watching the interplay between Cogburn and LaBoeuf you kind of recognize what they aimed for, but that they had just missed the mark.

Cogburn and LaBoeuf are trying to track down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) though Cogburn is in employment of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) and LaBoeuf of the Texas Rangers. Ross is out to avenge her father's death and, at 14 years of age, displays a precociousness that's pushing it – even for the Wild West.

Brolin's Chaney, though given only a bit part, rings more true, as does his boss Lucky Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper), who steals the show actually. Both Brolin and especially Pepper look suitably haggard and make the most of their limited screen time by layering their characters.

Keep an eye out for Bear Man (Ed Corbin), the Tom Bombadil of the Wild West, who has no other purpose, apparently, other than looking magnificent.

(Running time: 110 minutes)

So I saw 'Green Zone'

It's a movie about the Iraq war and it has a message, which says: where's the WMD, the reason the US went to war with Iraq?

Three times CWO Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his men had conducted raids on sites suspected of hiding WMD, and three times they had returned empty-handed. Now, it was Bush who said, "... fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can't get fooled again," and so, suspecting there's something fishy about the intel he's been feeding on, Miller decides to poke around and to raise a stink all while creating friends and foes along the way in an exercise that will prove to be Jason Bourne's Training Day (2001), meaning that Miller's about to have a long, long day with a lot of shaky-cam effects.

While watching, somehow, for some reason, I was thinking about movies about the Vietnam war, e.g. Platoon (1986). They tend to be more contemplative, more raw. Green Zone, in the meantime, plays out more like a thriller.

Now, let's hear it from an Iraqi Oliver Stone.

(Running time: 115 minutes)