The Last Movie I Saw

I was pretty thoroughly entertained by the recent Coen Brothers remake of True Grit, just as I recall being when I watched the Henry Hathaway/John Wayne original thirty odd years ago. In fact, although it's been that long since I saw the original, the new version seemed to be pretty much the same at least as far as the story (no surprise really, since they both spring from the same novel). Jeff Bridges, as Marshall Rooster Cogburn, was even more dissolute than I recall Wayne in his portrayal of the character, and I guess the violence was a bit more stark (though here I thought the Coens showed more restraint than they have in other of their films-- it certainly wasn't over the top). In fact the biggest difference that I could discern was that Matt Damon played the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf as a more archly comical character (in fact, I'd count this as the biggest highlight of the movie), while Glen Campbell played it straight in the earlier version. As I say, though, that's all based on a pretty dim memory. Maybe the original will pop up on Turner Classics in the next few weeks as they roll out their pre-Oscar programming, and I'll see how keen my memories are. But here's the thing-- if all I can think of to comment on is how same or different the two versions are, does that suggest that, despite the craftsmanship of all concerned, there's really not a whole lot to justify arguing that the new film is anything more than a pleasant time-waster? In some ways, this reminds me of the Richard Linklater remake of Bad News Bears from a few years back-- his version was good, but certainly didn't add or change anything to what Michael Ritchie had accomplished thirty years earlier in the first telling. I don't have anything against remakes, but it reminded me of something I read recently (possibly on Jonathan Rosenbaum's blog-- to which there's a link in the left margin of this blog): that if Hollywood is going to persist in doing remakes, wouldn't it be so much more interesting if good directors (a category that certainly includes the Coens and Linklater) plied their talents in redoing stinkers or failures of the past instead of trying to one-up the classics?