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I was mildly irritated when I heard the Coen brothers were remaking True Grit. Maybe it was just residual frustration at the remake of Let the Right One In. Anyway, I saw the trailer for the new True Grit last week, and I can’t get it out off my head.

John Wayne is a legend, and it’s hard for me to imagine Jeff Bridges pulling Rooster Cogburn off. But having seen a little sneak peek, I’m completely sold. And having Matt Damon in Glen Campbell’s role has to be considered a huge upgrade.

I think this will be an amazing movie, and I can’t wait to see it. Is it Christmas yet?

I remember when I saw the first Toy Story movie having the feeling that this was something entirely new and amazing. It was a cartoon, but it didn’t look like any cartoon I had seen.  It was a kids movie but it was surprisingly deep.  I was 15 years old at the time and liked to think of myself as surprisingly deep for a kid.  Looking back I find it interesting how this particular franchise has followed me through the years.  When Toy Story 2 came out, I was in my second year of college.  Now with Toy Story 3, I’m a month shy of my 30th birthday and I have a 1 year old son.  My own “Andy” so to speak.

The Toy Story saga gives us a lens through which we see ourselves both as we were as children and as we are now as adults.  While I think Toy Story 3 is probably the weakest of the three movies, it’s still a great movie and a fitting end to the saga. I’m glad I saw it, and I can say without reservation I’ll want my children to watch all three Toy Stories.

I saw it in 3-D, and I can’t say 3-D does anything for the movie.  Given how technologically innovative the first Toy Story was, I wish this one had pushed the envelope more and given us something we’d never seen before… again.

Frequency is so much better than you would expect given the basic plotline:

A man in 1999 communicates with his dead father in 1969 via an old ham radio, explained with a winking nod to string theory and the aurora borealis. Through their conversations, they alter the course of events surrounding a serial killer in both mens’ time, simultaneously healing and endangering their family at every turn.

It’s still amazing to me how good this movie is despite how easily it could have gone mega-cheesy.

What I love about the movie is the balance it strikes among its many themes: altering time-space continuum, murder mystery, father-son bonding, baseball as a metaphor for lost innocence. It plays well on all these levels but bounces around enough not to feel too bogged down in any one at a time.

The performances are good, not great, save for Andre Baugher and Elizabeth Mitchell, who steal every scene they’re in. The leads are less interesting, Dennis Quaid does a good generic Dennis Quaid character, and Jim Caviezal is believable if not terribly interesting as the son. One fun surprise in the cast, a young Michael Cera in a bit part early in the movie.

Sometimes you have to willingly suspend your disbelief at the movies. This is one of those movies. Frequency is suspenseful and moving, and it deserves to be watched with loved ones. I’ll never forget calling my dad as I left the theater the first time I saw it. I watched it again tonight in honor of Father’s Day.