Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
2010
110 minutes
This is a Coen Brothers remake of the John Wayne classic with the same name about a young lady out to avenge her father's murder who hires a drunken one-eyed tough-as-nails lawman to help her track down the killer. It's actually a fun movie. You watch a great deal of this on your phone while walking to and from the Farmer's Market on a Sunday morning.
The film reminds you of your stepfather, an eccentric one-legged man who had a John Wayne obsession. His father was a bit of a vagabond and was never around much before he completely abandoned the family, so he always saw John Wayne as a sort of surrogate father. Your stepfather wasn't part of your life until you were late in your teens, and he only married your mother and moved into your house as you were moving away to graduate school.
Your stepfather lost his leg in a misadventure when he was a teenager. He frequently made up stories about exactly how he lost his leg, but the real story was that he was trying to jump onto a freight train at around age 16 and misjudged and the train took off his leg. This never stopped him from working an insane variety of jobs. He worked on a chicken farm. He topped trees. At one point he got into a job training program for people with disabilities and ended up going to culinary school, which landed him a job as a chef in New Orleans.
At another point he ended up managing a failing bar in Florida. He turned around the fortunes of this bar by taking the advice of one of his regulars and turning it into one of the first openly gay bars in Florida. He did this after getting assurances from the local police and shore patrol that they would approve of and cooperate with this change and turn a blind eye to any technical illegalities. They were more than happy to have much of the messiness confined to one place, and he made sure they ran a relatively tight ship.
Your stepfather went through multiple wooden legs in the time you knew him, each time graduating to a fancier prosthesis. His older legs lived in your mother's shed, next to his prized velvet paintings of John Wayne. One velvet painting depicted John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn. You are a little sad that this never ended up on your wall.
You also badly wanted to make a lamp out of one of his old legs, but your mother thought this was a bad idea. You’re pretty sure he would have been fine with it if you had asked when he was still alive.
Time to choose something different: