Do you know a 12-16 year old girl looking to break into the acting world? She might just have an opportunity working with the Coen brothers.

The Coens’ next project is a remake of the John Wayne classic True Grit, which follows a girl looking for her father’s murderer with a U.S. marshal and another lawman. Unlike the original, the Coen remake will tell the story from the girl’s perspective.

Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon are already set to appear in the film, but as of yet there is no actress to play the lead.

To fill the spot, Paramount Pictures has opened up a casting call, seeking a girl between 12 and 16 years old, with no acting experience necessary.

The casting flyer is included in this article, but for more information check out the casting call’s site.

Paramount Pictures and the Oscar-winning duo of the Coen brothers have teamed up to remake the 1969 John Wayne film True Grit.

The movie, based on Charles Portis’s novel of the same name, focuses on a young girl traveling with two lawmen to find her father’s murderer.

Jeff Bridges was the first actor approached by the Coen brothers to be involved with True Grit, and now Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are in talks to take on major roles in the film. Damon would play the part of a Texas Ranger tracking a murderer, the role that would be filled by Brolin.

Of the three actors in negotiations for True Grit, only Damon hasn’t worked with the Coen brothers before. Brolin had a role in 2007′s No Country for Old Men, while Bridges played the now-iconic role of “The Dude” in 1998′s The Big Lebowski. True Grit‘s producer, Scott Rudin, has also worked with the Coens as producer of No Country for Old Men.

Paramount hopes to get started on production of True Grit in the spring.

Last week I got the chance to participate in a roundtable with Michael Stuhlbarg, the lead actor of A Serious Man. The main focus of our conversation was on the themes and ideas in the film and, thankfully, Michael had some very interesting things to say. It’s an incredible film that ranks amongst the Coens’ best works. When the awards season comes around expect A Serious Man and Michael to be picking up more than a few nominations. The film is currently in a limited amount of theaters and will be expanding today.

Warning: The interview contains spoilers.

Just like most Coen brother’s films they seem very intent on torturing their protagonist. I presume you would agree that’s the same case with Larry?

Michael Stuhlbarg: (laughs) Yeah, absolutely. He’s like the quintessential tortured Coen brother character. That’s all he sort of goes through in this movie, but lovingly so– I’d think they’d say on their part.

Yeah, you can tell they love their characters.

Michael Stuhlbarg: Absolutely, but they were always thinking,”what could we do to Larry next?” (laughs)

It’s also similar to their other films in that it starts with one mistake which escalates to a series of horrible events. That’s pretty much what happens to Larry.

Michael Stuhlbarg: Sure, it’s sort of one thing after another. Larry shrugs it off a little bit at first, but then he just can’t shrug it off anymore.

Do you think if none of these events ever happened to Larry that he would keep living this life without questioning and taking things with simplicity?

Michael Stuhlbarg: Absolutely, my guess is that if none of this happened to him then he would never ask these questions about his life. Maybe one day he would wake up and look around with his life being completely different. That’s sort of what happens to him, but I think he would still live that life.

It’s kind of sad though that he really gets none of those questions answered.

Michael Stuhlbarg: No, he doesn’t. His journey is unfinished.

One thing I find funny about the opening is how it seems to be a parallel to the rest of the story since it starts with something simple and then turns into a downward spiral. The Coens have said it has no meaning in the movie, but they seem to be fibbing.

Michael Stuhlbarg: Well, I think you can find connections. I think that the quote at the beginning has a resonance with both parts of the movie. That situation was complicated and it became more complicated… Let me be clearer, the wife Dorah complicated that situation even though it didn’t necessarily need to be complicated. So it has some resonance, but I don’t know. Some people have said those were the Gopnik ancestors or something like that. People have come up with all kinds of things and I’ll take them at their word when they say there’s no connection. Although someone has said they saw a photo of the couple in one of the rabbi’s office. So I’ll have to look for that next time.

Another interesting thing about Larry is that he has no goals and doesn’t aspire for much in life while everyone else around him does. With Sy wanting to get with his wife or even how Larry’s daughter wanting a nose job, but Larry doesn’t seem to want much.

Michael Stuhlbarg: Well, I think his next big goal is getting tenure. When that becomes in jeopardy he hopes that it will work out instead of pursuing it. Yeah, his only hope is to keep it together (laughs). He psychologically wants to keep it together, but yeah that’s interesting.

I loved the dream sequence because it makes it seem as if Larry looks up to Sy even though he screwed him over, to say the least. It was as if he thought he was better than him since Sy was acknowledged as being a serious man. What do you think that dream represented?

Michael Stuhlbarg: I don’t know what the dream represented. I think when he hears public acknowledgment from a third party that Sy was considered this thing then maybe a part of that scene is Larry asking for help. That of course doesn’t happen.

Whenever you see an interview with the Coen brother they’re very coy about their ideas, the themes, and what they’re trying to say. Are they like that on set or do they let you know what they’re going for?

Michael Stuhlbarg: Well I don’t know, but maybe they’re just true to themselves in that way. I think they are tickled at what people find in what they create. I think that’s part of taking a private story open to the public and seeing how they respond. You know people say the darnedest things (laughs). Perhaps they do mean something, but they’re not going to let you know.

As I said earlier I’m very excited for Boardwalk Empire and I’m wondering why did the pilot take two months to shoot?

Michael Stuhlbarg: A little over two months, but I think they just wanted to set the tone right and they allowed themselves the freedom to do that. Its a really ambitious project and I think its very important for HBO to give Mr. Scorsese enough time since he was also making Shutter Island at the same time. It’s huge and I wouldn’t be surprised if he really needed that amount of time to finish it, because there were obligations that he was under. They let him have free reign and it was like shooting a film for him. They set a really solid groundwork for it and now each episode will take eight or nine days. At least that’s what I’ve been hearing, but they’ve found their locations that were really difficult to find. I think they’re off to a really good start.

Is that planned to be a series or a miniseries?

Michael Stuhlbarg: A series, but we’ll see what happens.

I’m sure it will do very well.

Michael Stuhlbarg: We’ll see.

There are two things present in every Coen Bros film – crime and fools.  Usually the fools are the ones committing the crimes and trying (failing) to get away with them.  However, it never feels like the brothers have any sympathy towards the “heroes.”  On the contrary, it often feels like they enjoy making up idiots so they can point and laugh at them.  In this film, though, they seem to finally flip that and reach out a helping hand to Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), obscure as that help may be. The Coens are among the smartest writer/directors working today.  Heck, they translated Homer’s Odyssey into a Depression-era Midwestern road trip.  Their worldview finds humor in oddities and  discomfort – a handshake that lasts a few seconds too long, an unwanted hug, an awkward silence after a bit of stupidity has been uttered.  It is in the mundane that the Coens find their comic muse and, in this film, there is a lot of humor to be found.

This movie is along the lines of Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn’t There – more of a fable then a straightforward narrative.  It even begins with fable, a ghost story of sorts, spoken entirely in Hebrew.  People not knowing this side of the Coens may not be prepared for this, and the ending of this film is likely to enrage more people than the way they ended No Country For Old Men.  However, the great score by Carter Burwell, with its slightly off-tempo repeating 8-note motif subconsciously prepares you for this slightly off tale.  Plus this film is chock full of Jewish culture, so much so that I felt a bit of culture shock by the time the movie ended and was positive I had missed out on jokes and deeper meanings along the way.  That’s not to say that the movie is not accessible to everyone, but I’m sure that it means much more to someone practicing the faith.  We follow Larry Gopnik, a mild-mannered and meek physics teacher as his life slowly starts to unravel.  His wife (Sari Lennick) asks for a divorce to marry a family friend (Fred Melamed), his brother (Richard Kind) is constantly draining his sebaceous cyst and won’t move into his own home.  A student (David Kang) is trying to bribe him for a passing grade and his son (Aaron Wolff) simply cannot get a clear enough signal to catch F-Troop.

As he sees neither reason nor rhyme for all the new stress that has started flooding his life, he searches for answers first in his knowledge and education.  However, a thorough, albeit brief, scan through Schrodinger’s theory and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle bring him nothing more then that which he already knew, that he can’t ever know what’s really going on.  He then returns to the faith he had abandoned to see if that could be of more help.  Junior Rabbi Scott (played by The Big Bang Theory’s Simon Helberg) and Rabbi Machtner (George Wyner) give us the main words of wisdom in this film.  In common Coen fashion, their seeds of wisdom are folded between layers of hilarity.  Often important lines are placed in the mouths of people with funny voices or are covered within a comic story.

Take, as an example, this story told by Rabbi Machtner about a dentist who finds Hebrew words engraved in the back of one of his patients teeth.  The dentist goes crazy trying to find out why “Help me” was written in his patient’s mouth.  Was it a code to be broken?  Was God sending him a sign?   In the end, well, let’s just say he didn’t find what he was looking for, but he found what he needed.  We may feel like Larry and ask “Why does God make us ask the questions if he’s not going to give us the answers?”  In the same way, at the end of the film, I wanted to ask the Coens why they made me feel the questions were so important if they were not going to give me answers.  I found myself thinking, “The bros are too smart to create art for the sake of art, but they do have the sense of humor to make something that means nothing to them and crack up at all the deep philosophies people will read into it.”  I wondered if they had pulled a fast one and if now I was the fool they were pointing and laughing at, while I tried to make some sense out of this inanity, these random scenes, that infuriating ending.  Then I realized that they had given me the answers.  Everybody is waiting for the punch line, for the grand finale. The Coens are saying that it’s the journey, the setup, the little things learned along the way that are more important.  That happiness and contentment can be found by changing your perspective – like looking at common things, like a parking lot, with a renewed sense of awe.  Perhaps, these are the only things that are of importance.  In the end, the brothers are asking you to receive with simplicity all that happens to you.  Accept the mystery.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

The Big Lebowski himself, Jeff Bridges, will take John Wayne’s Oscar-winning role in the Coen Brothers’ remake of True Grit.

It’s been over a decade since the actor has worked with the talented directors, in the role which probably drew him more popular attention than any other character.

According to a Variety scoop, the Coens will attempt to be more faithful to the original novel on which True Grit is based.

Story centers on a 14-year-old girl who tags along with an aging U.S. marshal, Rooster Cogburn, and another lawman to track the outlaw who killed her father. The original told the story from Cogburn’s point of view, but the new version will work from the viewpoint of the girl.

I’m all for a return to serious subject material from the Coens. While I love Burn After Reading and I’m very curious about A Serious Man, it’s films like No Country for Old Men and Fargo that get me really excited to see the directors’ output.

How about Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, though? Is the man a good substitute for John Wayne? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Cutting to the chase: If you like the Coen Brothers previous works of No Country for Old Men, or even O Brother Where Art Thou? than you will find this to be a along the same lines. If you don’t it may make you laugh as it did me. But it also will surprise you as it is not at all what the trailers have shown it to be.

The story revolves around a disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent that ends up in the hands of two everyday gym employees who attempt to sell it. One would think this could have some very funny twists and turns but the humor in this one was very dry and almost awkward at times.

The Coen’s have brought complex characters to the screen in the least warming way possible. If it weren’t for Brad Pitt’s crazy chararcter the film would be very drab and lacking in many places. The way in which the chararcters are introduced was very abrupt and not well thought out.

Brad Pitt plays Chad, a gym trainer at a Har Bodies chain. The way in which he goes throughout the movie is something to watch. He made the movie if you ask me.

Harry (George Clooney), an OCD womanizer, is a character you begin to route for towards the end of the film. Even though it seems he sleeps with anyone he can get his hands on, he grows on you. Creator of story after story, and lie after lie, you begin to like this guy.

Osborne Cox, played by the ever talented John Malkovich, has to be the most screwed up chararcter on screen, and in this movie that is saying a lot! Cox recently quit his post at the CIA after his boss wanted to reassign him due to having a drinking problem.

While the film had its funny parts, I must of missed the point of the film throughout. Pitt was the savior of the movie in my eyes. While each actor put in a great performance, the film was subpar as a comedy and on par as a dramedy. With that said I would also watch out for the very random violent parts of the film. In Coen style, the blood, is over the top everytime its called for.

The soundtrack on this movie was great if you ask me. It is not something that is something that I notice in a film. Over all I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys Coen Brothers films. Beside that I would probably call this a rental.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

From No Country for Old Men to this off beat comedy, come the Coen Brothers at it again. Brad Pitt along with a large cast of other well known actors and actresses bring us Burn After
Reading.

CIA agent Osborne Cox decides to pen his memoirs and is fired from the agency. The disc containing the memoirs inadvertently gets left in a ladies locker room at a gym, where Linda and co-worker Chad, hatch a plan to sell its contents to the highest bidder.

Below is the teaser trailer released earlier.

[flv:/trailers/burnaftertt.flv 480 228]
You can watch it in HD over at Yahoo.