Snow Angels

Friday, September 26, 2008

I guess this David Gordon Green detour was unavoidable. Why deny myself the experience, right? The K2K is winding down, about 2 months left, and I feel like I'm going to have missed out on a lot of the movies and directors and subgenres and whatnot that I meant to see. Especially since I'm declaring October Horror Movie Month. But no bother.

This is another great one. You can chalk up another excellent performance for the great Sam Rockwell, and memorable small role for Nicky Katt. I've never cared much for Kate Beckinsale, but even she is quite good here.

All the Real Girls

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Here's another home run from David Gordon Green, fast becoming a favorite director of mine. I don't even understand how he can make a movie that feels both poetic and down-to-earth at the same time. Something this artsy usually feels... if not pretentious, then at least like it exists on some other level. But Green's films feel like they're about real people, and they have a quirky charm and humor about them.

I can't really figure out what I was trying to say next. The film is about a womanizing young man who falls in love for the first time and tries to form a real relationship. This could inspire a pretty typical romantic comedy or something, but somehow it feels like much more; a meditation on the different kinds of love, and on the way we depend on our connections with others, and maybe just on the passage of time. It deals with some big ideas, but somehow expresses them without having the characters sit down and talk specifically about them. A lot is expressed, even when not a lot is happening, and there are a lot of moments that strike exactly the right note and feel perfect, even though I can't exactly explain why. Which I guess is the mark of a great film.

Pineapple Express

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Sadly, this isn't the single greatest movie ever made, and only turned out to be really good. Siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Oh well. I guess that title stays with Maid in Manhattan.

Seriously though, I dug this one a lot, but not on the level of Superbad or 40 Year Old Virgin, as I was expecting. I hate when I get myself too excited, because it can add a tinge of disappointment to something that otherwise rocked.

This mines somewhat similar material as Hot Fuzz, but with added pot humor. I was curious to see how David Gordon Green, who is more of an art-house director, would handle this mainstream material. As it turns out, pretty well. He not only knows how to sell the humor of the movie (I could have guessed that, his movies are pretty funny), but he can actually direct a respectable action scene. All the shoot-em-up shit is good, but even better is an early fight scene between 3 guys who don't know how to fight, which really builds a wonderful comic momentum. That this movie and George Washington are in the same man's filmography is pretty awesome.

George Washington

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Alright, now I am beginning to understand all this affection for David Gordon Green. This is a great movie.

A few years back I saw Green's Undertow, and was underwhelmed. It started off good, but somewhere in the middle it began meandering, and then slowly worked its way to a stunningly ineffectual and cliched ending. Since then, I've become more familiar with Terrence Mallick, and I think I read somewhere that he was a big influence on Undertow, so maybe if I see it again I'll have a newfound appreciation. But I disliked it enough that I steered clear of Green for the past few years.

Until I found out he was directing Pineapple Express, which is possibly my #1 most eagerly anticipated film of the year. So I figured it was high time (pun retroactively intended) to give the dude another shot, and I'm glad I did.

It's kinda like that movie Mean Creek (starring Josh Peck, who I am convinced should be the next big thing) that came out a few years back, only way better. I remember thinking that Mean Creek was a pretty honest movie about being a teenager that totally spins off the rails in the last act after a major twist in the plot, after which it stops feeling realistic and instead feels contrived and melodramatic. George Washington is an even more honest movie about being a teenager that has, more or less, the same "twist" but handles it so much better. Even though the behavior of the characters in GW is more extreme, and perhaps less "realistic," it's told with much more emotional honesty. Also, it came first so now I'm left wondering if Mean Creek is kind of a ripoff.

This is a sad story, but told with a lot of humor and humanity and insight, so it never really drags you down. This could have been a depressing slog through dark material (and don't get me wrong, that's not necesarily a bad thing), but instead it really gives you a charge. And I got to give it credit for one other thing: superficially, it almost seems like it could be another insufferable indie quirkfest, but it's not. It's its own thing, a funny, poetic meditation on youth, and the fragile nature of life. Love it.