MovieWeb - Movie Photos, Videos & More

David Gordon Green graduated from The North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, N.C. in 1998. Two years later Mr. Green wrote and directed his first feature-length motion picture.

GEORGE WASHINGTON (2000) is a film about poor Southern youths whiling away their days in a small town shaded from the Summer sun by walnut trees and run-down empty factories. When an unforeseen tragedy occurs, the young innocents must contend with a stain of regret and despair that is usually reserved for adults.

The film is narrated by one of the young boys, in a sweet sing-song voice over gorgeous images of a languid Southern small town in North Carolina; instantly provoking comparisons to Terrence Malick, creator of the landmark film DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978).

Naturalistic and Pastoral in ways that are all but impossible to convey once a million bucks and unlimited resources are laid at your feet by the Gods of Hollywood, GEORGE WASHINGTON is a work of art that Green will never be able to repeat. For once you’ve seen Paris... That’s not to say he will never again make a great film. He’ll just never again be able to make that great film.

In his second feature ALL THE REAL GIRLS (2003), David Gordon Green once again focused on Small Town America, this time by way of Love and Romance. Starring his old classmate from The School of the Arts Paul Schneider (also co-writer) and the lovely *Zooey Deschanel.

*Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

lovely

Function: adjective

1 : lovable

2: delightful for beauty, harmony, or grace : attractive

3: grand, swell

4: eliciting love by moral or ideal worth

synonyms see beautiful,

ALL THE REAL GIRLS is one of the most unique Romantic films you’re likely to come across. Not because the story of love lost and found is not told with style and grace, because it is, but the film is unusual in it’s Realism. The characters act and react to jealousy, betrayal, and heartache, the way real people do.

There are no “meet-cutes”, or contrived misdirection, or overly sentimental resolutions; you know, like real life. ALL THE REAL GIRLS contains moments so authentic, so simple, you may blush at the improbable realization that Gordon Green has lifted scenes from your own life.

With UNDERTOW (2004), Green attempted to follow in the footsteps of great Southern Gothic storytellers like Tennessee Williams and Flannery `O Connor.

Screenplay by Green and Joe Conway, based on a story by Lingard Jervey.

With a big studio like MGM behind him, Green must have felt the weight of millions dollars and several studio execs strapped to his back.

With retro 70’s opening title graphics, Dermot Mulroney and enough beat-up Plymouths and Chryslers to fill a used car lot, at first UNDERTOW appears to be a Tarantino-style homage to Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham. Which regardless of what some snobby film critics might say, would not necessarily be a bad thing (Note to self: write screenplay, an homage to said genre with Dermot Mulroney as Burt Reynolds-type hero).

The initial set-up is promising in its simplicity: Mulroney plays the patriarch to two young boys living on a pig farm; the older boy played by Jamie Bell (BILLY ELIOT) is your average run of the mill teenage rebel without a cause: breaking and entering, fighting and scraping with the local gentry, trying to get into the pants of his pretty young girlfriend; the youngest is not so typical, not for a Hollywood melodrama: Devon Alan (SIMON BIRCH) plays Tim, a sickly sad little boy who secretly eats pig shit and dirt, and then vomits. This particularly poignant portrait of a motherless child initially indicates either David Gordon Green’s insistence on disrupting the Hollywood apple cart, or portends the future direction of the film. When Josh Lucas (POSEIDON) arrives on the scene, we assume the former.

Lucas plays Mulroney’s fresh out jail troubled brother. Josh Lucas is a good actor, but a movie star; too good-looking and too likable to ever really be menacing. So, when we learn that Mulroney and Lucas’s father passed down some valuable Mexican gold coins, we know it’s only a matter of time before the bad brother will attempt to steal the coins.

At this point, one is expecting a re-tread of James Foley’s underrated classic AT CLOSE RANGE (1986). But, David Gordon Green has different plans. In an attempt to avoid giving away the entire movie, I’ll cut to the chase: the boys take the money (the gold coins) and run with their criminal uncle in pursuit. And this is when the Hollywood melodrama transforms into the David Gordon Green cinematic work of art that we were hoping for.

The third act becomes Green’s personal NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955) by way of Terrence Malick. The farther the boys run away from the “bad guy”, the deeper into authenticity and realism the film goes. Running through the woods and into the rural south, poverty and strife permeates the landscape. Resting momentarily with a poor black couple, the boys bear witness to an emotionally devastating scene of loss when the woman who took them in tells of her losing her baby because it wouldn’t take her milk. We are treated to overlapping monologues by the young Tim in between bouts with anxiety and confusion that could easily have been lifted directly from the mouth of Linda, the fierce narrator of DAYS OF HEAVEN.

The specter of Josh Lucas as the Hollywood heavy looms large on the horizon as the end of the film comes nearer. Ultimately, Green finds the perfect balance, constructing an uncompromising climax that must have satisfied the Hollywood suits as well, because despite losing money with UNDERTOW, Green has lived to direct another day, see SNOW ANGELS (2007) and PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008).

SNOW ANGELS

Hollywood finally catches up with David Gordon Green with the production of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, a less than successful attempt to parody the Action Film genre. And while all the actors do their level best to gin up some comic inspiration from the underwritten script by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, ultimately what we’re left with, in an alternate movie universe, is the best Cheech and Chong movie ever made.

And while as a general rule I find it a bit unfair to play the “not as good as” game, truth be told, the brilliant Brits who created the cult classic SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004), Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg, made this movie much better in `07 with HOT FUZZ.

And as far as David Gordon Green goes, fans of his work will recognize subtle little touches that may come off as odd to the average movie-goer: Bad Guy Gary Cole and Bad Cop Rosie Perez breaking character at the end of a scene; drug dealer James Franco sitting on a bus stop bench anchored to his left and right by what appear to be real-life honest-to-goodness everyday people; a bit of cinema verite scattered about. But, alas when it’s all said and done this movie looks and feels more like a Judd Apatow show with a hint of Gordon Green’s greatness seeping through.

With the adequate box-office PINEAPPLE EXPRESS is bound to do, it’ll be interesting to see where David Gordon Green goes from here. Will he take his newfound Hollywood clout and double-down by further homogenizing his work, next stop Palookaville. Or will he continue to challenge the status quo, at the risk of being exiled in Orson Welles-Ville, next stop Ernest and Julio Gallo.

	Enter your search termsSubmit search form
	Web www.american-vulture.com