Once upon a time 50 years ago

According to Sarris’ paradigm of American auteur cinema, let’s say Nutcrackers (2024, David Gordon Green) is of the Far Side of Paradise order. One way to approach its ingeniously structured design is by recognizing its theme, which has something to do with following your heart. 
     The theme of Nutcrackers manifests itself as a symbiotic redemption plot. This is foreshadowed with the line of dialogue JUSTICE (Homer Janson) first recriminates UNCLE MIKE (Ben Stiller) with by the denunciation “You’re incapable of loving anyone.” So, if Mike’s arc is to realize his bigshot real estate values aren’t what are most valuable in life, then Justice’s is something like gaining the courage and self-esteem to get out of his own way with first love MIA (Maren Heisler), and overcoming his insecurities about performing ballet related to what the other kids will think of him and losing his mother.
     I would argue this is Green’s most personal film to date. And his most tearjerker. Nutcrackers, thematically, is also something of a trojan horse in the scrappy orphan genre. Because like say, Addie Pray, the orphan typically is emotionally out of reach and violently defensive because of the justification that too many adults have relinquished or avoided custody of them; if nobody wants me then I don’t want nobody. But the KICKLIGHTER BOYS had amazing parents. Parents who wouldn’t send them to school because that’s where “they teach you how to be like everyone else.” And the clincher in Nutcrackers is that at the end (because of Mike) the boys and all of us are shown that if you had parents who loved you, then even after they’re gone, their love will always stay with you. And it’s the catharsis of that magical profound depiction of love that sets this movie apart. And it doesn’t hurt that in return the boys show Mike how it's okay to not try so hard to be (materialistic?) what he thinks would make him successful in the eyes of everyone else. 
 
In most movies, the second act is the longest and most integral to engaging the audience with its plot; but Nutcrackers’ second act is the shortest. The first act is like Uncle Buck or Home Alone in the way there’s this big two-story house full of kids (and in this case farm animals) where if you’re a kid, you wish you could live. And I never want to leave this house. If Act I is Uncle Mike superficially trying to be a good uncle and figure out how find these kids a home, then Act II is going about it. But it’s here where at the Wilmington Estate we also get to meet Mia. When Justice and Mia are together you feel exactly what it was like to fall in love for the first time. The warmly lit singles of them up at the top of the staircase are tender, romantic, pure innocent melt your shell of cynicism holiday hearth. 
     It’s great how you just get a hint of ROSE (Edi Patterson) at Wilmington’s because you know it's imminent she’s gonna sleigh. You remember how dark Green can be though when Rose makes that yogurt threat. Anyways, so yeah, Act III is the ballet performance and yes, that’s what you wanna wait for. That’s why the pacing of this movie never wavers. Worth mentioning all I’ll say is the biggest pathos Mike moment for me is that simple utterance of the web page “that I made.” Oh man I’m gonna cry again. 
 
Visually, the defining motif for me is the 4 boys running through a field together. And there’s this amazing scene early on where the boys have this bonfire at night to scatter their parents’ ashes, and there’s this in-camera phaser effect where the glowing flames seem to stretch vertically. It says something words can’t. And there’s a pan over to um I think Arlo frame right close on him and we share in something you wouldn't have thought possible for a movie to be able to.
 
During and after my viewing of Nutcrackers there are so many jokes I been trying to quote. Instead of an exhaustive inventory of them, I’ll limit it to some of JUNIOR’S (Uly) creative imagination’s best crop. What does he say at the Nativity? “…and that was the first time the baby Jesus knew what ice cream tasted like. And Creamy’s only present was a tombstone.” That’s my kind of comedy. And when Mike is reading Junior’s composition book, the line about a bunch of people went to a party at Ronald Reagan’s house and Junior says “why not?” with such truly enthusiastic wonder it’s infectious; that timing is art. The set-up and non-sequitur payoff is all over Nutcrackers, and what Green is a master at getting through improvisation. 
     It’s like when Rose is mentioning how if Mike were to ever want to visit the boys and she could provide lodging accommodations, “I have a foldout couch… in my bedroom.” Maybe I shouldn’t say it’s so much a non-sequitur punchline as much as it’s a sophisticatedly clever unexpected one. (And the pullout couch zinger kinda goes back to an Eastbound and Down joke that uses a deceptively innocent into more overt type pick-up line to similar effect.) 
 
In closing, Nutcrackers shows us how to wreak havoc if it’s fun. And reminds us how to love. Justice loves to dance. Junior loves to write. To love to be able to be yourself, pursue your creative passion, and find people that mean something to you prove to be what we leave celebrating after the film’s over. So, it’s only incidentally a holiday movie (shh don’t tell anyone). It’s not life-affirming, it’s the poetry of look at all life can be, and has been the whole time right in front of us. 
 
11/16/2024 The Murphy Theatre
Wilmington, OH

The difference between Catholics and Baptists

Know what the difference is between the religions Catholic and Baptist are? I don’t. I just know they both believe in Jesus. A ton of religions believe in Jesus though. Cinematically, Catholicism has always been my favorite religion. From Buñuel and Hitchcock to Coppola and Scorsese there’s really no question of any rival Christian based religion holding a candle to it.
     But that was a long time ago. The first thing that struck me about The Exorcist: Believer (2023, David Gordon Green) is how in keeping with the expanding inclusivity of contemporary society in addition to a Catholic priest, adds Baptist, Pentecostal, and Hoodoo to the mix. I guess like the cool thing about it is it leads to a view of spirituality with a focus more on people and their faith instead of overwrought adherence to any specific religious institution. Although now that I think about it something else cool about the earlier Exorcist films is that Catholicism is kind of scary—great fit.

The Exorcist: Believer can be broken down into two parts: about 70 minutes of set-up and the payoff 30 minute exorcism sequence. The set-up includes a Haitian prologue rich in exotic imagery and backstory full of significance for the lead character VICTOR. (The Haiti work was filmed in the Dominican Republic, and there are amazing crowd shots that were filmed without permits or releases.)
     But when the set-up moves into the point after the girls have been found is where the film achieves its force. The home life of Victor and ANGELA is carried off with a subtle calm that’s so conducive to the quiet spooky chills as fundamental to the demonic terror that creeps in. And we care for these characters all the more so because of it. 
     As for the exorcism itself, it’s one gnarly extravaganza. Taking the film as a whole, while encompassing supernatural horror, the demon throughout is mischievously prone to psychological attacks to break down its ops—and does so by breaking down their faith. And here is where The Exorcist: Believer proves it knows its stakes, while maybe even raising those of its forbears.

For fans of David Gordon Green, on display here find his expertise in casting (with the help of longtime “specialty casting” agents John Williams and Karmen Leech) authentic talent for both the homeless camp and the mental hospital. In particular, the actor playing the HOMELESS GEEZER (Eddie Craddock) is great. When he first pops up as the cops are investigating the school after the girls go missing, his dialogue goes something like “We ain’t seen nothing. We ain’t done nothing. We ain’t know nothing,” is way fun. It’s the care taken with characters in general that Green knows goes a long way in creating his cinematic worlds for the stories to exist in.

 

10/05/2023 AMC Phipps Plaza 14

Atlanta, GA

DCP

 

Everyone Loses

Halloween Kills (2021, David Gordon Green) is something powerful. Somewhere around the early ‘10s I’d noticed David Gordon Green had a fondness for casting oddities, weirdos, and what I referred to as “grotesques.” Some of these people have an authenticity one doesn’t usually encounter in Hollywood movies. Some are amputees. Some are from the streets. Some have a mental illness. But Green cares for them. And this is part of what makes him original and begins to encapsulate a description of his style of filmmaking.

     MICHAEL MYERS is the ultimate David Gordon Green grotesque. The motif Kills establishes wherein Myers is discovered to have spent most of his life looking out the window of his bedroom not at Haddonfield, but at his own reflection is profound. This image system adds so much depth to Myers’ character because in answer to the fundamental question the franchise is built on: “Is there anything staring back at us behind those empty eyes?,” it suggests the possibility that maybe as a child Myers wondered the same thing. And one could even go further and ask, how much of the violence and hate inflicted on Myers made him less a person and more THE SHAPE?

     To make a broad sweeping generalization about David Gordon Green, his movies typically fall into two distinct categories: R-rated comedies with heart, and bleak rural arthouse depression. What makes Halloween Kills indelible is how depressing it is. The original (cut) ending David shot for Halloween (2018, Green) had The Shape getting attacked and shot by a crossbow through his shoulder, finally wandering away to sit, exhausted, defeated, and remove his mask as the camera irises out. That’s the kind of depressing tone David does so well. And even though it was replaced by a more traditionally satisfying ending, I felt the same impact in another scene in Halloween Kills. It’s when SHERIFF BARKER, played by Omar Dorsey, finally gives up trying to uphold the law when the mob rushes out of the hospital; sitting down in a stairwell, exhausted, defeated, and removes his cowboy hat.

     Yet even more depressing is the scene where the escapee from Smith’s Grove makes the plummet. Fuck. That shit is emotionally atrocious. Because right when KAREN takes his hand and offers him kindness, he’s done for. That’s where the pathos sparks. But that aftermath from Christopher Nelson is one of the most gruesome, shocking, amazing deaths in a horror movie. And then the mob, well...

 

I wasn’t prepared for how much I loved all the 1978 timeline, and how well it matches its period look. Halloween Kills pays a lot of attention to building on Haddonfield as a world, and again trenching up so many potent aspects of already established franchise lore. Like the way it picks up on the same night just like Halloween II (1981, Rick Rosenthal). Also the way Halloween Kills all takes place on the same night as the film that precedes it has this quality where it’s in many ways bigger, and faster paced, and has more action, but still contained and claustrophobic—something Carpenter built into its style long ago.

     And as I wind down I’ll close with some minutiae. In Halloween (2018), the shot where the smartphone gets thrown in the nacho cheese read to me like the movie was alluding to some deliberate wink about how modern tech devices and crap like that don’t belong in the movie. So I had a similar hunch in Halloween Kills during the scene with the drone; not saying much here other than could be poking fun at modern technology/annoying products? Also the bartender at the talent show is played by an actor named Brian Mays, who I think owns Sam’s BBQ in Austin, that casting director John Williams suggested. I do know David loves casting Brian Mays, and the dude is great in a way that proves the joys of seeing someone give non-professional actors a shot. 

     The scenes with the little kid razor blade trick r treaters is the funniest. Just those kids whole attitude is fun. And it kind of goes with the comments from the doctor about JULIEN, when he calls him like “that little asshole kid.” Halloween Kills rules because it’s bleak, sad, way depressing, yet with a dash of funny hijinks. Everyone loses. And for a horror movie, why not? Halloween Kills is brutal in many ways, but especially in that it doesn't give us any silver linings for once. Brilliant.

 

10/14/2021 AMC Madison Yards 8

Atlanta, GA

DCP 

Folks Lookin' for Trouble Tend to Find More Than They're After

What do attack dog pitbulls, cottonmouth rattlesnakes, lowlife degenerate drunks, and an ex-con with a rapsheet full of violence arrests all have in common? You'd be best to keep mindful and watch your step around them. But also, that there are some folks who have no choice but to learn how to live with them.

Joe (2013, David Gordon Green) is a rural tragedy about a fortysomething loner that finds himself taking account of what really matters after a long life of learning to survive in a tough Southern backwoods populated by crooks, swindlers, drunks, and the remaining souls trying to find a decent plight in the midst of all of this.

Joe Ransom (Nicolas Cage) makes his living running his own business with a crew of laborers he organizes to chop through forests poisoning the timber to clear the land so that contractors can replace the forests with better trees. In the small Texas town where he lives everyone knows him and his reputation. Joe's honest. Joe's a good guy to have a whiskey with. And he keeps to himself. But he can only be pushed so far before you'll eventually find his dark violent streak, and his buttons are not hard to find.

Fighting against total submission to his savage instincts, Joe seeks to love.

If Joe were pitched at Warners in the early Thirties it could have been described as: A wild brute wants to settle down after a hell of a life but has to buy his redemption at the cost of saving a troubled youth.

David Green delivers some heavy brooding spot on storytelling thanks to this simple, honest, masculine milieu. There are two threads to the narrative. First, Gary Jones (Tye Sheridan) is the central character in the story of Joe's redemption. Secondly, there's the story of Joe trying to be alone; because, the dame, and the independence that comes from owning his own business are stabs at domesticity.

Now that all the boring formal description is out of the way, Joe's got teeth. The boy Joe must save has a garish nightmare of a dysfunctional homelife. His mom and dad are whitetrash alcoholic hillbillies who are dumpsterdining and squatting in a condemned sinkhole of a shack when we meet them. The dad, Wade Jones (Ozzy Poulter) is relentlessly cruel and himself a depiction of one of the basest of all depraved monsters. Wade beats his family and worse, although it hurts to even imagine. Wade drinks for a living while oppressing his hangers on kin with what is most remarkably his own twisted ideals of love.

If Joe is a pitbull, Wade is rattlesnake. There's a parallel when Joe first picks up the rattlesnake before he meets Gary: Joe releases the snake unharmed, telling the other workers not to harm it because it's his "friend." And finally at the end of the movie when Joe confronts Wade, in a strikingly tender surrender he pleads with Joe and asks him: "Are you my friend?" the theme coalesces.

Joe is worth digging into.

Wingo's score is sparse, dark, low, brooding and foreboding and fits the tragic tone of this tale. Tim Orr's eye finds the compositions he's best known for again in the rural Texas wilderness against rainy mudsoaked vistas.

Wingo and Tim blend their talents perfectly in the opening scene when we cut from Gary and Wade on the traintracks seamlessly with the soundbridge into Joe smoking a cigarette, emerging from his pickup truck to be tracked into the magnificent rainy canvas populated by soaked workers and pines along the mid and background.

Cage is dynamite and Tye is forceful.

Brenda Isaacs Booth is disturbing and beautiful as Mother Jones. The way she says "that's good babies" when she's just talking to Gary is a running David Gordon Green touch--pluralizing a noun that should be singular.

David Green finds himself getting the best moments out of the cast setting up the everyday workings that most filmmakers mistake as background. The general store clerk, whorehouse couch potatoes, barflys, and his pals at Blind George's poker games to name a few. But Green has discovered some gems of character actors. Namely the leader of his forest-clearing crew Junior. Junior is played by Brian Mays, owner of Sam's BBQ in Austin, TX and a man who's never acted before. Mays's growling drawling gold-tooth filled colorful speeches are not too far from how he talks in real life.

And Ozzy Poulter, who plays Wade Jones had also never had any prior experience acting either. Ozzy's charisma in real life will always transcend any possible readings I could have into this character. He was a good friend to me. The inscription on the denim varsity jacket that Wade wears in the film comes from Ozzy's email address. David one day liked gdaawg@hotmail.com and the next thing you know, that character now has an awesome jacket that says G-Daawg on the back. Ozzy loved to breakdance and charm everyone he met, especially the ladies. You might not know it watching him in the movie, but he was one of the kindest and joyful people you'd ever meet.

The pitbull and the rattlesnake will survive the only way that they know--violence. And it takes a dark telling to truly appreciate the brightness in Green's sensibilities on family and friendship here.

--Dregs

The Adventures of Alvin & Lance

In the summer of 2012, after severe forest fires ravaged the rural town of Bastrop, TX, David Gordon Green snuck under the radar of the press and quickly got together with his cinematographer on every-film-he's-ever-done Tim Orr to film a loosely and spontaneously captured comedy with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in the burnt and overcast backdrop of Bastrop State Park.

 

Green has crafted Prince Avalanche (2013, David Gordon Green) as a simple, short, camping trip/men at (road) work ballad about loss, survival, and rebuilding. The opening title card places the narrative in Bastrop, 1988, after the wake of a devastating forest fire. A dark, sombre undertone constantly supports a minimalist and bleak menagerie of odd Texas wildlife, with virtually no signs of civilization, except one---

--The road

Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) are assigned the task of painting and placing signs along an 8 mile stretch of highway, and they are always moving, fighting, laughing, or getting drunk on that same blacktop.

So here's the twist:

Green takes these two distinct male characters and constantly pinpoints details about their contrasting characters in wide stretching intimate forest vistas--and almost every few minutes this becomes classically, essentially archetypal broad comedy that feels fresh and sincerely sweet, with a hefty resolution right where you'd expect it--the end. Yet, David Wingo & Explosions in the Sky have created a prog rock spacey fun concoction that continuously makes the film something else. The film becomes a score-propelled, shiny, bright, electronic, somewhat 80s new wave ironied adventure that never lags. Additionally, Orr's constant slow-as-molasses zooms cut together in a way that turn this trip practically into a music video. This reminds me of David Fincher's collaborations with Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross because like Explosions in the Sky, Reznor & Ross were already in a band, and also because the music is post rock electronic stuff that is wall to wall and dominant, as opposed to the only other director I can think of who uses that kind of music--Michael Mann; but, Mann uses his cues traditionally in an emotionally underscoring way, unlike Fincher and Green, who show real balls with their sonic experimentations.

The film's themes are etched out by a woman named Joyce, who first appears to Alvin in a trance. (After Lance leaves into town for the weekend and Alvin decompresses, reality becomes subjective.) Joyce's significance in the plot isn't worth mentioning in detail because it's up to the individual viewer to find their own response. However, it is reasonable to say that the film has a kindness that never approaches cruelty, as if it chooses to keep looking until it desperately finds what it needs to survive with a will to love and build.

Paul Rudd works marvels within the role of uptight, anally retentive nerdy outdoorsman against a frequently brilliant Emile Hirsch as shallow, woman-crazy, but really too sweet for his own good underneath all the vanity dude.

And if I would say the film had a centerpiece, it's the drunken montage. Green made a serious comedy that's actually hilarious--rare.

--Dregs