Prince Avalanche (David Gordon Green)

[EyesWideOpen]

imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2195548/)

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc261/gothamcentral79/prince-avalanche-poster_zps81da2544.jpg (http://s213.photobucket.com/user/gothamcentral79/media/prince-avalanche-poster_zps81da2544.jpg.html)

[EyesWideOpen]

This is up on amazon instant video for anyone interested.

[NickGlass]

I'm a fan. Still a bit rigid and uber-male, but it's a nice synthesis of DGG's diverging sensibilities.

Review here. (http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/prince-avalanche)

[Winston*]

Really liked it also. The scene with the old lady is the best.

[wigwam]

:|

[Pop Trash]

Member Pineapple Express? That shit was funny.

[Henry Gale]

I'm not someone who ever thought Green no longer had something like this in him (but at the same time the only of his three big studio comedies I wasn't too fond of and only watched once was The Sitter), but this still found a way of creeping up on me as lovely little surprise. Just as many moments made my heart sink (particularly the one Winston mentioned) as ones that made me genuinely laugh out loud. It's almost a perfect mix of Green's sensibilities while still being pretty unlike anything we've seen him do before.

But all of that kinda fits well into how much film itself is about contrasts and contradictions.

Rudd and Hirsch play off of each other really well while the film designs and navigates their relationship with a humbly disconnected foundation. Their sensibilities both as performers and the characters they play feel so perfectly opposed, and the way that dissonance in their solidarity is mined with their various conversations and explorations and how all of that changes over the course of film makes way for a lot of really superb moments. So it's really fitting that its those basic elements and their core strengths that also make up almost the entire crux of the film.

It is a bit brief in a way that make it feel somewhat slight after it's done, and I'm not sure how much of an impression it'll leave on me or my view of Green's oeuvre over time, but for the experience of it in the moment, the stripped down nature of it, its performances, and the unflinchingly focused craftsmanship of Green and Tim Orr behind the camera, it's pretty grand, abeit in a very specific, quiet way.

***1/2 / B+

[Qrazy]

Yeah this was slight but I liked it. The avant-garde montage of street paint was a highlight... very evocative of that inevitable march of time.

[eternity]

Very pretty and Paul Rudd is great in it. Emile Hirsch got chubby.

[Thirdmango]

This is now on Netflix instant.

I liked it even though I can't really connect to Rudd's character. I know people who are like him so I know they exist, I am just so vastly different from his character that I could never empathize. But the acting and chemistry between the two is great and the nature shots are really good. Ultimately I will end up forgetting about this movie, but I did enjoy it while I watched it.

[Ezee E]

So glad to see that this is available on Instant Watch. I'll have to check it out right away.

[dreamdead]

Mildest of yays. As Winston notes, the best scene is the one with Alvin and the old lady, and the subsequent scene with Alvin playacting with his partner. The characters feel too oppressively confined, in an overtly schematic way, and this opens up the narrative. The street paint montage was also a clever way to visualize that sequence with Madison.

Mostly, though, the shift from responsibility that the film seems to be about feels undercut by the abandonment of responsibility in favor of living it up for a weekend with beauty pageant women. So odd and counter-intuitive.