Mr. Smith Goes to Washington featured a young, authentic Jimmy Stewart who does battle with the corrupt political machine. Many decades later, that hardened view of politicians (and the machine that gets them elected) has not changed.
Manglehorn dabbles in the strange and peculiar, but at its core, it may be director David Gordon Green’s safest and least rewarding drama yet. The film contains weird scribbles in its margins, but the narrative is thin and contains little chew on. A.J. Manglehorn (Al Pacino) is a grizzled locksmith and wounded soul living in small-town Texas, still aching for a woman named Clara who got away many years ago. He sends regretful letters to her like clockwork but they always find a way back to his mailbox unread. Manglehorn now spends his days cutting locks, looking after his ill cat and making kind, flirty conversation with Dawn (Holly Hunter), the friendly bank teller he visits each week.
Angelo Manglehorn (Al Pacino) is a man adrift. He has no connections to tie him to the world, no close relationships with family or friends. As a locksmith, he spends his days crafting spare keys or helping people who have locked themselves out of their cars. When the day is done, he returns home to spend the evening with his sole companion: his cat, Fanny. Much like its eponymous character, David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn drifts aimlessly, never bothering to make meaningful connections between characters or story elements.
David Gordon Green has never allowed himself to be easily pinned down as a filmmaker. After making his name with dreamy independent films about relationships and growing up, he moved onto big budget comedies of varying quality. While even his most dire efforts bring a certain amount of style (even the awful Your Highness had a compelling visual softness not usually associated with medieval stoner comedies), many have mourned the direction of his career. His newest effort, Manglehorn, feels like a bastard child of these two worlds. In many ways it’s his most visually adventurous film since his career began, but it’s hardly a return to his early work in terms of feel, theme or style.
Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh recently made a new foray into television following his announced retirement from filmmaking to helm all episodes of the first season of Showtime’s The Knick. That’s not the only tv project Soderbergh is involved in, however, as he has also teamed up with filmmaker David Gordon Green, among others, as a producer for the potential series Red Oaks. Following a university student in 1985 New Jersey as he tries to figure out the next stage of his life while working at a tennis club, Amazon and the creators have released the pilot online in hopes of getting a series order. The pilot, while not touching on the full potential of the show, is nonetheless an entertaining episode with a lot of promise for the series.
Joe Directed by David Gordon Green Written by Gary Hawkins US, 2013 A popular view is that humanity is unfit for this world. It has been examined many times throughout art. In the Larry Brown novel, Joe (1991), David Gordon Green adeptly utilizes rural syntax and naturalistic setting to express heady themes about man’s capacity …
With 111.5-million U.S. viewers, and a further 7.3-million in Canada, Super Bowl XLVIII was the most-watched in history. The commercial spots were the most expensive for any TV broadcast in any given year, and there were plenty of big name stars and A-list directors who helped create these very expensive advertisements. John Hillcoat, director of …
Review #1 Joe Written by Gary Hawkins Directed by David Gordon Green USA, 2013 Despite his early filmography making him a critical favourite and causing film lovers to sing his praises, David Gordon Green’s recent ventures have moved sharply away from such films. The same can be said of Nicolas Cage, who has unfortunately been …
David Gordon Green says that he was inspired to make his most recent film, Prince Avalanche, after shooting a Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler that featured Clint Eastwood. His crew was about ten men, with not much star power (Eastwood isn’t on screen for two-thirds of it), and it was shockingly easy for Green considering how much money Chrysler was willing to put at stake. Prince Avalanche is similar, a film so easygoing and simple that it seems to have required no effort at all, but which never seems lazy.
Tonally, somewhat close to his effort 2003 All the Real Girls, David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche shows a more serious face than his recent run of comedies.
Prince Avalanche Directed by David Gordon Green Written by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson (original story), David Gordon Green (adapted screenplay) US, 2013 The inception of this film does not so much start with a story but a location. Filmed in the ash ridden Bastrop, TX after the late 2011 fires that devastated thousands of homes, Prince …
While his recent cinematic ventures have been more in the broad comedy vein, David Gordon Green’s earlier work, such as All the Real Girls and Snow Angels, were character-driven dramas that endeared him to the indie film community, and many fans have lamented his move away from such fare. It seems that Gordon Green himself …
In my opinion, it’s pretty hard to find a filmography as interesting as David Gordon Green’s. It’s starts off with the acclaimed independent drama George Washington, then moves onto films like All the Real Girls and Snow Angels, and takes a total 180 with Pineapple Express and Your Highness (with the Jonah Hill starrer The …
It’s a new year and a new decade. Here’s looking forward to a prosperous decade of cinema. Will it known for a slew of sequels and comic book adaptations and funny cat videos like the 00’s were? Or will it be known for groundbreaking and socially relevant cinema like the 70s? There’s a glimmer of …
Variety reports that Cate Blanchett is set to star as Lady Edwina Mountbatten in Joe Wright’s Indian Summer. The film will follow the critical events during India’s Independence from England. Lord Mountbatten (with Edwina in tow) is sent to oversee the transfer of power to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the summer of …