Another New release DVD review. Prince Avalanche

Glib Movie Reviews Another “New Release”

Prince Avalanche
- Directed by David Gordon Green

There is a tidy bit of clever credits meets the action in the opening moments of Prince Avalanche, a relatively recent DVD release, I watched last night. I’m a huge DGG (as I call him) fan, his only weak film in my opinion, being the stoner comedy “Your Highness.” That picture ironically left me not laughing. It all seemed so much more forced than any of his earlier work.

But since then, he’s done some good TV work: East Bound & Down, the dark Jonah Hill comedy “The Sitter,” “ Pineapple Express,” (which I gave notes for, on a very early draft of the screenplay by Evan Goldberg, back in my first video store daze in 2001, 02 or so.)  Prince Avalanche, and the upcoming “Joe” which judging by the trailer, looks like a return to the more serious vibes of DGG’s first film, George Washington, or Snow Angels, his fourth. 

Prince Avalanche, to get to the actual review, is for me, sort of wedged between Green’s more comedic stuff and the more dramatic vis a vie: a weird thing, that I commented on as soon as I watched the trailer, and now after watching the film; DGG made his version of a Wes Anderson picture. It talks about deeper character things through the characters’ quirks. This may not have been as purposeful on Green’s part as I make it seem. But it is difficult to watch a film maker dabble in artifice these days without thinking of Anderson, so prevalent is his style in contemporary US cinema.

There was also a bit of odd almost ‘titling’ at least once in the film, that echoed the opening where Rudd (the foreman of the small road crew composed of him and a pudgy Emile Hirsch) holds a post, while Hirsch pounds it in, and the letter echo with each strike, P-R-I-N-C-E__A-V-A-LANCHE. The later bit isn’t as as brash a breakage of the fourth wall, and many will miss it. I would have liked maybe even a bit more of that bit of trickery.

Interestingly, This film that is basically a two-hander (a few cameos) I watched a night after watching a Stunning one character film, the night before (see my review of “The Wall, ” below), it did not delve as deeply into the existential life of their characters, but it was a decent exploration of friendship, in a fairly straight forward Bro-mance kind of way. It definitely had lots of nice moments, and I liked the dorky Bros that these guys are. But it’s still kind of light. Good film, but by no means a great film, it’s worth a rental, certainly.




6.99999 crazy truck drivers supplying you with ginger ale, folksy wisdom, and moonshine outta 10

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