• I certainly hope David Gordon Green returns to this more experimental version of himself—he’s still only in his early 40’s and has 5 archiveable films but going back and reading roger eberts 4 star review of this film and praise for the 29 year old gordon green is a little sad—Ebert says “green has a visual style that is beautiful without being pretty” and I love that—so true- he also picks up on the clear influence of night of the hunter
  • The “southern gothic” style, here and in George washington (by Gordon Green- his stunning debut) and badlands (malick who is a producer here) is evident in the later works of Jeff Nichols (Gordon Green produced his debut) and beasts of the southern wild
  • Heavy heavy malick influence
  • Southern fried folklore
  • The title sequence is a major achievement- freeze frames, washed out colors (like peckinpah’s work), slow motion photography
  • A very young Kristen Stewart has a small role
  • An odd choice to have philip glass to do the score- it’s effective and beautiful times but it’s a little odd seeing it next to a banjo scene of music or organic to the world of the film
  • Sloppy in parts- we dip into voice over from bell’s character late, and then go into the younger brother’s voice over again even later
  • Lines like “I’m organizing these books by the way they smell” that could only exist in a gordon green movie
  • Josh Lucas is a llttle bit like an evil version of Matthew McConaughey in mud. The actors even look alike- though lucas is no MM
  • Clearly night of the hunter– escaped convict looking for treasure hunting two kids on the run in the south…
  • Climatic scene shot and directed well with sound effect work and handheld camera
  • Recommend- but not in top 10 of 2004