OUR REVIEW
by Dave White
Who's in It: Daniel London, Will Oldham
The Basics: Two estranged buddies go on an overnight camping trip and realize they've lost each other for good. There's very little plot; they drive and pretty scenery happens, dread-filled Air America squawks out of the radio, they stop for gas, they go to a hot spring and soak in a tub, smoke some pot and feel sad about letting each other go.
What's the Deal? Movies that trade A-B-C plot for mood are an opportunity for you to test how well you see and listen. Here it's about gestures and glances and shots of garbage strewn in a forest and hopeless talk radio pleading in the background — a lot of specific stuff adds up to a universal melancholy. It's about the saddest, and most beautiful, American movie of the year.
Shut Up, You: I'm already hearing from the haters on this one, people talking nonsense about how movies "about nothing" are boring and pretentious and how only film critics trying to appear cool end up liking them. And to them, I say this: Just because you're an unsophisticated film-watcher, don't come crying to me about it, Jerko. That's right, I said unsophisticated. Go Netflix some Ozu movies.
How It's Like Brokeback Mountain: They get naked together in the woods and one of them gives the other an impromptu and unrequested neck and shoulder massage. But that's as far as it goes. After a second you realize that nothing gay is going to happen; it's just a hippie thing, and one guy's attempt to reach out to the other one.
Who's the Guy With the Beard? Will Oldham, playing the stoner, is the indie-rock fixture who calls himself Bonnie Prince Billy and recorded under the Palace name before that. And if you go way back, he was also in John Sayles' Matewan.
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