Heya Guys,

I didn’t know what to expect this morning when I dragged myself out of bed this morning to see David Gordon Green’s newest film Snow Angels. I adored his first film George Washington, and I like his other two films to a certain extent but found them disappointing. Even though they disappointed me that doesn’t mean that I thought they were anywhere near bad films, he just happened to set the bar very damn high with his first feature. In a way I kind of feel like All the Real Girls and Undertow were just larger-budget training for this film, because with Snow Angels Green has hit the ball way out of the park, I don’t think I will be seeing a better movie at sundance than his film.

With Snow Angels Green’s back in small-town-america where he works so well, I don’t know if there is any director alive today that can capture the feelings and characters that inhabit small towns. His films bring a real sense of community and solidarity among the areas where most seem to go with the stereotypical redneck, slightly stupid characters who have never driven thirty miles outside their area. I love green’s characters they always feel realistic and quite easy to identify with and moreso very easy to fall in love with, well except for that psychotic night of the hunter meets cape fear character in Undertow.

Snow Angels begins with a high-school band rehearsal, the band teacher (Tom Noonan) is quite strict and comically serious about his instruction. Michael Angarano’s character is a Tuba player, a cute little bespectacled girl waves at him from the stands. Two gunshots are heard in the distance stopping everyone in their tracks and silencing the band rehearsal, putting a grim feeling over everything. It cuts to black then the movie begins now quite earlier, Michael is a busboy at a Chinese restaurant that is owned by a Czech man, not one of those normal Chinese restaurants this is one of the backwoods small-town one’s that hasn’t seen an asian person in a long time.

Kate Beckinsale is a waitress at the restaurant and she’s quite friendly with Angarano, she’s known him since he was a little kid. She’s being accosted by her ex-husband played by Sam Rockwell, a reformed alcoholic who is trying to piece back together his life after it recently fell apart, a good friend of his has just hooked him up with a job at a carpet factory. Michael’s parents are also in the middle of breaking up, his father (Griffin Dunne) is gearing up to move out. Everybody’s lives are thrown about when a child in the town goes missing. That’s about as much as the plot that I can tell without spoiling anything.

I must say that I’ve not really liked Kate Beckinsale for the past couple years, in most of her work lately she’s seemed to be only capable of stiff-performances and looking really good in skintight leather while firing machine-guns in slow-motion shitty action sequences. Even in the aviator Martin Scorsese couldn’t squeeze that much life out of her, but things seem to have changed as she gives a very wonderful emotional performance in Snow Angels, She’s a very confused woman, she’s not certain what she wants out of life or for her family, or her feelings toward her ex-husband, but bad memories cloud her mind everytime he tries to bring himself back into her life.

Sam Rockwell gives the performance of his career here, his character is very complex, even though he seems like the nicest guy on earth there seems to be a violent person underneath just waiting to be set off. Theres a couple shots towards the end of the film of Sam looking at his reflection in a television set that keeps ringing in my mind now over a day since watching the film. This man deserves an oscar for this work, I hope someone picks it up and releases it this fall.

Angarano is quite a delight here, it’s really nice to see him get a role in a great movie as he’s a really gifted actor and he was the only thing to bring any sort of life to “One Last Thing” earlier this year. This is the first time that I can recall seeing Olivia Thirlby, though IMDB tells me she was in United 93, but I can’t recall her in it. In Snow Angels Olivia is unforgettable, she’s a cute little high school girl that you can’t help but fall in love with, her relationship with Angarano is the happy soul of the movie, their love brightens an otherwise very dark film.

As with every David Gordon Green film it’s the supporting characters that really make the film special. Perhaps one of the most wonderful characters is another waitress at the Chinese restaurant played by Amy Sedaris, she gives a very dramatic performance in this one that is quite a stretch from her strangers with candy work. Then there’s Nicky Katt, who’s an actor I’ve always been a huge fan of but seems to rarely get work that’s this good. Katt plays sedaris’s boyfriend who is cheating with beckinsale’s character, he’s a really funny character, he’s a total asshole, but his excuses for everything he does is so hilarious, very wonderful dialogue.

Okay I’ve rambled enough about this picture now. It’s a very grim and dark picture, but I think it’s quite a worthwhile trip. I also think it’s the best film that David Gordon Green has made to date. I’m off to write about other stuff now from the greatest Chinese buffet in park city (and I say that because it has wi-fi and is next to the press screening theatres).

Rav
Ravkill@msn.com