George Washington (2000)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Just what I expected

Crappy film

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

David Gordon Green directs "George Washington", a beautiful tone poem which revolves around a group of young, mostly black, North Carolinan children. The film's central character is George, a thirteen year old kid who wears a football helmet because of a weak, malformed skull. George, like a superhero from a child's cartoon, drifts across a world in which impoverished blacks and whites occupy a landscape of decaying industrial towns, wreckage and rusty metal. Like most of Green's films, all conversation is muted, poetic, the narrative structure is loose and dreamy, and both dialogue and compositions are heavily improvised.Thematically, the film has the world stumped. Since its release, every conceivable metaphor and allegory has been read into "George Washington", most of which the film ably absorbs. Most of the time, though, it's obvious that "Washington's" very young director, with his strained poetry and strained meditativeness, is reaching for things he perhaps himself doesn't quite understand. All Green knows is that he doesn't want his film to be like everyone else's.Still, the film's title is a stroke of genius, evoking a complex web of both American mythology and history. It's a great history which this black kid – weak, damaged in the head – aspires to be part of, and which he eventually will, with a little help from his multiracial neighbourhood of friends. 8/10 – At its best, the film channels well the tone of Terrance Malick's "Badlands" and Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep".

David Gordon Green's first feature is like Gummo, only better: characters stumble across a vast wasteland they're only semi-aware of, but instead of just being weird and disturbing, these characters are gentle and caring. Actually, it's worth noting that most of the dialog is not all that un-familiar, and that if the characters were older this movie would seem like pretentious Indie junk. Instead, it puts the context into comedic relief to see 12 year olds discussing love like aging veterans of break-up and loss.As for, well, imagery: heart-breaking/rending photography. Shot in North Carolina, two people to praise would be the location scout and the cinematographer.... the town these people live in is shapeless, buildings and trash and trains and mines and forest and plants and trees and swamp all co-inhabit the same spaces. The characters seem to know their way around, but trying to track them in context to an overall map is impossible. As a background, it serves well, but also symbolically links to George's traffic directing as a true act of heroism, even after saving that kid's life.Anyway, this movie is wonderful, and as David Gordon Green has been getting a lot of attention lately what with his new movie Pineapple Express coming out, I'd like to check out more of his work.--PolarisDiB

When I see the writer and the director are the same guy I sometimes worry.This was my first inkling this may not be a great movie. The characters are an odd mix. I like the fact that most of them are just ordinary people. Movies usually go way over the top with casting and outrageous characters. But there are some pretty silly characters in this movie too. Also I got tired of the poor wrong side of the tracks philosophical wise child character that is so pervasive in this film. Most of the adults in the movie have serious defects and the writer's view of the South is questionable. It seems to me he also intends it to be depressing.Unlike some of the reviews I've read I thought the cast did fairly well. It was the plot, script and direction that made this film impossible.It's easy to see where the director was going with this film; it's just debatable whether or not it's worth the trip

I'm not exactly sure why I choose to order this movie from Netflix beyond the fact that I just wanted to see something a different. This film was definitely that! There was no specific plot or easily conceivable manifestation as to how any one character tied in to another. Basically, each person was just there, crossing the path of another poor soul, also just happening to be there. George, the centerpiece of the movie, had aspirations of being great, as explained by Nasia, the movie's narrator, but you kinda get the feeling that he is just a moronic preteen that doesn't seem to make any more sense than any other person in the movie, though he is deemed to be developmentally disabled. The parts that were supposed to be serious were, to me, hilarious for the most part because they were so random and out of whack. Nothing made sense. Like George riding in a taxi to transport his deceased friend, Buddy, to a river where he could be laid to rest. Oh, did I mention that his friend had been dead for what was probably over a month, and though the "authorities" were searching for Buddy, no one questions George? I can go on and on about this movie, but see it yourself if you don't believe me, or, you can watch something more worthy of your attention, like the back of your eyelids! The only reason that this move get's a three (I have scarcely seen one worse) is because it made me laugh. Would I watch it again? Maybe if I was high.