George Washington, New American Gothic
David Gordon Green's first feature is beautiful and painful, and unlike most of the movies you're likely to see even in an "indie" context. Several adolescent non-actors and a few "grown ups" (for example the extremely talented and nuanced Paul Schneider) lend a striking realism to a film that is more a series of interconnected vignettes than a typical Hollywood narrative, and together with Green and cinematographer Tim Orr, create a familiar yet alien America in a romantic style not dissimilar to Faullkner. This film is definitely worth seeing, and doubly worth seeing on the big screen for its beautiful and unusual landscapes of the decrepit and decaying south. I can't imagine what another filmmaker might have done with this material; in fact Green himself has said that almost every scene is "disposable," and Green has definitely followed his own vision and created something so poignant that, as one of the film's main characters says, it almost hurts to breathe.