Some idiot is going to invent a Rat Pack-variation nickname for this North Carolinian consortium of indie filmmakers, if there be justice in the world. They deserve the publicity.
David Gordon Green was the first on the scene at the turn of the decade, whispering the spell of America's rusted back forty. Since then Ramin Bahrani has found a cogent paradigm for our domestic identity in the new century (ironically, or perhaps fittingly, by resurrecting Italy's postwar neorealism); Jody Hill now stands to challenge the incumbent Judd Apatow with a spoonful of bitter medicine, and I just witnessed Craig Zobel pull off a queasy trick of docufiction that frames our complicity in shilling the American Dream. What these directors share is an affinity for viewing American life from its unglamorous angles. That is not to say the view is ugly, disparaging or even unromantic, but rather modest. I find it most agreeable. Noble in its truth.
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