One of the funniest things about the bad reviews for “Your Highness” has been reading the hand-wringing disapproval some critics have expressed for the career trajectory of David Gordon Green, the film’s director.
Trust me… all this concern on his behalf is silly. Green is doing exactly what he wants to do, and between “Pineapple Express” and his work on “Eastbound And Down” and, yes, “Your Highness,” you’re seeing just as honest an expression of who he is as a filmmaker as you did in “George Washington” or “All The Real Girls.” Just because he’s not making the exact same movies over and over that he made at the start of his career, that does not mean he’s somehow gotten off-track.
Far from it, in fact. It seems to me that he’s enjoying this change-up quite a bit. The first time I met him, I was invited to visit the “Pineapple” set, and I showed up on a day when they were shooting a car chase. As I walked up, they were just about to roll cameras on a stunt where a cop car smashes through a bunch of things and flips over. I didn’t realize what was going on, but Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg waved me over and told me to watch. Maybe a minute later… BOOM! The stunt came off without a hitch, to quite spectacular effect, and about 20 feet in front of us, someone turned around and gave us the thumbs up, big smile on his face.
“Look at him,” said Evan. “He looks like he just got his first hand job.” And that was how I met “serious filmmaker” David Gordon Green. You’ll see that same look on his face in much of the interview we did about “Your Highness,” as he describes the film and how they got their rating and just what it was they were thinking when they set out to make a movie that is part “Krull,” part Cheech and Chong.
We were having so much fun chatting that I didn’t even get to discussing “Suspiria” with him. It’s only one of my ten favorite horror films, and he’s remaking it next, so you would think it would have been an important subject of conversation. The problem is that when I talk with him, it never feels like a formal interview. It’s just fun, and I suspect that fun is one of the primary motivators in the choices Green’s making these days.
Whether critics get it or not.
“Your Highness” opens everywhere today.