The Lucky Throw of Bones
Your Highness (2011)
directed by David Gordon Green
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at AMC Waterfront 22
I made the mistake of reading a review of Your Highness last Friday, and spent a week worrying that a movie I'd looked forward to for nearly a year was a flat-out failure. Maybe the Academy Awards soured America on James Franco, and I've heard from reliable sources that the second season of Eastbound & Down isn't what the first one was. I may not love David Gordon Green the way I used to, but if this sequence makes your top two Daniel Desario moments in Freaks and Geeks, then you have nothing to fear from the gentle Your Highness.
Both half-assed and sincere, it affirms my faith in the sort of man who would follow up one hit comedy by traveling to Ireland, meeting with top production designers, and outfitting his friends with chain mail and leather in service of a giggle-strength one-note joke. After the reviews, I imagined a mean-spirited crassness that never materialized amid walls with eyes and wildfire vulgarity. It's funny that Charles Dance didn't even need to change his clothes for Game of Thrones when the cast and crew of Your Highness went back to the States, but here he encourages his two sons even as he expects next to nothing from the "youngest."
In the end, it isn't as if Danny McBride watched Krull or The Beastmaster with Ben Best just to make outrageous comments about Tanya Roberts on the red carpet. James Franco might not be a sword and sorcery guy, but there's something genuine in the collective effort to not just hit the touchstones of early-80s fantasy film, but to actually make a Beastmaster of their own. It's intentional, I think, that McBride - instead of Franco - pulls the sword from the bones of a unicorn: Franco never dreamed about that stuff as a kid, but Danny McBride probably did. Kissing the A-list actress is a part of the same game.
Even if it isn't great, I loved it. And give Franco credit for playing Fabious fast and easy (and Simon Farnaby credit for best post-Powers hairstyle). The three witches are more than absurd; they're fun.
directed by David Gordon Green
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at AMC Waterfront 22
I made the mistake of reading a review of Your Highness last Friday, and spent a week worrying that a movie I'd looked forward to for nearly a year was a flat-out failure. Maybe the Academy Awards soured America on James Franco, and I've heard from reliable sources that the second season of Eastbound & Down isn't what the first one was. I may not love David Gordon Green the way I used to, but if this sequence makes your top two Daniel Desario moments in Freaks and Geeks, then you have nothing to fear from the gentle Your Highness.
Both half-assed and sincere, it affirms my faith in the sort of man who would follow up one hit comedy by traveling to Ireland, meeting with top production designers, and outfitting his friends with chain mail and leather in service of a giggle-strength one-note joke. After the reviews, I imagined a mean-spirited crassness that never materialized amid walls with eyes and wildfire vulgarity. It's funny that Charles Dance didn't even need to change his clothes for Game of Thrones when the cast and crew of Your Highness went back to the States, but here he encourages his two sons even as he expects next to nothing from the "youngest."
In the end, it isn't as if Danny McBride watched Krull or The Beastmaster with Ben Best just to make outrageous comments about Tanya Roberts on the red carpet. James Franco might not be a sword and sorcery guy, but there's something genuine in the collective effort to not just hit the touchstones of early-80s fantasy film, but to actually make a Beastmaster of their own. It's intentional, I think, that McBride - instead of Franco - pulls the sword from the bones of a unicorn: Franco never dreamed about that stuff as a kid, but Danny McBride probably did. Kissing the A-list actress is a part of the same game.
Even if it isn't great, I loved it. And give Franco credit for playing Fabious fast and easy (and Simon Farnaby credit for best post-Powers hairstyle). The three witches are more than absurd; they're fun.
posted by NPK at 12:14 PM
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