Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

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Pineapple Express (2008)

SaulSaul: This is like if that Blue Oyster shit met that Afghan Kush I had - and they had a baby. And then, meanwhile, that crazy Northern Light stuff I had and the Super Red Espresso Snowflake met and had a baby. And by some miracle, those two babies met and fucked - this would the shit that they birthed.

Dale: Wow. This is the product of baby fucking.

It is the director David Gordon Green's 38th birthday today! We adore DGG and have since forever - I'm pretty sure the first thing of his that I saw was All the Real Girls (which just turned 10 in February, so you know, forever) and then I worked back and saw George Washington after that. So if I were going to gauge The Moment I Fell For David Gordon Green it would be this:

That scene of Patricia Clarkson delivering an amazing dramatic showstopper of a scene while in clown make-up really kinda blew my mind at the time, and I think of it often still. And I suppose if you wanna be precious about it - and do I ever! - you could say his career since then can sort of be summed up by that visual - he's still trying to mash up silly clowns (Pineapple Express, The Sitter) with deadly seriousness (Undertow, Snow Angels).

This morning before I even realized it was his birthday I'd gone and bought my ticket to see his newest film, Prince Avalanche with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, at Tribeca; it got some very good reviews earlier this year at some festivals. It's being hailed by the cineastes as his "return to form" or whatever; me personally, I've enjoyed everything he's done over the past couple of super silly years. But I am glad he's making something small again. Then he can swing back and get his super-bizarre Surpiria remake off the ground, maybe? Yeah I should probably let that one go by now, I know.

This seems as good a time as any to finally share my personal list of Favorite Directors Who Made Their First Film After The Year 2000 - last week maybe you remember that all of the contributors at The Film Experience voted on a collective list, which you can see right here. I said I was gonna share my own list of ten and then... didn't. Until now! Here they be:

The 10 Best Directors of the 21st Century (So Far)

10. Yorgos Lanthimos - Alps wasn't quite the revelation that Dogtooth was, but it was still the sort of wondrous weirdness that I'll always sign up for. Cannot wait to see what he does next, and next, and so on. (Here's my Alps review, and here's my Dogtooth review)

9. Kenneth Lonergan - While You Can Count On Me is a finely observed marvel with two wonderful lead performances, Lonergan made my list because of the epic willful messiness of Margaret, which is a movie I still cannot shake. (Here's my Margaret review.)

8. John Cameron Mitchell - In less than ten years he went from Hedwig and the Angry Inch to Rabbit Hole. How can you not be absolutely transfixed on what the next ten could hold? (Including more berating Hannah on Girls, one hopes!)

7. Miranda July - Did you ever read what Roger Ebert had to say about that moment when July and John Hawkes live out their entire relationship in the space of a walk down a single sidewalk in Me and You and Everyone We Know? I always think of that. He said, "When it's over, you think, that was a perfect scene, and no other scene can ever be like it." July's two films are riddled with such scenes. (Here's my Me and You and Everyone We Know review, and here's my The Future review.)

6. Cary Fukunaga - If you'd made Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre your first two times at bat, I think you'd probably be worried what you'd do to top it. Cary Fukunaga makes a eight-part detective miniseries on HBO and maybe will remake Stephen King's It. Cuz why not? (Here's my Sin Nombre review and here's my Jane Eyre review.)

5. Michel Gondry - I might not have loved everything Michel's done since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but... Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you guys. (Here's my The We and the I review.)

4. David Gordon Green - Everything I said up top. It'd take somebody pretty special to get me anything but furious over a Suspiria remake, and he totally got me on board. He's made so much in thirteen years, too! And I love a very high percentage of it. (Here's my Your Highness review.)

3. Andrea Arnold - I wrote up my thoughts on Arnold in for the original list over at The Film Experience, read what I said over there. She's the bee's knees. (Here's my Fish Tank review, and here's my Wuthering Heights review.)

2. Edgar Wright - I mean come on, dude made Shaun of the Dead  and Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. He's basically been finger-fucking my brains for a decade straight. I mean like, in a good way, not a zombie killing me way. (Here's my Scott Pilgrim review.)

1. Charlie Kaufman - I didn't really want to include anybody in my list that had only directed one movie, but when your one movie is what I consider the most important movie of the past oh let's just say twenty years for hyperbole's sake, I had to. I have a feeling I'll be seeing and feeling new things about Synecdoche New York for the rest of my life. I'm terrified he'll become the modern day Charles Laughton and only make one (perfect sublime) masterpiece in his directing career, but I'm thankful for that much. And he gets tons of bonus points for his scripts for Eternal Sunshine and Adaptation, too. (Here's my Synecdoche New York review.)

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